Dear Reader,

As hinted in the last newsletter, here is a Google Earth image of Area 51, that highly classified U.S. Air Force facility located about 85 miles north-northwest of Las Vegas. Known officially as Homey Airport or Groom Lake, its primary "real-world" purpose has been the development and testing of experimental military aircraft, most notably the high-flying U-2 spy plane, the A-12 reconnaissance plane, and the F-117 Nighthawk, one of the first stealth fighters.

That's the bare bones, but entirely off-limits to the public and rife with conspiracy theories, Area 51 has come to occupy a special place in the sci-fi genre. But before we go there, let's travel 28 miles due north to Rachel, Nevada, located on the world's only "Extraterrestrial Highway!" Imagine yourself in the bar at the "Little A'Le'Inn." You and your ground crew are decompressing after another successful test of the A-12, drinking a concoction you call "panther piss," so named for a special cesium additive to the fuel that reduces the detectability of the A-12s' afterburner plumes; it's OJ and vodka from the bar, but, under the radar, so to speak, it's the Everclear, 190 proof, added by the crew that turns it into a Panther Piss cocktail. Decompression, Cold War style!

So, on to sci-fi: we have alien technology reverse-engineering in Bob Meyer's Area 51 novels, where scientists unlock the secrets of ancient, dormant alien spacecraft, and the Nightstalkers series, which expands the base's role beyond alien craft storage, to the headquarters of elite soldiers intercepting interdimensional beings. There are the historical and paranormal crossovers by authors who use the base as a nexus to connect UFO lore with broader mythological mysteries, including ancient artifacts and the occult. A good source for those is: https://www.space.com/entertainment/space-books/essential-ufo-reading-list.

Connie Willis’s The Road to Roswell takes a more light-hearted approach... This from the book page, "Can Francie, stuck in a neon green bridesmaid’s dress, save the world—and still make it back for the wedding?"

Well, Bob Lazar and his famous interviews aside, the story has deeper roots. Before WW II, the larger area near Groom Lake was known for silver and lead mining. But then a large desolate area was needed to develop nuclear weapons! In 1950, the Nevada Test and Training Range was born out of 2.9 million acres (4,531 sq. miles) acquired by the US government...an area three times larger than the state of Rhode Island. Out of that, 1,350 square miles would become the "Nevada Test Site," the scene below, a part of it with Area 51 barely visible at top right.

All those pockmarks, the subsidence craters. Part of the 928 nuclear tests announced by the government from 1951 to 1992: 921 underground, the rest above. The last above-ground detonation took place on July 17, 1962. The site was for tests smaller than 1 megaton, an explosive yield equal to 1 million tons of TNT. The distant mushroom clouds seen from downtown Las Vegas hotels became tourist attractions...as if gambling with money wasn't enough! As a place of atomic tourism, they even had "Miss Atomic pageants while serving Atomic cocktails." Imagine the headline in the Las Vegas Sun, "Miss U-235 Shines Bright In Atomic Pageant!" Or when the waiter asked... "I'll have what she's having."

But let's pivot to White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico, remote and desolate like the Nevada Test and Training Range. We will use the image below derived from Thing BEYOND REASON, book 3 of The THING Trilogy.

On Mars, Jason launches a sample. Marsillium! Did I discover it or did IT discover me? he wonders. And when it arrives on Earth:

The capsule is down, and the parachutes settle in the slight breeze just to the east of the pyramid.

“My god,” says Gabriel Forstman.

“Trinity,” breathes David Weiss.

They are speechless. They can hear the President's voice, but it’s like a spell has fallen upon them. The dust raised by the landing of the helicopter drifts east and envelops the stone pyramid, coalesces around it, and then begins to form a ball, a ball becoming like a dome over the stone pyramid.

“David…Gabriel…what’s happening? Speak to me! What?

David is first out of the reverie or spell or whatever it is.

“Dear god,” he says to the phone, “It’s… it's…”

David, get a grip on yourself…tell me what you see?

“We’re…at Trinity… At the test site. Ground zero!”

“You mean the atomic bomb test site!”

“Yes, at Trinity…
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Well, that's just a taste, but Trinity, July 16, 1945, was the genesis, perhaps the most consequential event in all of human history. And all the other tests at the Nevada Test Site, a footnote, as was Area 51.

All for now, but more to come.

And for more on the books of The THING Trilogy, go to: https://kendallwilliamsauthor.com/ , click the books, and join us on a journey through the fabric of time.

New to the newsletter? Check out the Newsletter Archive. Past newsletters with all those links make the Archive more and more a valuable resource. Find them at: https://kendall-williams-author.kit.com/posts

Quoting from the Bhagavad-Gita, J. Robert Oppenheimer, physicist, so-called father of the atomic bomb: " 'Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.' I suppose we all thought that, one way or another."

Until next time, be well and safe journeys.

Sincerely,

Kendall Williams, Author

​kendallwilliamsauthor.com​

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