Tour Bus Mistakenly Crosses Into
Area 51 - Video
Posted: 12 Jul 2014 06:48 AM PDT
LAS VEGAS -- A tour bus carrying
visitors to the edge of the top secret Area 51 military base has done something
that many people have only fantasized about doing. It crossed the line and
entered the base.
The driver and his four
passengers learned a quick lesson about how serious Area 51 is about its
boundary and its security. And the entire incident was captured on video.
In the 25 years since I-Team
reports first put the once unknown base on the map, tens of thousands of
curious people have trekked out to take a peek.
A few strayed over the line, on
purpose, and were quickly scooped up. As far as we know, this is the first
intrusion caught entirely on video and it nearly caused the tours to be shut
down.
Area 51's years in obscurity
ended in 1989 when news reports about classified projects at the Nevada base
set off a stampede of UFO seekers, aviation watchers, and media. The base is
still a favored location for classified military projects, so security is
justifiably tight.
Motion detectors, high-tech
cameras, the ominous cammo dudes and warning signs, which declare deadly force
is authorized. The signs themselves have become photo ops, the money shot for
guided outings like those operated for 15 years by Adventure Photo Tours.
“Some of them are just curious.
They don't know what it's about. Others believe they have been abducted. Other
people believe they are aliens and they want to go back out there to hopefully
get back home. We get all kinds of people,” Adventure Photo Tours co-owner
Donna Tryon said.
Tryon says the typical tour
includes stops at main shrines of Area 51 lore: the ET highway sign, the Little
A'le'inn, and the holy of holies, the very edge of the base itself.
But there is one thing the tour
most certainly does not include.
“Our guys make it a point to tell
the passengers that, you know, you can't go over that line, and if you step
over that line, you're on your own,” Tryon said.
But on May 28, it happened to
driver Denis Ryan and his four passengers, all of it recorded, inside and out.
The video shows Ryan and group having a good time, zipping toward the edge of
51.
At precisely the wrong moment,
one of the tourists asked Ryan a question about sports books. It was just
enough of a distraction that he blew right past the warning signs, and kept on
going.
After 45 seconds or so, Ryan
started looking around, wondering where the cammo dudes were.
Less than two minutes after
crossing the boundary, the passengers inform Ryan that a white truck is right
on their tail.
“A gentleman in full military
garb gets out. The one on the passenger side, he had a fully automatic rifle,”
Ryan said.
Ryan says the military men told
him he had crossed the line and was trespassing on a military installation.
Inside the vehicle, the tourists,
a couple from the UK and a mother and son from the East Coast, thought it was
all part of the tour, actors playing their part.
“They said they would let the
company know, ‘you took us the extra mile.’ They thought it was part of the
whole process,” Ryan said.
They soon learned it was no act.
“I apologize for this. Those are
the Men in Black,” Ryan told his tour.
After Lincoln County deputies
arrived, the driver and passengers were pulled out, cited for trespassing, and
given court dates.
The projected fine: $650 apiece
and a misdemeanor conviction. Co-owner Will Tryon contacted Lincoln County
District Attorney Dan Hogue and tried to get the out of state passengers off
the hook.
“We were afraid they would issue
a bench warrant for these people, turn good tourists into criminals,” Will
Tryon said.
But Hogue wasn't budging. He
suspected it was done on purpose.
The company decided that if the
citations stuck, they would close down the tours to 51, which would be a blow
to the fragile rural economy.
What the DA didn't know until the
I-Team contacted him is that the incident was on video. One look at video, and
the expressions on these faces, and the DA knew it wasn't intentional. The
driver has to pay but the passengers don't.
Driver Denis Ryan is now barred
for at least two years.
Lincoln County has an arrangement
with Area 51. It handles all trespassing cases. The DA told the I-Team that
while tourism dollars are important to the county, so is the base, which
generates a lot of tax revenue.
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