Groom Lake (5 page)

At bedtime as a child, Ben Skyles’ mother often reassured him ghosts, goblins, spooks and other things that went bump in the night were make-believe. As an adult, he sometimes wanted to correct her about the spooks. They were real! They wore dark suits! And they worked for the federal government!

Awaking, Skyles found himself in a small gray room with his chest, hands and legs strapped to a hospital bed. Cords and electrodes were attached to seemingly every part of his body, stretching through the air behind him like strings on a marionette, feeding his bio-signs to racks of equipment, an indicator to him that
they
suspected his mind was out of synch. He tried to remember how he got to this place, wherever he was, but his thoughts swirled around and around in his head, scrunched between obscure images—the moon, the stars, Earth, spiral galaxies—that ran on and on and on like a poorly constructed sentence, and he wondered why the moon didn’t have a name like Earth had a name—after all, nobody called Earth
the planet
—and then he wondered why he was wondering any of this at all. Rest was what helped slow his mind when it acted like this. He closed his eyes, taking advantage of his solitude, unaware if his confinement was the help he needed, or trouble…

Skyles didn’t know
the suit
who had confronted him at the bar by name, but despite an ailing memory, he couldn’t forget the man’s face, those obscure glaring eyes, his large stature, and the smooth confidence in his stride. The same stride that now glided through the door of Skyles’ hospital room—or observation room, or jail cell. Skyles still had not determined where he was sequestered. He shut his eyes and feigned sleep, hoping to avoid the man in the black suit a while longer. The man’s footsteps were gentle as they approached the bed, then stopped and the room became as silent as when Skyles was alone. A few awkward seconds passed. Skyles tried opening his right eye enough to see, without making it appear open.

“Quit pretending to be asleep. I saw your eyes open on a video monitor before I came in.”

Skyles opened his eyes, searching for the camera.

“It’s hidden. Don’t bother looking for it,” the man said in a monotone voice as he stared down at Skyles, offering no hint of his attitude toward him.

Skyles made eye contact for a second, but then let his gaze retreat toward the ceiling. The man’s intent stare felt like heat from the desert sun against his face. Skyles wanted to say something to break the silence but was at a loss for words, and the man’s raspy voice made him uneasy, as if the devil himself was speaking.

Realizing how uncomfortable his presence was making Skyles, Owens smiled and said, “You don’t need to be afraid of me, Ben. As long as you cooperate.”

“Can you tell me what’s going on?” Skyles asked, finally making eye contact with Owens.

“I need you to tell me about that woman you were with at the bar?” Owens said in a conversational tone.

Skyles assumed
they
were concerned with his marital situation. “Just some girl looking for a good time. Look, you know I’m married. It was wrong. But I’ve been having some problems lately—with my marriage,” he added quickly, not wanting to suggest more than was necessary. “I don’t know why I thought it might ease my mind. Just tell me what I’ve got to do to fix things.”

The government discouraged infidelity with workers of Ben Skyles’ stature. Such trysts opened the door to blackmail and other scandalous situations that detracted from the mental focus necessary to achieve optimal performance on the job.

“I figured it was something like that,” Owens said. “Pretty lady. I wish I could have let you be, but I had a job to do.”

“I understand,” Skyles said with a smile, hoping that soon it would all be over.

Owens began unbuckling the leather straps around Skyles’ wrists. “I’m sorry we had to haul you in here and put you through this. Standard procedure. Once we checked out the woman and confirmed she wasn’t a spy or something of that nature, we cleared you of any wrongdoing. You’ll be going home soon. You have a two-week administrative leave—paid. Stay close to home and relax, concentrate on your marriage. If you aren’t happy at home, it’s tough to be happy on the job.”

Skyles thought two weeks of rest might help him lick the problems that had been plaguing his mind. He was grateful that through all this he managed to keep them to himself.

Owens continued to study Skyles’ facial expressions, especially noting the relief evident through his smile. That was the reaction Owens wanted. The tests on Skyles showed a disturbance. All they could determine was that the problems had an external source, something in Skyles’ life apart from work. Owens figured that two weeks would be long enough to find the problem.

By William Moreau

NEVADA, June 1994 - Congress may dodge questions about black budgets, but the trails are evident. Billions are spent developing secret technologies at facilities like the Groom Lake airbase. Besides reducing oversight, the secrecy also leads to speculation about what kind of technology requires such anonymity.

When word broke that the Groom Lake airbase was a vault for black projects, the UFO sightings in the vicinity were dismissed as the military’s next generation of stealth aircraft. The noticeable jump in technology from the stealth to the lights in the sky above Groom Lake was extreme, however. Witnesses reported the objects flying vertically, making ninety-degree turns at lightning fast speeds, stopping instantly in midair, and hovering soundlessly. Such aeronautical feats left UFO proponents wondering where the technology originated. Their suspicions were strengthened when former base workers brought forth testimonies about an underground facility near Groom Lake where the government back-engineered recovered extraterrestrial technology.

Officials vehemently denied the allegations, and the continued veil of secrecy surrounding the base spawned a UFO renaissance movement. A topic scoffed at for decades was revisited—first at a grassroots level, then through print, television, film and even by some in Washington. The resulting debates opened a Pandora’s box of questions about accountability, technology, cover-ups, government knowledge, and hidden spending—standard conspiracy theorist arguments. The truth is: the only conspiracy is one of silence, aimed at limiting public understanding of government-controlled technology.

The Groom Lake airbase is a sign of the times. Fingers can be pointed and accusations made and denied about who is to blame, but the dilemma facing America remains: extreme secrecy has led to a lack of accountability, oversight, and understanding.

America’s doctrines have simple ideals—freedom, democracy, power of the people—that shaped the country into a role model for the free world. While change is inevitable, altering America’s founding principles will jeopardize the country’s sovereignty. America was designed to be a country of the people, for the people and by the people. As the climate continues to veer deeper into the black world, the American people must ask themselves: Is this in our best interest?

Questioning political ideology is not unique, but America is. Maybe the country should reflect more on the thoughts of their founders, and follow them, lest they forget this part of their independence declaration:

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

The vanilla milkshake Ren Miller consumed at lunch had passed through his lactose intolerant digestive system and began a flatulent attack on the tight confines of his office. Ren didn’t care. Coworkers might, but they rarely ventured below ground. Ren enjoyed the solitude accompanying his office, tucked at the end of a dim corridor in the basement of the National Archives Annex in College Park, Maryland.

Must, dust and milkshake farts—not the proper atmospheric conditions for America’s largest filing cabinet. Few people, however, worried about the millions of government documents in storage, as long as they stayed there.

Before 1974, the public never saw the documents Ren handled, but the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) set standards for classification and allowed the public access to federal documents. The National Archives and other storage facilities became inundated with requests that had to be fulfilled.

Ren reviewed documents pulled from storage and determined their level of classification. With a large marker, he blacked out names, sentences and paragraphs from certain documents or sometimes returned the entire document to the issuing agency without declassifying it. He searched for key words and phrases depending on the topic. Words and phrases that someone, somewhere, deemed unsuitable for public dissemination.

Not anyone could be assigned Ren’s job. They selected him. He fit the profile: passive, quiet, few friends, small family and a career employee not willing to jeopardize his pension by concerning himself with what he saw on the documents. Ren’s supervisor, however, fit a different profile, a Clinton/Gore school of government profile: Do more with less; Serve the people. That innovative style took Ren’s work to a level below toleration. He had planned on leaving, but waited, hoping to announce his retirement at a time when he could stick it to his supervisor.

The phone on Ren’s desk chimed a faint ring. “Hello,” Ren said.

“That’s not how I told you to answer the phone!” his supervisor replied.

Clearing his throat, Ren amended grudgingly, “Freedom of Information Act Processing Department, Ren Miller speaking, how may I help you?”

“I don’t appreciate the sarcasm. Tell me you’re done.”

Ren looked over his shoulder. Two boxes of documents still waited his attention. “I’m almost finished.”

“Almost. What’s that mean? Five docs? Ten? One box? You’d better not have more than a box left.”

Ren continued to stare at the remaining boxes. With an exhausted monotone voice, he lied, “I’m on the last box.”

“Hurry up. I’ve got another request just approved.”

Ren laughed. “There are hundreds of approved requests waiting attention. Someone will get to the latest one in a year or two.”

“What have I told you, Ren? Whether you like it or not, there is an increase of FOIA requests, and that’s not going to change. I want to keep pace with the requests, not get buried in a backlog.”

“You keep talking like that and soon you’ll meet the people who really run this process,” Ren said, hanging up the phone. His supervisor didn’t understand; fast service complicated matters. Nothing could be gained by distributing information.

Today is a good day to retire
, Ren thought. Returning the documents on his desk to their box, he phoned the copy center and arranged a pickup. He checked “completed” on the work order, then signed his name, skewing his signature. If anyone ever asked Ren why he fulfilled the request without declassifying all the documents, he would deny it and accuse his punk supervisor of forging the signature on the work order. And with that, Ren freed his final bit of information for Uncle Sam.

Professor Bertrand Eldred had lived the first seventy-years of his life the way
they
wanted. As a young aspiring engineer in the 1950s,
they
had forced him to alter his career by blacklisting him, denying the security clearances he needed to work for the government or its military contractors.

Beware of the military-industrial complex
—a statement President Eisenhower once made, and a statement that Professor Eldred would never forget. His own ordeal taught him about the power accompanying military technology and the manipulation used to control it.
They
made him an outcast to limit the researchers in his field.
They
brought in fresh minds. Minds
they
compartmentalized. Minds that didn’t know the origins of the theories and formulas being analyzed in the government’s anti-gravity research program. A program that removed a new realm of possibilities from public domain. A program that tapped the clean and abundant natural resource of gravity, and remained classified for nearly fifty years.

In 1956, the professor had met his wife-to-be, who helped him forget his early, short-lived first career and tamed his animosity against the government. In time, he accepted his fate and made a success of his altered career path by finishing his Ph.D. and devoting his life to teaching. Realizing he couldn’t beat Big Brother, he did his best to avoid the government and keep his life and family secure.

Professor Eldred and his wife worked hard. They raised two bright children and saved money every month for forty years. Their retirement looked bright. A nice house in Malibu. Nice cars. Nice clothes. And time. Time to travel. Time to enjoy each other’s company. They planned for everything—everything except death. Life again robbed the professor’s future by taking his wife a year into their retirement. He felt bitter, the same bitterness he felt when
they
robbed him of his career many years earlier. Having lost the spark in his life, he had no desire to continue, no reason … until the idea came to him: he would revive his early career. What could
they
do now if he began working with anti-gravity again?

In the past
they
controlled him using a stranglehold on his future, but age placed that trump card in his hand now. The one possible roadblock in his path: death. That didn’t deter him, however. His kids were grown and living stable lives. They stood to gain a healthy inheritance. Plus, he knew that Constance, his wife and soulmate, waited for him in heaven. Professor Eldred had nothing to lose, and the world had everything to gain.

The professor suspected his renewed interest wouldn’t go unnoticed. Especially after he submitted a Freedom of Information Act request for anti-gravity related government documents.

The promptness by which the government provided the FOIA documents surprised the professor; some requests took many years, but his was fulfilled in shortly over a year. What didn’t surprise the professor was a phone call that followed soon after his documents arrived, before he’d even opened the boxes.
They
wanted to meet with him.

A video monitor showed the professor a sedan at his front gate, something American, something a fed would drive. Pushing the intercom button the professor instructed, “Pull through and wait for me in the carport.” He wasn’t letting this spook in his house.

Having parked in the carport as instructed, Special Agent Grason Kendricks paced in front of his car, studying his surroundings and admiring the opulence of the professor’s Malibu hilltop estate: a four car garage, sprawling courtyard and expansive house with a distant view of the Pacific Ocean. The man had done quite well for himself, he thought, but wondered when a gardener had last visited the yard. Continuing to fidget, Grason tried to remember what the professor looked like; he wore a tweed sports coat in a university yearbook photo that Grason had seen. The vision dissipated, however, once the front door swung open and a sour-faced little man with an unkempt white hairdo stepped outside. Instead of a tweed sport coat, the professor wore a colorful sweatsuit, except the red, white and black jacket was mismatched with blue, green and yellow pants from another outfit. The jacket was zipped midway, revealing a boney chest with a splattering of gray hairs. Grason figured the professor didn’t get out much.

The professor’s stern facial expression advertised his agitation. “Forgive me if I don’t ask you in. I prefer you speak your mind out here, then be on your way.”

“Professor, I think you’re misinterpreting my purpose,” Grason said.

“No, Agent Kendricks. I’ve seen your kind before. It’s been decades, but I know what you’re about.”

“Your past is clogging your mind, professor. The government has changed a lot since the fifties. Since you last dealt with it. We’re bigger now. Segmented. Some might say we’re lost in a sea of segmented secrets.” Grason’s voice was sincere, calming. “That’s where you and I have something in common. We don’t like the secrets. Nor do we have complete faith in the individuals controlling them.”

Professor Eldred remained silent. Skeptical.

“I didn’t come here to meddle. I’m here to help.” As sincere as Grason came across, there was also a seasoned, to-the-point demeanor. He was a busy FBI veteran, with the arrogance that accompanied such an elite position. If the professor didn’t show interest, Grason had better things to do; at least, that was the impression he gave.

“Help me? And how would you do that?”

“We’d actually be helping each other. Excuse me a moment.” Grason leaned inside his car and grabbed a file folder from the front seat. After retrieving an eight-by-ten glossy from the folder, he showed it to the professor. Grason knew he had piqued the professor’s interest when the older man’s eyes widened and he made an elongated
oooooh
sound. “Any idea what that is?” Grason asked.

The professor stared at a faint, oblong-shaped, amber light against a blue sky, blurred, but an apparent piece of flying technology. “No wings,” he commented. “From the angle and lack of definition I’d say it was flying at a high altitude … and moving fast … very fast.” He continued to study the craft, shocked by a bolt of reality. He had never seen a photo like this before, but he had seen sketches. About fifty years ago. Preliminary drawings. Theories about an anti-gravity craft.

“I had some hunches when I saw it, but nothing scientific,” Grason told him. “That’s why I need someone like you. Someone who can look at it from an engineering standpoint and help decipher the technology. But if I had to make a guess after looking into your past … I’d say someone built your spaceship.”

“Do you have more than this?” the professor managed, amidst flashbacks to his life in the fifties.

“A little, with more coming in.”

The professor never took his eyes off the photo. To him, it was a picture of his past. “Where’d you get this?”

“It’s a still from a video, taken by a rancher in Nevada.”

“Oh, oh, oh! You have a video?” Any remaining skepticism was overtaken by childlike giddiness. It was typical for the professor to show excitement with
ohs
. His students often laughed when he interrupted his lectures with a subconscious but verbal
oh, oh, oh
because a new and enticing thought had entered his mind. As in his classes, his excitement had overwhelmed him in an absentminded style that made him forget he was trying to be stern with Grason. “Why is the FBI interested in the topic?” he asked, more abruptly.

“I’m not working for the Bureau,” Grason said. “This is a special assignment. A task force with congressional sanction, but you’ll find very few in Congress who know anything about it. You’ll never have any contact beyond me.”

After a few seconds of further intense concentration on the photo, the professor mumbled, “I’d prefer to have a better idea of whom I’m working with.”

“Sorry, professor. I don’t trust many people. I’ll tell you only what I feel is relevant.”

The professor snickered at the irony of wanting a government agent to trust him. “Then you can elaborate more on your purpose.”

Grason had rehearsed his pitch: “Control over covert operations has reached a level beyond constitutional oversight. Any scholar of military history can tell you what happens when a military becomes too powerful. And with so many technological secrets, the military is extremely powerful these days. I won’t say that anyone has evil intentions, but to protect national security, we have to be sure.”

“Noble thoughts, but you’re going to piss someone off.”

“Exactly the reason for the secrecy. If you decide to cooperate, we’ll enter a formal contract for your services that includes a confidentiality clause, punishable by law.”

“I don’t like the way that sounds.”

“I didn’t expect you to. But I can’t chance seeing you and that photo on
Larry King
telling the world that Congress is investigating UFOs.” Grason shrugged, as if his hands were tied. “I’ve got to cover myself.”

“Why are you making a UFO connection?”

“I’m not. But the press sure would if they saw that photo.”

“Yes, they would, Agent Kendricks—”

“Call me Grason.”

The professor smiled for the first time. “Okay, Grason. If everything you say about this task force is true, my exposing it would only help the factions of government I despise.”

“That’s why I came to you. I can also offer you financial assistance with your research,” Grason said, hoping that would be additional incentive to engage the professor.

“I don’t need your money. I work on principle now.”

They spent a few minutes discussing the professor’s past and his ostracization from the military-industrial complex. The professor became so enthralled with the conversation that he never bothered to invite Grason inside. Soon, the conversation segued into a discussion about the FOIA documents the professor had in his possession. It would require a lot of the professor’s time, besides what he was already putting in, to study the documents. Plus he now had to budget time for Grason’s materials. An idea crossed his mind: “I have a former student. He just received his graduate degree in aeronautical engineering. I’ve been toying with the idea of asking him to incorporate my work into a Ph.D. dissertation. Maybe instead of paying me, we could use your money to sponsor his research, and make him my assistant.”

Grason cringed. “I have a tight reign on this operation. It’s crucial that I keep it that way. Besides, you know the consequences. Why involve a kid?
They
could do the same thing to him that
they
did to you.”

“There’s a lot of work to do,” the professor said. “More importantly, I’m getting old. My fear is if something were to happen to me, all my work would be lost. I have to share it with someone who understands it and can do something with it after I’m gone. I’ll tell him the risks. Blake is a tough kid.”

“I don’t like it.”

“And I don’t like the thought of signing your contract, but I’m willing to make that concession.”

The sudden twist disturbed Grason. “Let me run a check on the kid—Blake. I’ll have to get back to you in a few days. If we proceed, you don’t tell him anything about me. I’ll pay you, and you pay Blake out of your pocket. He’s not part of this operation, and will NEVER handle the materials I give you.”

“I think I can agree to those terms.”

Grason collected the photo from the professor. “You can have this once we make everything official. I’ll give you more info besides the pictures and lay out the ground rules for communicating. As we begin to build a trusting relationship, the information will become more pertinent, and you’ll have a better idea what this is all about.” Grason returned to his car and left, happy that he started a relationship with the professor, but agitated that there was a catch.