An old story about UFOs, interdimensional doorways, and secret military bases in the American desert has resurfaced in the news in light of a classification deadline and the promise of the Trump campaign to disclose national secrets.
In 1996, Jerry Freeman set out on an archeological mission in Nevada’s desert to track down the checkpoints of a pioneer troop heading out West for the California Gold Rush.
The troop, a group of gold prospectors, died in the Nevada desert circa 1849 somewhere around what would later come to be the settlement of secret U.S. military bases, such as Area 51.
Not to be deterred in his mission after the Air Force denied him access to the area, Freeman set out on his week-long mission to retrace the steps of the lost pioneers, entering through Death Valley and continuing northeast into Nevada, hiding in caves during the day and continuing his journey at dusk until he stumbled upon an ethereal structure one night near an alleged secret base, said to be the site of alien research called S4.
According to UFO researcher George Knapp, whom Freeman spoke with, as he came up on Papoose Lake, a dried lakebed that is said to be the site of S4, “all of a sudden out of nowhere, a door opens up.”
“I mean just like a door in space. A light – a bluish light that opened up a doorway to who knows where,” Knapp added. “And then ‘poof,’ it was gone. Freeman “had no idea about flying saucers, Bob Lazar, John Lear, any of that stuff, but that’s the story he told.”
According to Knapp, as Freeman was making his way to the pioneers’ checkpoints, he “ran into pockets of radiation,” which ultimately resulted in his death from cancer.
Freeman, in his recordings, described that “It looked like a dry lake bed to me, nothing else, but at night it was a different story. I could clearly see what were security lights on the perimeters and I could see lights that opened and closed near the center of the lake.”
“I felt vibrations. I knew I wasn’t imagining it because there were [remnants] of sand coming down just on the other side of this little watch, and I could see’em. And I thought,” he continued, ‘Well, hey, an earthquake.’ Then I realized this is not an earthquake; it continued and continued for maybe nearly two minutes. It’s something they’re testing directly underground, or I was feeling vibrations completely from Groom Lake.”
“I think if they’d have caught me in there that they’d have lit me up like a Roman candle,” he warned.
In 1996, a lawsuit filed by former workers at a classified military facility in the Nevada desert alleged exposure to toxic chemicals during their employment. The case, according to the Daily Mail, was dismissed on national security grounds.
But President Bill Clinton subsequently signed an executive order exempting the site, referred to in court documents as “Groom Lake,” from certain environmental regulations. The facility, widely known today as Area 51, has long been associated with speculation about experimental aircraft testing.
Located within a 60-square-mile area encompassing Groom Dry Lake, Area 51 sits near a mountain ridge separating Groom and Papoose dry lakes.
Aviation journalist Jim Goodall, in a mid-1990s documentary interview according to the Mail, referenced a source who worked 12 years in covert programs at Groom Lake.
“One gentleman spent 12 of his 30 years in black programs at Groom Lake [as Area 51 is also known],” Goodall said. “I asked him, ‘Can you really tell me what’s happening out there? And he said, ‘Well, there’s a lot of things going on there that I won’t be able to tell you until the year 2025.”
President Donald Trump campaigned on disclosing documents related to various national mysteries, including reports of UFOs. In 2025, GOP Rep. Anna Paulina Luna of Florida was appointed to lead a task force aimed at declassifying government records, which may include files relevant to Area 51 and its activities. However, many on social media have expressed concern that the task force is astroturfing or dragging its feet.
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