Dreamland - It doesn't officially exist, but it's no desert mirage By Timothy R. Gaffney Cox News Service from the Austin (TX) American Statesman Sunday, April 3, 1994, page C1 FREEDOM RIDGE, Nev.-- Along the ancient shoreline of Groom Dry Lake, about 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, sits a huge complex dubbed Dreamland. It has nothing to do with casinos. Officially, this military air base in the middle of the Nevada desert doesn't exist. But there's enough going on here that signs along the perimeter say: "Deadly use of force authorized." Guards in white Jeep Cherokees and Blackhawk helicopters prowl the border. While other federal agencies acknowledge the end of the Cold War by cautiously shedding some secrecy, the Air Force has been tightening the cloak around Dreamland for a decade. Military officials refuse to talk about it. Pllots' charts don't even show a runway. But you can see it clearly from atop Freedom Ridge, a rocky, windblown crag a dozen miles east of the base. Dreamland looks like a cross between an airport and an auto plant. It has a long runway, rows of hangars, service buildings and what looks like a large manufacturing area. And it's growing. Some of the biggest buildings have gone up in the past few years. Dust clouds rise from a large sand quarry. Unmarked Boeing 737 airliners come and go all day. After dark, lights sparkle across the base. Secrecy hasn't kept aviation observers from divining the base's purpose as a test site for some of America's most exotic aircraft. Since the 1950s, a series of revolutionary airplanes has taken wing there, including the U-2 and SR-71 spy planes and the F-117 Stealth attack jet. Russian built fighters now in U.S. possession have been seen flying in the vicinity. Rumors abound about new aircraft flying at Dreamland, especially a spy plane nicknamed Aurora. Witnesses say Aurora is a superplane that has caused noisy rumbles across the Southwest. Aviation analysts believe it secretly replaced the retired SR-71. Some people even believe this base, or possibly another nearby facility hidden by hills, is testing recovered extraterrestrial aerospace vehicles -- flying saucers. UFO investigators have yet to prove the existence of flying saucers. And government officials emphatically deny the existence of anything like Aurora. The Air Force is trying to tighten security around the base. On Sept. 30, Secretary of the Air Force Sheila Widnall asked Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt to seal off Freedom Ridge and another nearby viewpoint along the eastern edge of the Nellis Range Complex. The Nellis Range is a 3.5 million-acre bombing and gunnery range that stretches north from Nellis Air Force Base near Las Vegas and surrounds Groom Lake. Widnall's request would add 3,972 acres of now-public land to the off-limits range. Military officials never mention the secret Groom Lake base, and Widnall's letter to Babbitt didn't break the secrecy. It simply said the land was needed "for the safe and secure operation of the Nellis Range." The request has made secrecy itself an issue. Opponents howled in 1984 when the Air Force added 89,000 acres of public land east of Groom Lake to the gunnery range. They said it was illegal to withdraw more than 5,000 acres without congressional approval. (Lawmakers approved the action after the fact.) Opponents suspect the Air Force is trying to remove viewpoints it missed before. They speculate the proposal is but the first of several small bites that will close off a large area of public land without involving Congress. On March 2, more than 100 citizens packed a Las Vegas meeting room to hear speakers lambaste the federal government. The Air Force's stated reason for wanting the land "is a lie," asserted Glenn Campbell, a local resident and leading opponent. "They're taking this land because of that secret base out there." Alaskan freelance journalist Mark Farmer held up an eight-foot-long mural of Dreamland. It was a taped-together strip of photos he'd snapped on Freedom Ridge. Farmer, dressed in a night-camouflage uniform and paratrooper boots, essentially dared authorities to arrest him: Signs posted around Freedom Ridge say photography is prohibited. "This right here could get me a year in jail and a sizeable fine," he said. "I don't see why it should. You can go buy a (satellite) shot from the Russians.... There's a couple other places that I'm not going to talk about where you can look into the base, so it's kind of a moot point." Authorities don't seem keen to prosecute people for photographing a base that doesn't officially exist. The Open Skies Treaty will allow foreign nations to do considerably more. Under that agreement, the United States, Russia and 22 other nations will be allowed to make observation flights over each other's military bases. National security will be no excuse for the Pentagon's On-Site Inspection Agency. Although Dreamland is no secret, the Air Force has its reasons for wanting to clear the ridges: While satellites and scheduled inspection flights can spot installations, a hilltop observer can monitor activities. "We need a secure place where the bad guys cannot readily gather information about our systems or our tactics," Col. Bud Bennett, Nellis range squadron commander, said at the meeting. When people pop up on the overlooks, he said, "altitude and route changes have to be made by aircraft to avoid harming them and to prevent disclosure of operational matters. Some missions have to be delayed or canceled." That doesn't explain why the government won't admit the base is there. Critics say it may be concealing overspending, blunders or environmental crimes. "Secrecy basically takes the program out of the policy loop. It's not open for public discussion or congressional debate," said Steven Aftergood, a military analyst with the Federation of American Scientists in Washington. Last month, Air Force Secretary Widnall refused to discuss the base by name but indicated it is subject to checks and balances. "In this country we have a well-developed procedure for decisions involving issues of national security,: she said, "and that particular set of issues has gone through that process, including the necessary congressional oversight." Sen. John Glenn, D-Ohio, who said he has visited the base in past years, agrees. Glenn, a former Marine Corps pilot, serves on both the armed services and intelligence committees. Asked if the great secrecy surrounding the base is worthwhile, he said, "The answer is absolutely yes." Aftergood disagrees. "To say that there is conressional oversight is a grotesque exaggeration, so I don't buy it," he said. Aftergood said the government has long invoked national security to avoid embarrassment. As an example, he cited a recently declassified Atomic Energy Commission memo from 1947 that dealt with radiation experiments on humans. The memo said documents referring to the experiments should be kept secret because they might have an "adverse effect on public opinion or result in legal suits." At least one person has already tried to sue over alleged environmental abuses at Dreamland. Helen Frost of North Las Vegas claimed her husband, a sheet metal worker employed by a contractor at Groom Lake, died after years of breathing smoke from aerospace materials burned in open trenches. She filed a lawsuit against her husband's employer and an aircraft manu- facturer, but the claim was denied. A Washington organization specializing in environmental issues has now taken aim at Dreamland because of the alleged trench burning. John Turley, director of the Environmental Crimes Project, told a Las Vegas newspaper that he plans to sue the Air Force to make it disclose environ- mental crimes at Groom Lake and prosecute those responsible. Turley said he has a growing list of people who have been harmed by environmental practices there. Asked about the alleged burning, Nellis Air Force Base spokesman Maj. George Sillia said, "We don't even confirm or deny there is a Groom Lake, so how could I comment on that?" Even government opinion is divided over the secrecy issue. The Joint Security Commission, a special panel set up by the Pentagon and CIA to find ways to reform the national security system, found that covering up the existence of facilities like Dreamland wastes money and accomplishes little. In its March 2 report, the commission said, "These cover mechanisms are expensive and the marginal security benefits ... often are outweighed by the costs of concealment, including the costs to other programs that would benefit from sharing technical knowledge and sharing use of the facility." In part, the report recommended that "special protection generally should focus on the most sensitive uses of a facility, rather than the fact of its existence." Aftergood isn't optimistic the report will make any difference. Other panels have made similar recommendations, he said.