By Frank Batts
April 30th, 1997, a friend and I went to Area 51. We arrived in Rachel Nevada at 2200 [10:00 pm] and my friend got directions to the "Mailbox". By 2220 we were on the road.
[Note: Rachel, Nevada is the small town on Highway 375 which serves as the starting point for most investigative forays toward Area 51, which is located at Groom (dry) Lake almost due south of Rachel, just inside the Nellis Air Force Range. The "Mailbox" (or Black Mailbox) is a well-known landmark along the road between Rachel and the boundary of Area 51. -- ed.]
We saw red and yellow lights on the ground out in the desert by around the 19 mile marker. We never found the mailbox, but went back to where we saw the lights. They seemed much closer and bigger than any shots of the base I had ever seen in films.
We parked on the side of the road by the Rachel 20 miles sign, and waited. After about an hour, we saw a blue "ball" appear above the mountain ridge and hover. After about one minute it began hopping in a pattern that looked like the letter "n". It did this twice and did some other left-to-right and right-to-left maneuvers. The whole thing seemed to last about two minutes, but I was excited and blown out. Then the blue light lowered below the ridge.
We waited about another 45 minutes watching what we thought was the Base -- the red, yellow and white lights. We noticed sometimes the red lights flashed -- like a revolving light announcing the opening of doors or something. Sometimes they were on, but constant. The yellow lights went on and off. We assumed the red lights announced someone bringing a new craft out to test, and excitedly waited to see if anything else appeared above the ridge. But nothing ever did.
After about an hour and a half, I was watching the Base and it suddenly lifted off the ground, hovering. The white light reflected off the desert floor and the starlight above suddenly revealed the perfect shape of a very large silver saucer -- the curved saucers on top and bottom with the middle being a bank of lights.
This thing was huge. I don't know sizes, but it was really big -- maybe 200 feet across. We watched it do side-to-side hovering manuevers from left to right, right to left, and up and down for over an hour and fifteen minutes.
My video camera was suddenly not working and I could not get anything on film, though it worked fine in Rachel that night and the next day when we went back to the same spot to confirm the terrain we had been observing in the dark of night.
The lights on the craft, both red and yellow, did many sequencing events -- from left to right, right to left, and alternating runs, though I couldn't figure out if they had anything to do with which maneuver the craft was going to do next.
After an hour and 15 minutes, a mist or fog was coming up off the desert floor and began to obscure our vision, and we gave up and left.
The next day I was so upset by the whole event I asked to speak with someone at The Ale Inn [the "Little A'Le'Inn," a landmark in Rachel, Nevada where many UFO watchers gather]. We found out we had gone 20 miles the "wrong way" and had ended up at the back end of the base, but had had a great sighting by fluke anyway. The person, Bob, who goes there once a month was really excited by our story and was going to go that night (Thursday) to see what was going on. He said they shifted testings from time to time, and that area had been inactive for months but obviously was reactivated.
That is my experience. I saw unmistakably a saucer with MY OWN EYES. It has been a really upsetting experience -- which surprises me. I thought I was so cool, and that it would be so cool. The reality totally topples the order of beliefs and leaves one confused and vulnerable. I ended up a crybaby, but I have gotten through it and I'm definitely going back.
It was incredible to me, and I need to share the experience with people -- the reality is so powerful, beyond any ideas that I thought I had... These "whatever they weres" were absolutely stunning and beautiful to watch.
[In a followup letter to CNI News, Frank wrote: "I continue to have big feelings from this sighting, especially after the recent Air Force Roswell explanation {i.e. about parachuting dummies}. A part of me has difficulty accepting the magnitude of what I saw. Their stance makes me doubt myself further. But I KNOW WHAT I SAW! The blue luminous ball behaved like nothing in the air I've ever seen, and the huge clearly definable silver saucer/disc is too far beyond explaining away -- even to my own self. I hate to say 'they' are liars, but the powerful reality of what I saw forces me to that."]
Original file name: CNI - Area 51 UFO witness
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