Joerg Arnu has been obsessed with Area 51 ever since his first visit to the perimeter of the secretive military base in 1998.
The rumours of alien life forms, CIA spy plane testing programmes, and sense of forbidden mystery surrounding the massive military base in the southern Nevada desert instantly intrigued the 61-year-old retired software developer.
In 1999, he launched the DreamlandResort blog as a comprehensive one-stop-shop for photos, videos and discussion about the base and the top secret military aircraft that are built and tested there.
The site tapped into a community of curious minds who, like Mr Arnu, had been looking for a way to exchange their findings, he told The Independent.
He eventually bought a second home near the gates of the military base in the tiny settlement of Rachel, which Mr Arnu describes as a “virtual melting pot for aircraft aficionados, stargazers, researchers and UFO seekers”.
On the morning of November 3 last year, he was in bed when around 20 armed counter-terrorism agents in tactical gear raided his Rachel home, handcuffed him and led him out of his home in the freezing cold for questioning, he told The Independent.
Agents simultaneously kicked down the door of his home in Las Vegas, where his girlfriend Linda Hellow awoke to find a dozen FBI officers in the living room. She says she was ordered at gunpoint to come down the stairs from her bedroom dressed only in a t-shirt and underwear.
“We are senior citizens, were not armed, fully cooperated with the agents and yet we were treated in the most disrespectful and humiliating way possible,” he told The Independent.
The agents seized four of Mr Arnu’s computers, containing his life’s work on Area 51, along with treasured photos of his deceased parents, and medical and tax records. Hard drives, phones, cameras and a drone were also taken.
Arnu and his girlfriend Linda Hellow say they were left traumatised after federal agents raided their Nevada homes— (Courtesy of Joerg Arnu)
After the search was finished, the agents handed Mr Arnu a search warrant signed by a federal magistrate judge. The first 39 pages were missing, and it only provided vague hints of what the agents had been looking for.
He would later learn that a joint team from the FBI and the Air Force Office of Special Investigations (USAF OSI) had conducted the raids.
He believes his “interrogation” was led by an agent from the OSI, a counter intelligence wing whose stated goal is to investigate hostile intelligence services and terrorist groups that target the Air Force.
Eight months on, he still has no idea whether he will face charges, or if he’ll ever get back the more than $30,000 he says he’s out of pocket for as a result of seized equipment, property damage and legal fees.
Mr Arnu told The Independent he had taken care to avoid publishing any material that could harm national security interests, relying on “extremely knowledgeable” members in his network who include former workers at the base and veterans.
“We all understand that there are limits to what can be shared.”
He believes the raids were a deliberate tactic by the US Government to try to intimidate and silence the Area 51 research community.
‘Little green men’
Area 51 has been a magnet for military buffs, conspiracy theorists and alien enthusiasts since the late 1950s, when rumours of “little green men” and UFO sightings began circulating.
Lying about 120 miles northwest of Las Vegas, Area 51’s official name is the Nevada Test and Training Range at Groom Lake, which is a part of the Nellis Air Force Base.
Somewhere between mile markers 29 and 30 on the Extraterrestrial Highway lies an unmarked dirt road that leads to the base that is believed to be the preferred location for the testing and development of the US’s most advanced military technology, including drones, stealth spy planes and cutting-edge sensor systems.
Some believe the US government stores and hides extraterrestrial bodies and UFOs at the site.
Arnu at the gates of the secretive Nevada military base— (Courtesy of Joerg Arnu)
The site’s existence was first confirmed in 1998, when the US Air Force issued a terse response denying that it operated a base called Area 51.
“There are a variety of activities, some of which are classified, throughout what is often called the Air Force's Nellis Range Complex,” a US Air Force major wrote.
It would take another 15 years before the Government confirmed the existence of specific military programmes at the base, when the CIA responded to a Freedom of Information Act request by George Washington University National Security Archive senior fellow Jeffrey T Richelson.
The declassified CIA documents revealed for the first time information about the Cold War-era Lockheed U-2 spy plane reconnaissance programme that were built and tested at the base.
“There certainly was — as you would expect — no discussion of little green men here,” Mr Richelson told the New York Times in 2013.
The confirmation came as little surprise to Mr Arnu, who had been photographing mystery aircraft from vantage points around the base for more than a decade.
He first laid eyes on the base in 2000 on a hike with a group of like-minded enthusiasts to Tikaboo Peak, the closest public viewing spot.
Sightings of several mystery aircraft, including a suspected Russian MiG 23 Flogger, prompted spirited debate among the group, and a hint of anxiety.
“Some of us anticipated a visit from the famed Blackhawk helicopters,” he wrote in a journal entry. “We thought we heard a faint hum, but alas we waited in silence with no results.”
Arnu says he was buzzed by two F-117 stealth fighters while taking photos near Area 51 in 2021— (Joerg Arnu / DreamlandResort.com)
In 2005, Mr Arnu organised a camp out at the perimeter to mark the 50th anniversary of the base’s creation. Around 60 enthusiasts ate barbecue, drank cocktails and sang Happy Birthday Area 51 to the “ever-present cammo dudes” who monitored their presence.
Mr Arnu was later invited to become an associate member of the Roadrunners, an organisation of pilots who flew secret spy planes such as the U-2 and A-12 at the base in the 1960s, and has become a custodian of the group’s website.
In 2019, a spoof Facebook page calling for people to ambush the military base saw around 3.5 million express an interest in taking part.
Mr Arnu, who advises visitors on how to legally visit the perimeter, urged the intruders to stay away.
His most treasured Area 51 photo was taken in 2021 when he says he and a friend were “buzzed” at low altitude by two F-117 Stealth Fighters.
He says the planes came so close to his vantage point at Coyote Summit that he could make out a pilot staring back at him as he shot photos.
Denied and ignored
Mr Arnu has spent the past eight months seeking answers about why he was targeted, and says he and Ms Hellow remain deeply scarred by the way they were treated in November.
The couple often wake up in a panic in the middle of the night, wondering if “they” are coming back, he said.
In an unredacted section of the search and seizure warrant, the Government referred to violations of Title 18 of the United States Code for conspiracy, photographing and sketching defence installations, and publication and sale of such photographs.
Mr Arnu says that his site contains the same type of imagery shot daily by the dozens of tourists who visit the Area 51 perimeter.
“Most people seriously interested in Area 51 follow my site and the reasoning probably was that targeting me would have the greatest impact on the community,” he told The Independent.
“But I have never crossed the Area 51 boundary and as far as I know all material shared on my Dreamland Resort web site is perfectly legal.
“Google Earth has better images of Area 51 than you could ever take from public land,” he added.
Mr Arnu said he had been stonewalled at every turn in his attempts to find out what he did wrong.
Women dressed as aliens at a Storm Area 51 spinoff event called Alienstock in Rachel, Nevada, in 2019— (Getty)
FOIA requests to the FBI and Air Force have been denied. A request for restitution for the damage was also knocked back. A complaint to the Department of Justice’s Office of the Inspector General went nowhere.
Mr Arnu has also written to a dozen lawmakers, who have either ignored him or claimed they are powerless to intervene.
When contacted by The Independent, a spokesperson for the FBI’s Las Vegas field office declined to comment.
The Air Force did not respond to a request for comment.
Mr Arnu said the Area 51 research community had rallied around to support him, and he has set up a GoFundme to try to recover the losses.
