We received an anonymous encounter about High Strangeness at the Nevada Test Site in the Early/Mid Sixties. He Writes in.
This Happened to my Father, just to give you some scope, he was a WW2 Veteran that saw action as a tanker in the Pacific, He was never the type to brag, or even talk about his war time adventures, unless you happened to hear him talking with other Vets, about their adventures. He was a no-nonsense type of guy.
In 1962 or 63 my dad worked for the Nevada Test Site. This is the area they tested Atomic Bombs. Also included in this giant area of Government owned land, was Area 51, S-2, Etc. where "as most people surmise" new Weaponry and Spy and Stealth aircraft were built and tested. He was a Night Shop Foreman for the automotive and wheeled vehicle division. Basically, they repaired all the Jeeps, dump trucks, airplane totes, semi-trucks, drilling equipment, security vehicles, etc.
One night he comes in looking at the clipboard of repair orders, there was a Security vehicle broken down in a wash a few sectors over from his. There were certain areas they had clearance for, others they had to have a security escort. This one was a minimal clearance area so he took off in the tow truck to go either fix the thing or tow it back. He headed out on the barely passable gravel roads at night in the desert looking for the vehicle. Eventually after using his cab mount searchlight, he saw a reflection off the windshield and drove over to see what the issue was.
Apparently during his excursion, the whole facility went into lockdown. This happened frequently, I guess when they were testing weapons or airplanes "they always surmised from the sounds" they would be locked into the building until security relieved them. Security would come and do a roll call, check records for people who called in/vacation, etc. then they would actually padlock them into the buildings from the outside. Leaving one door unlocked, but guarded. This was for safety, fire, medical problem, etc. so people could get out if absolutely necessary. There were no windows on most of the buildings at the Test Site for this reason.
My Dad was working on the truck stuck in the gully, I can't remember if it was tire stuff, or fuel/ignition problems. He started hearing a claxon/siren way off in the distance, the sound never changed and seemed to be stationary, at the same time he could hear BIG Diesel Engines, like what a train sounds like, also stationary and the same tone/RPM. The noise piqued his interest and he started climbing the hill to see if he could see where the noise was coming from.
Before he even reached the top of the gully he was in, the sky lit up. A huge whitish/blue beam came up on the other side of the hill and was so intense it lit up the clouds above it. This was lit up for about 10-30 seconds. He heard the Diesel Engines droning in the background start to rev after the Intense beam came on, then subdue after it turned off. He thought maybe these were huge Generators, powering the light. Now back in the early sixties they didn't really have lasers or that intensity or color of light available. Maybe this was the early testing of Lasers or some beam weapon.
He kept working his way up the hill when about 5 min later the Same Alarm Sequence, Diesel engines spinning up, Beam firing happened again. This time the beam was being moved back and forth slightly, and for a longer amount of time, and 3 planes/ufos/helicopters? Started circling around this beam but awkwardly, he said they were yellow/orange orbs, no strobe or NAV lighting visible, and kind of swerved around fast almost like 3 moths hitting and flying around a light bulb. He didn't figure they were planes or helicopters as it was way too fast and erratic for that. At the time he wondered if the Beam was creating these orbs, or casting them off like a welder. Similar to a what a torch, or plasma cutter does to metal.
As he kept climbing to see what this would look like from the hilltop, he heard another weird noise, this sounded like a jet engine, then whirring, Helicopters were rare back then, but he knew that what was flying around. He heard then saw this helicopter flying a pattern and shining spotlights down searching for something. Its pitch black out there. After a few minutes he realized maybe I should head back as I may be getting nuked with radiation, or something if he crests that hill. Also, he's probably seeing something he shouldn't have. He Came back and finished working on the Truck.
As he was putting his tools away, the helicopter still flying a grid pattern in the back ground all the sudden spot lights him. It did a few passes then headed off. He figured the Pilots were just goofing around and were running low on fuel and headed back. As he started doing a test drive on the truck, he just fixed he thought "Maybe I should drive over my footprints since I probably shouldn't be here right now" after he did that, he was deciding if he was going to tow it back, or leave it for the security detail to get the next day. He could hear jeeps in the distance, he was very familiar with the little 4-cylinder tractor sounding motor, from his days in the Army.
He saw headlights coming way down the dirt road headed his way. After a few minutes they too were using hunting style handheld spotlights looking around, they flashed his direction, then after a few sweeps spotlighted him the whole time while driving towards him. 3 jeeps with, 3 guys each, roll up and pull rifles on him. These aren't the normal Wackenhut Security Guys. These were G.I.s with fatigues, with no markings. They start screaming "What's Your Name, What Department Are You, why didn't you Call back on the Radio" He explains what he's doing there, and they wanted to argue everything, "The Truck works fine. ".. Yeah, because I just fixed it bad parts are in the tow truck in a box. "You didn't call back on your Radio".... I never heard a thing on my channel all night. So, they test it with one on their Jeep and it works fine. "You're in deep shit get in the jeep" He gets in one of the Jeeps passenger side seats, with a guy pointing a gun at him from the back seat.
They are driving, and driving, and driving for at least an hour. Nobody says anything. Once the hit a paved road in the middle of the Test site, they still drive for a long while. Dad asks "Where the in hell are we going, Tonopah?" The driver laughs and says Nope but damn close. The only other thing the driver said with a weird stare was "Welp good thing you were staying busy out there, working on the truck.... You got it fixed and were under the hood the whole time" & "Probably hard to see anything, working with just a flashlight out there"
Finally, they get to some buildings and Hangars. They drive into a building and escort him to a non-descript office. No names on the doors or stuff other than a desk, some furniture, lamp, etc. Finally, 2 guys in white button-down shirts and ties come in, and say "call your wife if you need to, you're not coming home tonight, don't wait up" He asks for the number, dials, it and hands the phone to my dad after my mom picked up the phone. "He covered the mouthpiece and said "Keep it real basic, working overtime due to an emergency" So that's basically all he said to my mom. I remember her being worried and said he sounded off or tired on the phone.
The 2 men quizzed my dad for about 2 hours, asked the same questions "Where's your I.D., Why were you out there, ETC." Over and over and over, same questions said different ways with different words, I guess to catch him in a lie. Finally, my dad said "What's the big deal I didn't answer the radio? I never got the call! I didn't get a signal probably from that gulch I was in. What radio did you call me from, that guy in the jeep that tested my radio was 30 ft away of course the damn radio worked" Turns out one of the guys questioning him tried to radio the other jeep team that stayed behind... No answer from them.
After the inquisition, and them making multiple phone and radio calls, they drove him back to the parking lot where his car was, and told him not to return to work unless we call you. So, he came home and I can just remember him not wanting to talk about it but my mom was wondering if he quit or got fired. She was worried not only about the "Scary Non-disclosure, ruin your life if you say anything type of talk, they told My dad” But they also had Me and 3 brothers to take care of, and decent insurance working for the Govt. that she was worried about losing.
3 Days later they called and said comeback to work, "it's been a big misunderstanding, etc." The guys he worked with told him those same guys came down to the garage and interviewed them all, asked when, and why my dad left that that day, took a bunch of the work order, and parts, paperwork, tested the radio at the shop and the truck my dad was driving etc. They explained he left about an hour before the lock down, told security he was out there, security tried to call him on the radio. Then they sent a guy to look for him but he gave up, an hour into the search because the Security guard himself had to lockdown at a later time "Probably before the Light/Beam Testing"
Anyway, thanks for letting me share my story, even if it was my dad's. I just remember how worried he was those few days. I was a JR in High School at the time, and remember being pissed I couldn't use the car to go out on a date. I never figured out if it was a government "Don't go anywhere thing" or a financial thing because they didn't know if he was going to lose his job. My dad finally told me this whole story when he and i were alone deer hunting a few years later. He was a man of few words, But the detail and look in his eyes telling me this made me realize this was a Major thing for him in his life, I asked him more details a couple other times and he didn't want to talk about it, but I penned this out right after he told me due to my own experiences. One day Ill share some more. Thanks for letting me share!