Another Kind of Aviation Story

Area 51 lies Northwest of Nellis Air Force Base, Las Vegas and was affectionately known as Dreamland. Flying over or even near this invisible auxiliary airfield was taboo. Pilots that did were met by the secret police guys after landing and were not seen again for 24 hours. The big secret that we all knew was this was the place where the USAF kept and flew all the Soviet Block aircraft. All generations of Mig 15’s, 17’s, 19’s, 21’s plus other secret Soviet stuff. This was in the days before satellite cameras.

Funny!

Late one afternoon, the Air Force folks out at Area 51 were very surprised to see a Cessna 152 landing at their "secret" base. They immediately impounded the aircraft and hauled the pilot into an interrogation room. The pilot's story was that he took off from Vegas, got lost, and spotted the base just as he was about to run out of fuel. The Air Force started a full FBI background check on the pilot and held him overnight during the investigation. By the next day they were finally convinced that the pilot really was lost and not a spy.

They gassed up his airplane, gave him a terrifying "you-did-not-see-a-base" briefing complete with threats of spending the rest of his life in prison, told him Vegas was that-a-way on such-and-such a heading, and sent him on his way.

The next day to the total disbelief of the Air Force the same Cessna showed up again. Once again the MP's surrounded the plane. Only this time there were two people on the plane.

The same pilot jumped out and said, "Do anything you want with me, but my wife is on the plane, and you have to tell her where the hell I was last night!”