Message posted by Tom on September 06, 2003 at 20:49:38 PST:

I have some familiarity with the incident, as I knew some of the folks involved, and heard about the affair a couple of days after it happened.

One of the earlier groups doing a documentary on A51 decided they wanted to fly around it and get some aerial shots of the base. I can't remember which outfit it was, but I'm thinking it was British, maybe associated with BBC, but I'm not sure.

I think these guys chartered a Cessna 182 and headed off for some shots. They get some video, put their cameras away, and a few minutes later a couple of fighters come screaming by. The fighters only made one pass and were gone before the cameras come could out again. Apparently the producer of the documentary felt it was OK to shoot a couple of fighters from the ground (near Nellis, as I recall), and pass it off as the fly-by. Apparently it was effective, because most people think it's video of the actual event.

A point to remember is that some of this older video gets recycled into new documentaries. Years ago, I did a total of two interviews on the subject, (probably two too many), yet I have seen portions of those interviews in more than two documentaries. It gets re-edited and merged into new stuff. Very weird and I still cringe.

Tom

In Reply to: Re: Aerial security at Area 51??? posted by Chris on September 06, 2003 at 18:38:16 PST:

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