This Secret Lockheed Facility is Extremely Hard to Spot | Long Range Area 6 and NTTR Recon

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All right. So, I'm uh making the long

drive around the test range. I'm coming

from Tonapaw and headed towards Vegas. I

decided to come this way through uh Bey,

but tonight I'm going to spend the night

at this kind of interesting spot along

the way that I haven't shown on the

channel yet. I pulled up to this BLM

gate. If you see this please close the

gate sign, it's usually okay to to go

in. Um you just have to close the gate

behind you cuz it is open range land.

For tonight's campsite, I'll be heading

up this old and forgotten trail to the

top of this hill that sits about 15

miles north of the town of Bey, Nevada,

along US Route 95.

Today, this hill is pretty insignificant

amongst the countless others that you

can find out here on BLM land, but back

in the day, it held a vital and

interesting role in the aerospace world.

A top this hill once sat a facility

known as a NASA high-range tracking

station that was used in the 60s and 70s

to track some of the fastest

experimental aircraft in history.

The High Range was a highly instrumented

400-m long flight test corridor

stretching from Edwards Air Force Base

in Southern California to the Bonavville

salt flats in Utah. Because experimental

aircraft were flying too fast and too

far to be monitored by Edwards alone,

NASA constructed tracking stations along

the route. This station up here, along

with a similar one near the town of

Elely, allowed engineers to maintain

continuous contact with test pilots as

they stre across the skies high above

the Nevada desert.

This station tracked historic airframes

such as the North American X-15, which

was a rocket powered space plane that

set altitude records over 67 mi and

speed records exceeding Mach 6, as well

as the XB70 Vulyrie, a massive Mach 3

plus prototype bomber that NASA used as

a research test bed for supersonic

transport.

Well, the road to the top was pretty

rough after decades of neglect. And once

reaching the top of the hill, we can see

that the only few echoes of the past

that still remain are these concrete

foundations where the buildings once

stood.

Looks like they did a pretty thorough

job demolishing this place.

It does make for a nice flat area to set

up camp though, that's for sure.

There's some sort of infrastructure

here. Some more modern infrastructure

that is.

I'm not entirely sure what this is for,

whether it's military or civilian.

All right. So, as I mentioned at the

beginning, I'm headed towards Vegas, but

I'm actually headed towards the Spring

Mountains. I'm going to climb a mountain

in that range called Bonanza Peak. It's

actually a relatively popular hiking

area, but I'm going there for a little

more of a unique purpose than most

people. I'm actually looking for a

viewpoint where I can potentially spot a

particularly well-hidden part of the NTR

known as Area 6, which is a pretty

secretive facility that Loheed Martin

operates out of. I'll get more into that

later. Before I head over there, I'm

going to head right across the highway

from my campsite to take a look at a

gate that goes into the NTR that I

actually realized I hadn't been to

before. It's just across the highway.

So, I'm going to hop on my ebike and jet

over there real quick. I want to give a

huge shout out to Electric for

sponsoring today's video. I'm going to

be taking their XP4 folding ebike across

the highway down this trail to see what

we can find at this gate.

The Electric XP4 is an absolutely killer

eBike for camping. I love the fact that

it packs down small enough to fit in the

back of a car without needing a bike

rack. It's super quick and easy to

deploy. Plus, you get a 750 W motor to

give you plenty of power for heading

down the trails. If you want to grab one

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So, according to the maps that I have,

the gate that I'm heading to now leads

to range 77, also known as the ECS, or

Electronic Combat South Range.

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>> The uh test site out here in Nevada is

obviously such a vast vast expanse of

restricted land. And looking at

satellite photos, you can pinpoint all

these interesting places that the

general public really can never get a

good view of. And one of these places in

particular is the uh area 6 facility,

also known as the Yaka Air Strip. Now,

what's interesting about this facility

is it's actually located on the NNSS

portion or the uh Department of Energy

land, but it is not a uh it's not a

Department of Energy facility. In fact,

um, as far as what we know about it, we

know Loheed Martin has conducted

significant operations here. And it's

also just like perfectly placed to be

like almost impossible to actually see.

So, the goal here is not going to be to

get the best imagery physically possible

of this facility. For that, it's going

to be pretty damn hard to beat Google

Earth. And um, some contractor photos

that were actually taken on the ground

that you can find some lowresolution

copies of online. But the goal, as usual

today, is to push the limits of what the

general public is able to see from

public land. Even though this is going

to be from pretty far away, I've tried

to get some views of this facility

actually on the north side of Highway 95

near Mercury and a couple other places.

I've been able to see the airspace above

it, but I haven't been able to actually

see any buildings. So, I'm going across

to the other side of the highway. Also,

there's going to be some other places of

the NTR HNS that we can get a view of.

Creech Air Force Base, uh, even Papoose

Lake, I think, is going to be visible.

So all you Papoose Lake fanatics out

there, you want to stick around for this

as well.

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>> Beginning near the town of Cold Creek,

the Bonanza Peak Trail is a 9.3 mile out

and back that's relatively

well-maintained

with an elevation gain of 2900 ft,

bringing us to a total elevation of

10,397

7 ft.

Mark. The summit is a geocache and a log

book.

And I found that this location is great

for Janet spotting cuz we're right under

the flight path of the Janet flights

going to and from both Tonapa and Area

51.

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>> Looking out over the test range and

focusing in on Yucka Dry Lake, we can

see that the elusive Area 6 complex is

indeed barely visible from this

elevation here on Bonanza Peak. Though,

as expected, it's difficult to get

quality imagery at this distance. It's

worth noting that you can get a bit

closer of a view of this facility if you

were to take the NNSS tour. Though

cameras are not permitted, and as far as

I'm aware, the tours have still been

cancelled indefinitely, making this

mountain range the only option to get

eyes on it. The current runway and

facilities were constructed in 2005,

replacing an older dirt runway that

existed on Yuck Lake previously. A

large, rather unusually shaped hanger

with clamshell doors along with a

cluster of other building sits at the

southern end.

Little has been publicly written about

the top secret defense research projects

conducted at this remote facility. And

according to a 2018 Las Vegas Review

Journal article, a spokesman for the

National Nuclear Security Administration

was rather reluctant to answer questions

about it. Though they did say that

activities conducted here related to

both the Department of Defense and

Homeland Security.

The most direct mention of the Area 6

complex and its purpose can be found in

a 7,500page report on the Yucka Mountain

Nuclear Storage Project in which it

states that the purpose of this facility

is to construct, operate, and test a

variety of unmanned aerial vehicles.

Indeed, it is said that the facilities

here are in fact operated by none other

than Loheed Martins, Secret Projects

Division, Skunk Works, and they have

acknowledged one aircraft that was test

flown here, namely the P175 PCAT. a

research program that began in 2003 and

flew in complete secrecy towards the end

of 2005, shortly before the newer

asphalt runway here was constructed.

What classified projects might have been

worked on in the 20 years since then

have thus far not been made public.

Also visible from Bonanza Peak is Creech

Air Force Base with that large hanger

being where I filmed the RQ170 in a

recent video. Though of course it's much

easier to get views of Creech Air Force

Base closer to Highway 95.

Far in the distance, we can see a

sprawling complex known as Gotham City,

which is a mock town used for target

practice and urban warfare training.

and far in the distance sits Papoose Dry

Lake. And though I have on occasion

pointed out the wrong hill, from this

vantage point, here would be the hill

that Bob Lazar alleges the S4 facility

to be. I did spend quite a bit of time

with my camera pointed at this hill, and

though it was too hazy for me to get a

good look, looking at the footage in

post, I was unable to see any activity

on the ground.

In the distance, the silhouette of Bald

Mountain is looming above both Groom

Lake and Papoose Lake. And we can

actually make out a little bit of Groom

Lake, though none of the facilities are

visible.

The only evidence of Area 51 activity

visible from here is this small

Beachcraft Janet flight that has

departed the facility and is making its

way towards the Janet terminal in Las

Vegas.

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I settled in for a night under the

stars, observing the valley below with a

PVS14 Gen [music] 3 moninocular. I did

not observe any activity at the Area 6

airirstrip, but there was some drone

activity at Creech Air Force Base.

Later on, some lights became visible

around the vicinity of Area 51, though

none directly on Papoose Lake.

There was what I presume was a security

helicopter flying low over Area 51 and

making its way directly over Papoose Try

Lake [music] before circling back.

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