The Air Force and Federal Bureau of Investigation earlier this month raided the homes of a man who runs a website chronicling the top-secret Nevada military facility known as Area 51.
Agents from the Air Force Office of Special Investigations and the FBI entered homes in Las Vegas and the tiny town of Rachel, Nevada owned by Joerg Arnu on Nov. 3. The raids were to seize information as part of a joint agency probe, according to the Las Vegas Journal-Review.
Arnu runs a website called Dreamland Resort started in 1999 that covers operations and activity at the Groom Lake facility commonly referred to as Area 51. The site features photos and videos taken from nearby the base, satellite images of the facility, and articles about training exercises and advanced military testing, such as a possible 2021 sighting of the RQ-180 stealth drone and flights by the F-117 Nighthawk stealth attack aircraft. And, yes, there is plenty of discussion of UFOs as well.
On his website, Arnu said that both his Rachel and Las Vegas homes were raided by “15-20 agents in full riot gear” and that they happened “without any warning.” Arnu, who was apparently in Rachel at the time while his girlfriend was in Las Vegas, claimed in his post that he lost “over $20k in equipment taken and over $5k in damage” during the raid.
“I was only told that the search was related to images posted on my Area 51 web site,” he added.
Officials at AFOSI did not immediately return a request for comment from Task & Purpose.
Area 51 is located within the remote Nevada Test and Training Range in Lincoln County, Nevada, more than 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas. It’s long been a training ground for some of the government’s most advanced and highly classified projects, like Lockheed’s U-2 and SR-71 strategic reconnaissance aircraft. Later, it was the site where the F-117 stealth Nighthawk took its first flights. The name is in general synonymous with classified testing and UFO lore. The government first officially confirmed its existence in 2013.
The mystery surrounding Area 51 has for decades also spawned a cottage industry of observers like Arnu. In 2019, a Facebook event titled “Storm Area 51, They Can’t Stop All of Us” garnered more than a million responses, although fewer than 100 people eventually showed up to gawk near an entrance gate to the facility.
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