It was late afternoon, Friday, March 12, 2004. I was alone on the hill above Coyote Summit, perched like a lone wolf, waiting for the arrival of the Red Flag planes as they headed from Texas Lake to the Nellis ranges. A convoy of three vehicles approached from the direction of Rachel, so perhaps I was to have some company. [Cue music: dum dum dummmmm] The vehicles parked and six people started the hike up the hill. Using my 400mm lens as a monocular, I noticed once of the vehicles was that of a well-known long-term Rachel resident, whom I'm call Agent 151.5 to protect his identity. I thought it was funny that he was bringing up the rear in this hike, since he is pretty fit.
First to arrive was a tall, shapely, 20-ish woman with strawberry blonde hair that could only be described as a hottie. She had short shorts that were about half a Daisy Duke, bare midriff, and something like a t-shirt top, though perhaps the bottom 2/3rds of the T-shirt was missing. The T-shirt had writing on it, but, well, I couldn't make it out. As far as I could tell, her tan was all over. Things were looking up, but of course her boyfriend arrived. [Drat!] As the rest of the crowd showed up, I figured out why Agent 151.5 was taking up the rear, er so to speak. Everyone did their introductions, though for the sake of this story, I'll refer to the hottie as the Divine Ms. M.
The Divine Ms. M and her boyfriend brought a 12 pack of Miller Lite. I played my roll as boring old fart and suggested they use a little caution since we were standing on a cliff with at least a 50ft fall on the other side, and that is only if you get lucky and catch a ledge. However, they were used to the beer and consumed as Rush Limbaugh puts it, "megadoses". The group conversation started to get back on focus to the upcoming Red Flag, which we were wondering if it would happen given the low cloud deck. I hadn't seen the Divine Ms. M leave, but I noticed her come back. I thought about the beers she had downed and said "I hope you didn't go behind some rocks and pee." [Note: Syndicated columnist Miss Manners would cringe at the thought of me using the word pee in conversation with a lady, but trust me, a cocktail waitress at a "gentlemen's club" has probably heard worse.] She pointed towards some rocks where she went to relieve herself. I said "Oh, no, they have a remote control camera on Bald Mountain that can see everything." The Divine Ms. M replied "Well, then they just saw the best they are ever going to see!". Hey, who could argue with that.
If you are not familiar with the camera on Bald Mountain (aka Baldocam), here are some photos:
The camera is the device at the bottom left side of the tower. In the left photograph, it is looking straight at the photographer, and in the right photograph, it is looking towards the right. It is estimated to be about 4 feet long, so it is more like a telescope than a camera.
The Red Flag event was still delayed, but not officially called off In about 15 minutes, what I had suspected might happen came true. The camo dudes must have liked what they saw on the baldocam, and headed out for a closer look, even though we were nowhere near the border. [Of course, first they emailed the photo from the Baldocam of the Divine Ms. M to the other camo dudes around Groom Lake.] One can only imagine what BS they told their supervisor in order to make this trip since no alarms were tripped. ["Sir, we have a hottie, I mean hostile that needs further investigation."]
The photograph below shows how close the vehicle got to the hostiles. [Figure on the magnification of the large photograph to be about 6x.] The photograph at the bottom right corner is an enlargement that just barely shows the camo dude truck. The front windshield has a bit of glare, but with careful examination you should be able to make out the vehicle. All this time, the Divine Ms. M had been doing more megadoses of Miller Lite and needed to, er, um, use the rock, so to speak. While the Divine Ms. M slipped out of our view, I decided to park my lens on the camo dudes, just to see if they had any reaction to the approaching hottie. I noticed a flash or two, then a steady glare, which you can see in the photo in the left bottom corner. I suspect the camo dudes got out their spotting scope to do a proper and complete investigation. Uh, yeah!
Ok, camo dudes, I've told you all you're going to know about your "subject". That is, unless the photo from the Baldocam shows up in my email......
BTW, the Divine Ms. M and her boyfriend are quite pleasant people, and even packed their empties down the hill.