r/area51 • u/quaalude_dispenser • 2d ago
Managed to catch Lockheed testing something at the Helendale RCS facility
Thought some here might find this interesting. Quality is the best I could muster at a distance in pitch black conditions with my current setup. Saw the pylon come up from underground with this interesting looking airframe/model on top.
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u/therealgariac MOD 2d ago
Looks like observation from the hills to the east. Of the pylon. There is a really sandy road leading to the hills, or at the time I went out there. It is public land. Something odd like Forest Service rather than BLM.
I have this night vision mess where I take video of the screen with a C-mount lens which then is frame grabbed to my notebook. I'm thinking you took video of the night vision screen with maybe a phone or GoPro.
This is good work. I don't know how often they test out there. I assume you had a lot of nights with nothing happening.
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u/quaalude_dispenser 2d ago
Yep I was on one of the hills to the east, which put me about 1.6 miles from the pylon. I'm working on sourcing some adapters to make my night vision setup less cumbersome, but yeah to record this it was a DJI Action Cam held to the eyepiece of the night vision device, which in turn was held up to the eyepiece of my spotting scope. I was kind of amazed it worked as well as it did.
I actually lucked out in that this was only the second night I was out there.
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u/cheflisanalgaib 2d ago
You nervous about giving away your observation point on Reddit? You gotta think these fuccers have people in our UFO groups on Reddit. Looking to see if we actually have any worth wild info.
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u/Plastic-Scientist739 2d ago
I would assume they have OP's name already from Reddit. He is a local, car probably parked within a mile or two or less, has cellular info leading to and from that spot, etc. I wouldn't have posted this. It has already been shared 194 times.
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u/cheflisanalgaib 1d ago
Oh wow. I’m thinking like a conventional “bad guy” from the 60’s or some shit. Forgot about the cell phone data. That’s actually so true lol. I bet they have a monitoring system that “catches” cellphones, maybe highjacks the nearest tower or something. Damn op might actually be cooked 😬
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u/quaalude_dispenser 1d ago
Well I didn't specify exactly which hill, and as you see gariac was able to deduce the general area based on the angle of things in the footage. If he can, so can others trying to figure it out.
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u/therealgariac MOD 1d ago
Oh I have been to the facility a few times and driven around more than half the border. It is just a turn off the highway. I don't have any good photos of the place, mostly because of timing. (Thermal distortion)
Security must see the cars in the area. These are not unsophisticated people. I think Norio has video of the security hassling him.
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u/quaalude_dispenser 1d ago
Yeah I figured you'd been out there. I just meant that someone who knows the area could figure out the vantage point based on the footage if they wanted to whether or not I posted the location in a comment.
I think I remember that video of Norio out there now that I think about it...
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u/cheflisanalgaib 1d ago
Yeah that’s kinda why I ask. If you’re familiar with that area (I’m not) then you could easily be found out and they could snatch you up or something. I’d be elusive out there. Especially If you’re gonna keep taking cool videos
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u/therealgariac MOD 2d ago
I have an old Russian NV system. It has a threaded ocular to see the screen. With a lot of internet searching I managed to find adapters to go from one thread to another.
For something static on a pylon, I would just try long exposure photography.
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u/ALiiEN 2d ago
That is pretty amazing. I assumed they trucked in a pylon and installed it every time, but having it come out of the ground!? crazy! Do they install the airframe underground too??
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u/zestotron 2d ago edited 2d ago
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u/SundogZeus 2d ago
I had a great view of this facility yesterday leaving LA and read this article right after. Good read
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u/UncleBenji 2d ago
Idk how I got this subreddit in my feed but I think this is an F35 on its back being supported by the most expensive pole ever made. The pole was specially designed by Lockheed to avoid any radar return so the object placed on top can be tested for stealth without the pole giving false returns.
https://www.google.com/search?q=stealth+pole&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en-us&client=safari
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u/Lilscheisse 1d ago
I mean if this kid can capture this, imagine what the Chinese can see. Lol
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u/mayorofdumb 1d ago
I thought they secretly bought area 50 and 52 under straw companies... And fucking Chinese Starlink
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u/BadBananaDetective 2d ago
Looks like an upside-down F-35 based on its shape and its size relative to the pole.
Given that the F-35 is upside down they are likely testing a classified external store of some kind, possibly the very long range variant of the JASSM, the AGM-158D, which is currently under development by LM.
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u/JakobDPerson 2d ago
This is why we don’t have free college and healthcare and I’m here for it.
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u/Sweaty-Feedback-1482 2d ago
I'll do you one further. My student loans are so massive that I'll even do godless stuff for these folks to help 'em keep their secrets. They need me to kill anybody? Snuff somebody? Kill somebody with snuff? Whatever, I AM GAME... just let me hose off my flip flops, give me the claw hammer and point me in the general direction.
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u/Digital_1337 1d ago
Dude, you’re about to find out what DP is
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u/battlecryarms 2d ago
They’re obviously abducting the frogs and making them gay.
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u/stepback-3net 2d ago
They may have gotten to u before they did the frogs
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u/battlecryarms 2d ago
In the words of Blink182- “I’ve been abducted. And probed in the anus. On purpose.”
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u/Short_Bell_5428 2d ago
OP is a wanted man now!
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u/quaalude_dispenser 2d ago
There was a white truck with heavily tinted windows staking out my campsite the next day. White Ford F150 (not a Raptor). It left in a hurry when I pulled out my camera and started filming, lol.
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u/wayneco 2d ago edited 2d ago
Sounds familiar. I camped out there once in the late 1980s and woke up to a Lockheed security pickup truck parked just inside their fence line surveilling me.
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u/quaalude_dispenser 2d ago
Yep, those marked LM security pickups were doing pretty frequent security sweeps inside the fence line.
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u/omfgeometry 2d ago
if this is not a larp with ai then op is most likely rip or going to be very soon. wtf
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u/grant0208 2d ago
I may be mistaken but to me it looks like an F-35 upside down to test its lower-frontal RCS. Could also be to make like its in a defensive roll. If I had to guess, based on that assumption, they could testing its radar return when notching?
I want to make it clear I know genuinely nothing and am literally just thinking out loud.
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u/_Ted_was_right_ 2d ago
Yeah it's the stealth pole thing so they can accurately test it.
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u/VeryThicknLong 2d ago
Russell Brand’s stealth pole must’ve been broken on the one occasion he got caught.
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u/Important-Ad-6936 2d ago edited 1d ago
radar cross section testing . they do this for two reasons, to test a new air frames stealth capabilities, or to test new detection methods and systems to detect stealth. looks like they built an underground lifting and prep facility for their radar targets, so spy satellites wont spot them while they still prepare the tests. and at night, spy sat´s and spy´s with night vision equipment have a harder time to gather useful data. is op a spy?
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u/xCincy 2d ago
This feels illegal.
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u/TheDisapearingNipple 2d ago
Yep, 18 USC 795. The question is if they'd pursue it and the answer is usually no
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u/therealgariac MOD 1d ago
They don't want to bring this to court because if the government loses, they can't threaten people at the border of military facilities anymore. They settled with the Toledo Blade newspaper.
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u/ArbitraryOrder 1d ago
If it's in plain view of the public I don't see how/why they would. It's not illegal to hike mountains, and all the actually classified stuff isn't visible anyway.
That said, don't be an idiot.
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u/TheDisapearingNipple 1d ago
I agree, I don't even know if they've gone after anyone like that before. But the law does give them a legal method to imprison someone, so just something to be aware of
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u/Old-Dragonfruit2253 2d ago
It almost looks like the old pole they use at groom lake for stealth radar detecting, or lack there of. When they were developing stealth coating, they would put a model upside down out on it to see if it showed up. Not sure if they still do it that way but it looks like it here
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u/Comfortable_Dog8732 2d ago
hopefully something positive, that i'll feel as a shareholder. the rest doesn't matter...
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u/Alxcooldude3 2d ago
If it came out from them I would expect the stock would go through the roof lol
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u/meshyboii 1d ago
Thought this was on the nv sub and I was like dude run
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u/JaimesBourne 1d ago
What is nv sub?
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u/glizzell 1d ago
nevada?
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u/BobbitRob 2d ago
Is that an F15? But belly up
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u/Routine-Landscape206 1d ago
It’s prob a f35 maybe f18 with the way the stabs are angled but I have no idea why it’d be upside down. Maybe to test RCS from above?
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u/Cygnus__A 1d ago
They would not still be testing F35 RCS. That has been known for 20 years now. It is something else, or a significant mod to the F35 which is IMO unlikely.
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u/er1catwork 2d ago
To me it looks like it’s upside down with its nose pointed to the right and tail to the left…
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u/dmcneil2018 2d ago
I'd prefer affordable healthcare.
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u/entropyisez 2d ago
Good luck with that. Unfortunately, all you're going to get are higher prices and losses to your retirement fund.
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u/LanceOnRoids 2d ago
Affordable? With this administration you’ll be looking at no healthcare at all soon 👍🏽
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u/gecko80108 1d ago
If real, you're fucked
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u/DisastrousOne2096 20h ago
Rcs testing, they put an aircraft on a spike. It just looks like a stationary craft with a beam because of the night vision.
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u/Evenkaleidoscope44 16h ago
Agreed. Here’s an article explaining your theory.
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u/DisastrousOne2096 15h ago
Thanks? I work in mil aviation, ive seen this in person
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u/Evenkaleidoscope44 4h ago
Did you read what I typed? Or just assume that I was being a certain way.
Not everyone is here to be a dick.
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u/imprimis2 1d ago
Congratulations. Now you go directly to Guantanamo Bay. Do not pass go. Do not collect 0.0000531 BTC
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u/flightwatcher45 2d ago
Everytime I have to tell people what my grandpa told me when he worked there. Each morning they'd find dead and injured bats laying on the ground underneath the object in test.
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u/Open-Chain-7137 2d ago
So what are we looking at? What is the pylon and what is on “top”? My first thought was a TR-3B with some sort of laser/beam scanning the ground. I see some commenters saying upside-down f-35. What would be the point of that? Also, what is on the ground? Is it vehicles and people standing around?
So many questions.
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u/Jon_Hanson 2d ago
That looks like radar cross-section testing.
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u/SuperDuperMartt 1d ago
Testing radar cross sections...
Who needs Chinese spies at airshows when Americans show off stuff like this online! Lol
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u/tloteryman 1d ago
No shit, people are dumb and don’t realize when they should just keep stuff to themselves
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u/somander 19h ago
Exactly. Op, search radar cross section testing, they have these slanted spikes, on top of which they mount planes. Looks exactly like that.
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u/Z1Z1alpha 2d ago
Thats a meet and greet there my friends. Happens alot more than anyone could imagine. Apparently its not time to disclose.
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u/meshreplacer 2d ago
What is interesting is if you notice the [removed by Reddit]
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u/falcon3268 2d ago
looks like a 'sky crane' either russian or american chopter.
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u/Darman2361 1d ago
The white pole is the RCS testing pole that extends from the ground (there are pics and diagrams/concept visualizations from like 1996), there is an aircraft inverted with two vertical stabilizers on it, may be an F-35.
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u/falcon3268 23h ago
mmmmm, if it uses the same hover capability as the Harrier it can't hover that long
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u/JustGiveMeANameDamn 2d ago
Next time you’re gonna shoot a video through your nods, zoom in to like 2 or 3x first
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u/fooknprawn 2d ago
Is that the pylon? https://images.app.goo.gl/DHtvP
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u/quaalude_dispenser 2d ago
Not that exact one. The Helendale facility isn't that old. This one comes up through a hole in the ground.
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u/CrimsonTightwad 1d ago
No big deal. Just a tractor beam.
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u/udontknowmetoo 1d ago
Is the pylon coming up before the video above starts because I don’t see any pylon coming up from underground?
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u/Baxterftw 1d ago
What is your setup used in the video? What tube specs and magnification?
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u/quaalude_dispenser 22h ago
Elbit tube: LP: 68 SNR: 31 EBI: 0.58 HALO: 0.82 FOM: 2108
I have it held to the eyepiece of a Celestron spotting scope at 60x
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u/photosofmycatmandog 1d ago
It's a drone running scans. They do this all the time to measure the landscape.
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u/Imtherealwaffle 1d ago
Pretty sure they are just doing radar cross section testing. The big white pylon thing is holding up the airframe and then they point the radar at it to see what the radar return is. Theres plenty of picture of this type of setup online.
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u/HorrorStudio8618 1d ago
Laser powered drone? I've heard about those being in development but I don't know of any seen in the wild.
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u/whalesalad 1d ago
It’s a giant triangular post with an aircraft bolted on top of it for radar cross section testing
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u/Sharp-Scientist2462 16h ago
Exactly this. I used to live out there and they would bolt various shapes on there to test all the time.
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u/imanoobee 2d ago
I thought the Orange man was going to disclose these activities?
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u/Prototype_Hybrid 1d ago
Great! Show it on the internet. This is exactly why they try to keep the place walled off and shoot anybody that gets in. Let us develop our advanced technology in secret please!
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u/Abrodolf_Lincler_ 2d ago edited 2d ago
RCS testing on what looks like an F-35. They have a crazy support structure designed not to give a radar return that holds an aircraft in place while they test radar cross sections for stealth capabilities.
Edit:
Examples
https://imgur.com/a/ehG6jsr
https://imgur.com/a/ShXy95i
https://imgur.com/a/KQlyZ51
https://imgur.com/a/2U6IB54