Forget Area 51, tin foil hat wearing shelter dogs & cat!

[Bluedragon]

I saw a lot of testing and projects while on Edwards. Most people don't realize that Edwards bumps next to Area 51. 

Dad picked me up after school one summer, we drove over an hour before parking on a ridge next to a Major's car. The Major handed me a pair of binoculars then pointed out the target in the middle of the sand lake below. Metal plate five feet in diameter with one lone flag staff and a red flag. Soon there were about 30 cars and trucks on the ridge with us. On the PA System on one truck the announcement was made. "Successful Launch. Incoming"  Minutes later "10,9,8 and continued the countdown.

Looking out onto the lake bed "Now!"  Poof! a cloud of sand. Dad suddenly said "Off by at least five feet." On our way back home ...."Well, we were closer than ten feet last week." I asked "And what is this for?" "That was a missile fired from a submarine 200 miles out to sea, over LA and to this target." "And what does this missile carry?" "A nuclear warhead." "And why is five feet not enough?" "There are targets we have to hit on the nose, no error, no mistakes." "With a nuke?" 

I always wondered exactly what he did in the Air Force. The weekend after 9-11, he broke down and explained. "We had this figured out in 1969 while I was at Langley, CIA Headquarters. We planned to get all aircraft out of the sky so we could determine what planes had hijackers aboard. We thought they would hijack cargo planes and crash into buildings. We never dreamed they would hijack passenger planes. We failed."