Film Crew Arrested at Area 51

Military personnel arrested a BBC film crew at the secret Area 51 military base in Nevada where UFO conspiracy theorists claim US authorities are keeping bodies of aliens and debris from a spacecraft that crashed in Roswell, New Mexico in 1947 (NOTE: Subscribers can still listen to these shows).

They were arrested after they sneaked past the security perimeter, and were forced to lie on the ground for three hours while officials at the base carried out identification checks.

In the Digital Journal, John Thomas Didymus quotes UFO researcher Darren Perks as saying, "There was no one around, no guards, no vehicles–nothing. We filmed for approximately 30 minutes and tried to call the guards but there was no one there and no sign of them. So we all decided to walk past the barriers onto the restricted area past the security huts and basically onto Area 51. Nothing happened."

After they filmed for another half hour, one of the crew members saw guards eating dinner and watching TV in one of the security huts. The guards had apparently seen them on their security cameras, but did nothing–possibly hoping the crew would finish their filming and leave without them needing to make any arrests (they probably had information that this was a BBC, and not an American, film crew). But when a crew member walked to the hut and knocked on the door, they had no choice but to act: They forced the crew members to lie on their faces on the ground at gunpoint for 3 hours while they searched them and confiscated wallets, phones, IDs and film equipment and checked their credentials.

They were then taken to the nearest sheriff’s office, where they were given tickets and fines of about $400 each, before they were released and allowed to leave on their tour bus.

Didymus quotes one of the crew who says a guard told him, "Listen, son, we could make you disappear and your body would never be found."

Was it worth it? Didymus quotes Perks as saying, "We didn’t see anything except a bit of tarmac."