Roadrunners Internationale is a group of individuals who in the 1960s and 1970s worked at Area 51, the "secret" military facility in Nevada that is ground zero for some conspiracy theorists, UFO "believers," and black budget aircraft trainspotters. According to these Area 51 vets, there are no UFOs or extraterrestrials at Area 51. But then, they would say that. From The Seattle Times (GFDL photo by Flickr user x51):
(James) Noce remembers always getting paid in cash, signing a phony name to the receipt, during his several years of working security at the site. It was, in CIA parlance, "a black project."
Noce says he has no paperwork showing that he worked at Area 51 for the CIA. He says that was common. Others who got checks say they came from various companies, including Pan American World Airways…
Noce and (Roadrunners founder TD) Barnes say they never saw anything connected to UFOs.
Barnes believes the Air Force and the "Agency" didn't mind the stories about alien spacecraft. They helped cover up the secret planes that were being tested.
On one occasion, he remembers, when the first jets were being tested at what Muroc Army Air Field, later renamed Edwards Air Force Base, a test pilot put on a gorilla mask and flew upside down beside a private pilot.
"Well, when this guy went back, telling reporters, 'I saw a plane that didn't have a propeller and being flown by a monkey,' well, they laughed at this guy — and it got where the guys would see [test pilots] and they didn't dare report it because everybody'd laugh at them," says Barnes.
"Area 51 vets break silence: Sorry, but no space aliens or UFOs" (Thanks, Bob Pescovitz!)
