The FBI is now helping the Air Force investigate an odd incident at the scene of the crash of an apparently top-secret drone near Area 51 two weeks ago. According to some sleuthing by The War Zone, the aircraft came down about 24 miles south of the super-secret aircraft test facility at Groom Lake, Nevada, and a TFR was in place while the wreckage was cleared. No one was hurt in the incident. But investigators returned to the site after someone left behind some objects at the crash site.
“During a follow-on site survey on October 3rd, investigators discovered signs of tampering at the mishap location, including the presence of an inert training bomb body and an aircraft panel of unknown origin that were placed on the site post-incident,” the Air Force said in a news release. “The matter is under investigation by Air Force Office of Special Investigations (OSI) and the FBI. No further details are available at this time.” Whatever the aircraft was, it was attached to the 432nd Wing at Creech Air Force Base, which mostly operates MQ-9 Reaper drones.
This reminds me of a when an F-117 crashed in July of 1986 outside of Bakersfield. The F-117 was still top secret and so were its radar absorbing coatings and materials. So after retrieving every scrap of F-117 wreckage, the Air Force brought in stored wreckage recovered from a previous F-101 crash and scattered it around the F-117 crash site to throw off any snoopers. Maybe the guy who was supposed to notify the investigators of the clandestine placement of unrelated wreckage is a non-essential employee….
Yeah, no. That story about sanitizing the F-117A crash site and salting it with F-101 parts turned out to be completely bogus. It was disinformation that people are now spreading on the internet.