In November 1997, a new Albuquerque resident named John Granger did what most Dulce researchers never do: he drove up there. At 3 AM he was sitting alone on the infamous 36-foot-wide road into the Archuleta Mesa — which turned out to be a 20-foot-wide dirt road — in pitch darkness, watching his clock to make sure he didn’t lose any time, when his battery-operated radar detector decided the car hadn’t moved in long enough and emitted a shrill warning. He nearly peed on the seat. That was the high point of the evening. No UFOs, no military vehicles, no underground base entrance. Just darkness and a very long drive back through Santa Fe.

A second account from a researcher named Glenn provides the counterbalance the Dulce literature almost never includes: the land around Dulce is not restricted. It belongs to the Jicarilla Apache and Southern Ute tribes. Security is non-existent. A private citizen can hike to the top of Archuleta Mesa with nothing worse than a trespassing citation. Local Indians who have free access to the reservation are under no security restrictions and would not withhold a good UFO story if they had one. What most researchers do, Glenn notes, is visit briefly, see something they can’t explain — like the wide road — and run off to write about it without talking to a single local. These two accounts are essential correctives: Dulce may hold secrets, but the surface evidence is far less dramatic than the literature suggests.

MORE ON DULCE

Date: Mon, 3 Nov 1997 09:40:14 -0500 (EST)

From: John Granger

Being a new resident of Albuquerque New Mexico I decided to drive up to Dulce New Mexico 2 weeks ago.. I figured I couldn’t live here and not see the center of the underground base for the planet Earth.

Well, BIG disappointment. After having Map N’ Go send me across a 19 mile horse path (don’t ever accept a map that uses the term “local road” in place of a street or highway name) I found Dulce was dead…just dead… A Best Western Motel and a local Indian casino had the only lights on in town. Since I arrived in the middle of the night I decided to follow the infamous 36 foot wide road out into the Archuleta Mesa… Well, I had no trouble finding the road…it was the only road heading northwest out of town..

Well, I got into the mesa…and the 36 foot wide paved road turned into a 20 foot wide dirt road… (never mentioned in the documents)… I decided the area was sufficiently spooky so I stopped along the road…no cars, no lights, just darkness. At 3am I find myself sitting in the dark…just to see if anyone noticed….I keep an eye on the clock just so I don’t have any gaps in my time perception… Well, the only exciting thing that happened was that my battery operated radar detector decided the car hadn’t been moving for several minutes so it decided to shut itself off… It emits a shrill warning, just so the driver won’t be unprotected. Well, I nearly peed on the seat when THAT thing went off…

That was really the high point of the night… Didn’t see any UFOs…or vehicles of any kind matter of fact… and I decided to drive back through Santa Fe and avoid the 19 mile horse trail…. -John Granger

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MORE ON DULCE From: Glenn I visited Dulce several years ago.

The main trouble with the underground base claims is that the land around Dulce is not very restricted. It is Indian land belonging to one of two tribes. It is the equivalent of private ranch land: You aren’t supposed to go in without permission, but security is non-existent, and in practice you can travel fairly freely. As I recall, most of the land on Archuleta Mesa belongs to the Jicarilla Apache tribe, while the northern part is controlled by the Southern Ute (or perhaps reversed — I don’t have a map handy).

The Jicarilla are fairly liberal about access, while the Ute are more restrictive. I remember hitting a stern no-trespassing sign at a reservation boundary at the Colorado border and turning back, but there was really nothing to prevent me from going on. (You have to go into Colorado to get to the dirt road on top of the mesa.) If I had more time, I would have hiked to the top of the mesa from just north of Dulce. The worst I would expect is a trespassing citation, and I would only expect to get this if I was really drawing attention to myself.

The Indians tend to be very touchy about their land, politically, and they would probably throw a lot of bureaucracy at you if, say, a UFO group wanted to tour the area, but a private citizen could easily poke around. The other major problem with secret base claims is that local Indians who do have free access to the reservation are under no security restrictions whatsoever. They are as ambivalent about the Federal government as the rest of us, and certainly would not withhold a good UFO or secret base story if one came along. To outsiders, the tribes may seem a bit mysterious, but there isn’t any secrecy to speak of. What most “researchers” seem to do is visit briefly, see some detail they can’t explain (like the wide road) then run off to write about it in the UFO magazines. No one bothers to talk to locals. If there is an underground base at Dulce, there don’t seem to be any hints at the surface, so your underground base might as well be anywhere — say, under Phoenix, London or Disneyland.

Executive Summary:

Two Trips to Dulce — A 3 AM Stakeout, a Dirt Road, and the Skeptical Corrective the Literature Needed

This page pairs two firsthand accounts of visiting Dulce, New Mexico — the alleged site of the most notorious underground alien base in the literature. John Granger’s November 1997 account describes a middle-of-the-night stakeout on Archuleta Mesa that produced nothing but darkness and a false-alarm radar detector. Glenn’s account provides the more significant corrective: the land around Dulce is tribal, not federal; security is non-existent; local Indians are under no restrictions and would share stories if they had them; and most researchers visit briefly, see an unexplained detail, and leave without talking to locals.

Together, the accounts argue that whatever may exist beneath Dulce, the surface evidence does not support the dramatic claims of heavy military restriction and impenetrable security that pervade the literature. As Glenn frames the logical problem: “If there is an underground base at Dulce, there don’t seem to be any hints at the surface, so your underground base might as well be anywhere — say, under Phoenix, London or Disneyland.”