Campbell, Glenn – The Desert Rat
IMDB Bio by Glenn Campbell:
“Born and raised in the Boston area, Glenn first came to public attention in 1994 as a UFO researcher and unofficial spokesman for Area 51, the secret military base in the Nevada desert. If you have heard the name “Area 51”, it is due in part to his successful efforts to publicize the base in the mid-1990s.
In 1993, having found some modest success in computer software, Glenn moved to the tiny town of Rachel, Nevada to devote himself full-time to exploring this unacknowledged government facility. Featured in a major article in the New York Times Sunday magazine in 1994, Glenn soon hosted dozens of journalists and appeared in countless news broadcasts as an Area 51 expert. The highlight of his early television career was an appearance on “UFO Cover-Up Live”, a live two-hour broadcast by Larry King from the desert outside the base. He also appeared on “The Montel Williams Show”, several national news magazine shows, such as “CBS Sunday Morning”, and on the first paranormal TV series of the cable TV era, “Sightings” and “Encounters”. In all his TV appearances, Glenn served as both as an on-screen expert and as an off-screen location fixer, supplying producers and film crews with essential information about the local area. Glenn helped many TV crews pull off complex expeditions in the remote desert with few hitches.
Glenn withdrew from the public eye in the early 2000s to explore marriage and family but returned in 2009 as an on-screen guide and off-screen consultant for the Area 51 episode of the History Channel’s “UFO Hunters”, which became the highest rated episode of the series. Since then, Glenn has appeared on paranormal and news shows about once a year, mainly drawing upon his Area 51 expertise from the 1990s. (Glenn is no longer an active Area 51 researcher.) His latest appearances are on German and Danish TV networks. Glenn now considers himself a UFO agnostic. He can’t say definitively whether or not aliens exist, only that they are not currently relevant to our life on Earth.
A former airline employee and obsessive traveler, Glenn now lives continuously on the road without any fixed residence. As of February 2017, he has visited 78 countries. He has self-produced several full-length travel shows on YouTube, including visits to Kazakhstan and Arctic Norway. His stunning photos and videos from around the world are found on Instagram (2 accounts). He posts to Instagram, Facebook and Twitter almost every day, and to YouTube about once a week. He is “BadDalaiLama” on most social media platforms.
Glenn is also an author. His book “The Case Against Marriage,” has been published in both English and Turkish. He is the author of two self-published novels, including “Harper Junction”, the story of an inch-high young man who lives on a basement train set.”
“Area 51” Viewer’s Guide
The author, Glenn Campbell, maintains the online archive of Errol Bruce-Knapp’s UfoUpDatesList.com email list that ran (in this form) from
This Archive from 1996-2013 Is Maintained In Perpetuity By Glenn Campbell Who Originally Hosted It & Programmed Its Scripts
Glenn Campbell History
Media Appearances
- NY Times (1994)
- Las Vegas Sun (2005)
- PBS Video (2016)
- GC on Larry King 1 | 2 (1994)
- Der Spiegel (1994)
- GC on Galileo (alt) (2015)
- ABC News (1994)
- Weekend America (NPR 2006)
A UFO hunter who helped put Area 51 on the map has died after a battle with lymphoma cancer aged 63.
Glenn Campbell set up the Area 51 Research Centre in the Nevada desert and had thousands of visitors.
He became the unofficial spokesman for the military base in the 1990s and appeared on numerous major TV documentaries and new programmes.
UFO enthusiasts from across the world flocked to the area to visit his motorhome in Rachel, Nevada, and buy his ‘Area 51 Viewer’s Guide’ and other alien-themed memorabilia.
He ventured out into the desert and scaled mountains in a bid to capture UFOs flying over the facility.
Area 51 is home to America’s top secret stealth programme and is where the Lockheed U-2 and F-117 stealth fighter were developed and test flown.
It is located around 150 miles north of Las Vegas in an 625-square mile military restricted zone known as the Nellis air force range surrounded by mountains.
The closest public vantage point is Tikaboo Peak 26 miles away.
It is patrolled by heavily armed guards known as ‘Camo Dudes’ because of their camouflage, Apache helicopter gunships and the use of deadly force is authorised against trespassers.
The CIA only acknowledged the base existed in 2013 following a Freedom of Information request.
UFO hunters flock to the Extraterrestrial Highway which leads to the base after physicist Bob Lazar claimed he worked on the propulsion system of a flying disc in an area known as S4.
He claims there were nine flying discs being “back engineered” by scientists from around the world, including Russia, in 1989.
Campbell starred alongside Lazar and other experts during UFO Cover-Up Live with Larry King in 1994 where they explored the evidence for UFOs and alleged government cover ups.
Campbell played a major role in bringing up Area 51 to the major news media in the mid 1990s.
Some years later he said he did not believe aliens were at Area 51 and accused Bob Lazar of being a liar.
In a blog, he wrote: “Could there be alien or alien evidence somewhere at Area 51? Sure! Anything is possible.
“But there is no more evidence for aliens there than anywhere else on earth.
“If the aliens are truly advanced, they can probably hide themselves anywhere—maybe under your feet or over your head.
“There is nothing special about Area 51, apart from its secretness, to make you think aliens are more likely there.”
He revisited the base in 2015 where he played a game of cat and mouse with the Camo Dudes as they tried to hide behind a bush.
Campbell said: “It was just like old times. I was out doing some research along the border of Area 51, which I haven’t seriously done in decades now.
“I was just south of Rachel, Nevada, and just north of the Nellis Range line. Wholly within public land when these guys, these Cammo Dudes, in a white pickup truck started following me.
“Now they were very shy fellows.
“Whenever I pointed my camera toward them they would back-up into the bush, and the only time I got close to them was when they screamed by me to get to their border.”
However, it gets even funnier. This is when Campbell decided to have a little more fun.
“They were watching me from a safe distance wherever I went, and I decided to play a little game on them,” explained Campbell.
“I parked my car on one side of the road and walked up on the hills on that side. As they watched from the distance, I snuck around the back and came up behind them.”
In the video Campbell sneaks up on the truck filming and giggling the entire time. He almost gets right in front of the truck before he is noticed.
One of the Camo Dudes jumped out of the truck and yelled: “Want me to take that camera from you?”
Campbell yelled back as he began running away: “You have no authority to take that camera.”
Campbell said he kept running away at that point. He says the Camo Dudes apparently went their way as he went his.
At the end of the video, Campbell ponders: “Now these fellas in the white pickup truck, these Camo Dudes, they are not government employees.
“They work for a private contractor that works for the government. Still, I am wondering what the government’s policy is.
“Are we back to seizing film and cameras just like the 1990s. If we are, we are in for a grand old time.”
In 2012, British UFO investigator Darren Perks was held at gunpoint after breaching a security barrier while taking part in BBC3 documentary Conspiracy Road Trip.
He was forced to lay face down in the dirt for three hours, along with other enthusiasts and a film crew.
One guard allegedly told them: “Had you gone past that second barrier we would have been forced to shoot you.”