2002 · Area II weapons storage area, north-east edge of Nellis AFB, Las Vegas, Nevada (not NNSS Area 2 on Yucca Flat)
Nellis Area II nuclear weapons storage: orbs, a disc, shadow figures and missing time (2002-2008)
Nellis Area II at night: earth-covered weapons bunkers behind the fence, a lone guard, and amber orbs hovering silently above. · Illustration for uaptrail.com
WhenOctober 2002 to 2008 (Cabrera's reports from 1998)
WhereArea II weapons storage area, north-east edge of Nellis AFB, Las Vegas, Nevada (not NNSS Area 2 on Yucca Flat)
From 2002 to 2008 Joshua Shelton guarded the Area II nuclear weapons storage area at Nellis AFB with the 99th Security Support Squadron, rising to central security controller. He describes a sphere on the fence sensor that paced eight responders for 1.5 miles, a glowing disc that silenced the ground beneath it and went down behind the bluffs with a soundless flash, lights that 'rushed' his patrol and left 20 to 30 minutes unaccounted for, solid black figures seen by up to 16 men and tracked on thermals before they 'blinked out', a blow from inside a DOE-only bunker and three mutilated animals. Christopher Cabrera, a named guard at the same depot from 1998 to 2002, reports the same kind of figures, and Robert Hastings wrote up both men in 2015. The introduction places 'Area 2' at the Nevada National Security Site on Yucca Flat, but the details, a 2009 Nellis release and Hastings all put it at Nellis Area II. A bolide has been offered for the disc; natural cause proposed, not demonstrated.
How plausible · Moderate
A named nuclear security controller, cleared under PRP, gives detailed multi-witness accounts that match Hastings's 2015 write-up of an unnamed witness with the same dates; a second named guard (Cabrera) reports the same kind of figures at the same depot. No co-witness to Shelton's own events is named yet, and nothing is released, which secrecy at a weapons site would explain.
- ●●Access He was there, on patrol and later as central security controller.
- ●●Cost of speaking Named on television after career warnings, and on record to the FBI.
- ●●Restraint Does not claim to know what it was; forgot the disc until shown his old account; frames it as a security gap.
- ●○No gain sought Nothing evident sold.
- ●○Consistent over time Dates and the running figure match Hastings's 2015 account; the figure's height differs (6 to 7 ft now, 8 to 9 ft then).
- ●○Checkable details check out Unit, dates and the 2008 closure check out; blotter, statements and the FBI file are not public.
Plausibility weighs how well an account fits where secrecy hides the documents by design, so missing records never count against it. Strength measures what is documented. Assessed 2026-10-29.
Claims
Shelton served with the 99th Security Support Squadron at Nellis AFB from April 2002 to April 2008 as a patrolman, then entry controller, then for about two years central security controller, under the Personnel Reliability Program, through two nuclear surety inspections, at a site where live weapons were stored and serviced.Joshua SheltonReality Check Rewind: Joshua Shelton on orbs, a disc and shadow figures at Nellis Area IIfirsthandSourced, unconfirmedJoshua Shelton (Reality Check, about Oct 2025)
On his first night in October 2002 a perimeter sensor alarmed and a bright white sphere about 3 ft across sat on the sensor atop the innermost of three fences, lighting nothing around it. When patrol Whiskey 8 radioed it in, it matched the vehicles' speed to hold an exact distance; three vehicles and eight men chased it about 1.5 miles along the fence 'as if on a rail' until, at 'Covert 10', it turned hard into the desert.Joshua SheltonReality Check Rewind: Joshua Shelton on orbs, a disc and shadow figures at Nellis Area IIfirsthandSourced, unconfirmedJoshua Shelton (Reality Check, about Oct 2025)
Outside the alternate security control center he and five others watched a disc about 45 to 50 ft across, 200 to 300 ft up, glowing red 'like magma' over about a quarter of its front, with a smooth reflective underside. It deadened all sound beneath it 'like when you stick your head underwater', lost height, crossed the perimeter and went down behind the bluffs with a huge orange-red flash and no sound or shock wave. Exterior patrols searched 300 to 400 m beyond the fence and found nothing.Joshua SheltonReality Check Rewind: Joshua Shelton on orbs, a disc and shadow figures at Nellis Area IIRobert HastingsfirsthandSourced, unconfirmedJoshua Shelton (Reality Check, about Oct 2025)
Robert Hastings checked for bolide reports in Nevada and the neighbouring states for the time of the disc and found none.Robert HastingsRoss CoulthartsecondhandSourced, unconfirmedRobert Hastings, via Ross Coulthart
In fall 2004 two 'headlights' bobbed on the mountainside and switched off at the line where patrols would intercept. He, his partner and a main-base K-9 team waited in a dry riverbed about 300 m out; overwatch called lights at their 12, 3 and 9, Security One confirmed 'this is real', then 'the lights are rushing you'. The three saw and heard nothing and the dog never indicated. Their radios came back on all at once as they walked back, overwatch had not seen them cross open desert, and the flight chief showed him clock and blotter: 20 to 30 minutes more had passed than they thought.Joshua SheltonReality Check Rewind: Joshua Shelton on orbs, a disc and shadow figures at Nellis Area IIfirsthandSourced, unconfirmedJoshua Shelton (Reality Check, about Oct 2025)
After an exercise, 16 men at the old chow hall watched a solid black, roughly 6 ft humanoid pace a flat roof about 40 m away. Thinking it was the flight chief, Shelton put a spotlight on it and it vanished 'as soon as the light hit the legs'; the gravel roof showed no marks.Joshua SheltonReality Check Rewind: Joshua Shelton on orbs, a disc and shadow figures at Nellis Area IIfirsthandSourced, unconfirmedJoshua Shelton (Reality Check, about Oct 2025)
About 2006, during an assault-and-recapture exercise, overwatch Whiskey 11 reported two people lying prone 50 to 75 m behind the assault force; Security One ended the exercise and called a Code Red. Overwatch tracked them on thermals as they shifted to stay hidden; at 10 to 15 m they 'blinked out', and within seconds the sweep found drag and scuff marks and handheld thermals showed residual body heat fading on the ground.Joshua SheltonReality Check Rewind: Joshua Shelton on orbs, a disc and shadow figures at Nellis Area IIfirsthandSourced, unconfirmedJoshua Shelton (Reality Check, about Oct 2025)
On an outside patrol by the Red Horse training yard under a full moon, he and his partner watched a 6 to 7 ft figure run about 120 ft between two buildings in about 4 seconds, several times. On another night a backlit figure on the bluffs ran from his challenge over rocky ground; four men chased it to the drop-off and found nothing under night vision.Joshua SheltonReality Check Rewind: Joshua Shelton on orbs, a disc and shadow figures at Nellis Area IIRobert HastingsfirsthandSourced, unconfirmedJoshua Shelton (Reality Check, about Oct 2025)
He saw or heard of about a dozen shadow-figure events in six years; one of his sergeants saw a figure like Cabrera's black mass in another building.Joshua SheltonReality Check Rewind: Joshua Shelton on orbs, a disc and shadow figures at Nellis Area IIfirsthandSourced, unconfirmedJoshua Shelton (Reality Check, about Oct 2025)
Some 'black world' bunkers were guarded by DOE's own people when open, and Air Force security checked only locks and vents. One night, when he let a heavy vent handle clang shut, something inside 'smashed into' the one-to-two-ton sunken door; his partner, about 15 m away in the vehicle, jumped too. The report went nowhere because the structure was intact.Joshua SheltonReality Check Rewind: Joshua Shelton on orbs, a disc and shadow figures at Nellis Area IIfirsthandSourced, unconfirmedJoshua Shelton (Reality Check, about Oct 2025)
From late 2007 to 2008 three mutilated animals were found near the perimeter. He saw one and photos of a second: a donkey with eyes and tongue removed and its belly opened and emptied, with no blood or gore and no scavenger marks. As a hunter he rules out predation.Joshua SheltonReality Check Rewind: Joshua Shelton on orbs, a disc and shadow figures at Nellis Area IIfirsthandSourced, unconfirmedJoshua Shelton (Reality Check, about Oct 2025)
Christopher Cabrera, who served at the same depot from 1998 to 2002, reports shadowy bipedal figures inside the bunker complex and, once, a humanoid 'black mass' watching him from the back of a storage unit; in late 1998 he and three others saw three bright lights in a vertical triangle over the perimeter, and the flight chief told them it 'never happened'.Robert HastingsRoss CoulthartfirsthandSourced, unconfirmedChristopher Cabrera (Hastings 2015; KLAS Mystery Wire)
KLAS's Mystery Wire reports that a further, unnamed security officer confirmed accounts of 'shadow people' on the ground inside the Area 2 weapons compound, and a second former officer ('JD') gave an on-camera interview.anonymousLeadKLAS Mystery Wire (George Knapp)
A colonel's only response to the reports was 'Huh.' Inside the flight people talked freely; outside it, stigma and PRP worries kept them quiet. After he first talked to Hastings he was 'intimidated into silence, not through threats' but by people he trusted warning him about his career.Joshua SheltonRobert HastingsfirsthandSourced, unconfirmedJoshua Shelton (Reality Check, about Oct 2025)
He has given his account to the FBI, whose team 'shared the same concern' and was 'taking it very seriously'. Coulthart says other witnesses he spoke to have also testified to the FBI but will not go on record yet.Joshua SheltonRoss CoulthartfirsthandSourced, unconfirmedJoshua Shelton (Reality Check, about Oct 2025)
Ryan Graves's Americans for Safe Aerospace put Shelton in touch with Coulthart.Ryan GravesRoss CoulthartfirsthandSourced, unconfirmedRoss Coulthart (Reality Check)
Coulthart sets the account beside a Whiteman AFB nuclear technician's 6 ft black mass (reported by Christopher Sharp in Liberation Times), a Minot launch-capsule commander screaming at a tall dark figure behind him (Hastings), and the NIDS 'tunnel of light' entity at Skinwalker Ranch.Christopher SharpRobert HastingsBigelow buys the ranch: NIDS on watchThe nuclear connectionanalysisSourced, unconfirmedRoss Coulthart
'Somebody must have known that this would happen... they knew exactly what was there.'Joshua SheltonspeculationLeadJoshua Shelton (Reality Check, about Oct 2025)
An adversary could mimic the phenomenon to get close to the weapons, knowing guards will not report it.Joshua SheltonanalysisSourced, unconfirmedJoshua Shelton (Reality Check, about Oct 2025)
The site is Nellis AFB's Area II, the weapons storage area on the north-east edge of the main base in Las Vegas, not Area 2 of the Nevada National Security Site on Yucca Flat as the episode's introduction says.analysisSourced, unconfirmedOur analysis (2026-10-29)
Where
Area II weapons storage area, north-east edge of Nellis AFB, Las Vegas, Nevada (not NNSS Area 2 on Yucca Flat)
37.2°N 115.8°W
In The picture
They came when we split the atomUnder oath in 2024, Luis Elizondo said it plainly: 'advanced technologies not made by our government or any other government are monitoring sensitive military installations around the globe'. Inside one of them, Joshua Shelton, a security controller at Nellis's Area II nuclear weapons storage from 2002 to 2008, descr…
Similar cases · sharing people, threads, topics or era
Connected cases
- Bigelow buys the ranch: NIDS on watch 1996Parallel cited
People and organizations
- United States Air Force orgSite operator
- Christopher Sharp personParallel reported (Whiteman)
- Robert Hastings personDocumented (2015)
- Ryan Graves personReferred witness (Americans for Safe Aerospace)
Sources
- Reality Check Rewind: Inside Area 2, Security Guard Recalls Strange Events at Nellis (reposted 28 Oct 2026)
- Robert Hastings, 'Triangular-Shaped UFO Sighted at the Nellis AFB Nuclear Weapons Storage Area' (ufohastings.com, 23 April 2015)
- KLAS Mystery Wire (George Knapp): Strange encounters reported at Area 2 outside of Las Vegas (about 2020-2021)
- Nellis AFB news: Nellis security squadron inactivates (99th Security Support Squadron; its munitions storage area closed in 2008), Aug 2009
- GlobalSecurity: Lake Mead Base / Nellis Area II weapons storage