By John Kleespies
It was 5:55 AM in April of 2011, breath-mistingly cold, and the glow of twilight was their only illumination. Twenty-three DEVGRU operators laughed raucously as they competed to see who could throw a rope the farthest for their Belgian Malinois, Cairo, while another 30 support personnel silently shivered like zombies in a government bus parked to the side.
The sun finally spilled over the Mojave Desert, revealing a simple runway in a valley filled with chaparral and Joshua trees. In those rays of light, an airborne glint distantly appeared, growing into body, wings, and tail. Landing gear dropped, tires chirped, and then reverse thrusters screamed a Boeing 737-600 to a stop.
The plane was … plain: white paint with a thick red stripe running down its window line. No splashy logo. No company name on the side. No number on the tail.
One of the SEALs screamed at the top of his lungs, “Vegas, baby!” And Red Squadron howled their approval.
Next stop: The Strip. Literally. This was just another pickup for Janet Airlines.
Nothing to See Here
In the early 1950s, Groom Lake was a nuclear test site (aka, “Area 51” on the Atomic Energy Commission map) until the Central Intelligence Agency took it over when they needed a place to covertly test the U-2 spy plane. The list of top-secret projects snowballed from there.
By the ’70s, Area 51 had sprawled to the point that it required a full-scale and highly educated workforce willing to cast aside family and society to live an unknown existence in a desolate wasteland.
That job posting didn’t garner much interest.
However, there were plenty of folks willing to live (and party) in Las Vegas if the CIA could figure out a way to commute them day-to-day from the sinniest of cities to the most highly restricted man cave on Earth.
Thus, the birth of Janet Airlines: a commuter air service that “doesn’t exist,” requires its stewardesses to maintain a top-secret clearance, and yet whose loading tarmac with old-school boarding stairs can be observed from the sidewalk of Las Vegas Blvd.
Per Area 51 lore, in 1972, the Officer in Charge needed a call sign for the used DC-6B that the CIA managed to funnel into his possession, so he popped off with his wife’s name, Janet, and that stuck. Of course, the big wigs couldn’t leave it at “Janet,” so senators and generals now refer to it as the Joint Air Network for Employee Transportation. Those who actually use the service will tell you that it’s Just Another Non-Existent Terminal.
Said nonexistent terminal is located by itself at the northwest corner of Harry Reid International Airport, across Las Vegas Boulevard from Mandalay Bay. It hosts six white and red-striped Boeing 737-600s, plus a small fleet of twin-engine prop planes. All the aircraft have registration numbers, but you’ll need binoculars and a willingness to play Where’s Waldo to find them. Janet is fed via its own street entrance, leading to a large parking lot that fills up daily around 7 AM and empties by 4 PM.
Its passenger manifests are unpublished, period, end of discussion.
Just Another Non-Existent Terminal
When a Janet airliner taxis for takeoff, it receives priority on the runway so that every other flight must pull aside to let it to the front. Also, Janet reports to the control tower with a standard call sign, but … that call sign changes after 15 minutes of flight. Beyond that point, Janet crosses into “The Box,” where any other plane is summarily shot down.
And its transponder turns off. In other words, Janet disappears.
Until an impressively fast turnaround time of a half hour passes, and that plane’s transponder blip reappears outside The Box. Almost immediately after Janet’s resurrection, it enters Harry Reid’s landing pattern, with priority.
Janet seems to be a real princess that way.
So, the next time you’re in Vegas, steal a glance at the private terminal across the street from Mandalay Bay and try to spot a solid white aircraft with a red stripe and no easily identifiable registration number. Just don’t stare too hard if it’s loading passengers: Probably safest that way.
