Richard Mingus (born October 19, 1930) worked as a security guard at the

Nevada Test Site The Nevada National Security Sites (N2S2 or NNSS), popularized as the Nevada Test Site (NTS) until 2010, is a reservation of the United States Department of Energy located in the southeastern portion of Nye County, Nevada, about northwest of ...

from 1957-1993. During that time he secured various parts of the base such as

Area 51 Area 51 is the common name of a highly classified United States Air Force (USAF) facility within the Nevada Test and Training Range in southern Nevada, north-northwest of Las Vegas. A remote detachment administered by Edwards Air Force B ...

and Area 13. Mingus worked on many

black project Black project is an informal term used to describe a highly classified, top-secret military or defense project that is not publicly acknowledged by government, military personnel, or contractors. United States and black projects In the United S ...

s such as the U2 spy plane and dozens of atomic test detonations that occurred during the cold war.

Early life

Mingus was born in 1930. He fought in the Korean War. In 1957 he worked in a restaurant in the

Sands Hotel The Sands Hotel and Casino was a historic hotel and casino on the Las Vegas Strip in Paradise, Nevada, United States, that operated from 1952 to 1996. Designed by architect Wayne McAllister, with a prominent high sign, the Sands was the seven ...

and was married to his wife Gloria. Due to problems during Gloria's pregnancy, Mingus needed a solid job with hospital benefits. He applied to work on government projects and because of his veteran status was quickly accepted into the program.

Area 51

Mingus was one of the first federal services security guards assigned to Area 51. Besides securing the base facility, Mingus was responsible for the daily communication into the base from the outside world. He could never identify the base over the phone or discuss what was occurring on the base. He could not confirm the presence of anyone present there. The base was simply referred to as "Delta." The phone was answered "Thirty-two thirty two." Mingus could not even reveal his occupation to his wife up until her death. Mingus was responsible for guarding Project AQUATONE (the U-2 spy plane project).

Nuclear tests

* Mingus's second nuclear test he stood guard over was

Project 57 Project 57 was an open-air nuclear test conducted by the United States at the Nellis Air Force Range in 1957, following Operation Redwing, and preceding Operation Plumbbob. The test area, also known as Area 13, was a by block of lan ...

—America's first

dirty bomb A dirty bomb or radiological dispersal device is a radiological weapon that combines radioactive material with conventional explosives. The purpose of the weapon is to contaminate the area around the dispersal agent/conventional explosion with ...

test. * Mingus participated in the Hood bomb detonation, a 74

kiloton TNT equivalent is a convention for expressing energy, typically used to describe the energy released in an explosion. A ton of TNT equivalent is a unit of energy defined by convention to be (). It is the approximate energy released in the det ...

blast. Immediately after the blast it was realized that the Atomic Energy Commission failed to secure Area 51. Mingus was dispatched to secure the base immediately. In doing this, Mingus had to cope with large amounts of radiation that had just been unleashed by the detonation. * Some areas where Mingus was stationed—such as Area 13—were subject to lethal levels of radiation. Routine care had to be taken to avoid lung exposure to

plutonium Plutonium is a chemical element; it has symbol Pu and atomic number 94. It is a silvery-gray actinide metal that tarnishes when exposed to air, and forms a dull coating when oxidized. The element normally exhibits six allotropes and four ...

and other radioactive substances.

Area 12

Mingus spent many years in the tunnels of Area 12. These tunnels were used to facilitate nuclear testing.

Area 25

Mingus was assigned to work with President

John F. Kennedy John Fitzgerald Kennedy (May 29, 1917 – November 22, 1963), also known as JFK, was the 35th president of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963. He was the first Roman Catholic and youngest person elected p ...

secret service A secret service is a government agency, intelligence agency, or the activities of a government agency, concerned with the gathering of intelligence data. The tasks and powers of a secret service can vary greatly from one country to another. For i ...

detail when he visited the base in 1962. Kennedy visited the base as part of a space travel promotion tour. Behind the scenes, planning was underway for a nuclear-powered spaceship that could reach

Mars Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun. It is also known as the "Red Planet", because of its orange-red appearance. Mars is a desert-like rocky planet with a tenuous carbon dioxide () atmosphere. At the average surface level the atmosph ...

Failed nuclear Russian satellite

Mingus worked at the

United States Department of Energy The United States Department of Energy (DOE) is an executive department of the U.S. federal government that oversees U.S. national energy policy and energy production, the research and development of nuclear power, the military's nuclear w ...

's emergency command center in Las Vegas on January 24, 1978 when a nuclear-powered Russian spy satellite (

Cosmos 954 Kosmos 954 () was a reconnaissance satellite launched by the Soviet Union in 1977. A malfunction prevented safe separation of its onboard nuclear reactor; when the satellite reentered the Earth's atmosphere the following year, it scattered radi ...

) crashed in Canada. The top job while fielding calls at the emergency command center was to prevent Americans from panicking. All that the agency would report was that a "Space Aged Difficulty" had occurred, nothing about a nuclear-powered satellite with potential lethal fallout.

Under attack

In 1982, Mingus was securing an underground test at Area 6. The base had a live nuclear bomb exposed above ground. During the process of lowering the bomb underground, the base came under attack by armed combatants. Mingus was primarily responsible for coordinating the breach up through the chain of command. President

Ronald Reagan Ronald Wilson Reagan (February 6, 1911 – June 5, 2004) was an American politician and actor who served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. He was a member of the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party a ...

was ultimately notified and the event became a significant (and secret) national security issue. Later, it was determined that the combatants were men from Wackenhut security conducting a drill.

Later years

As of October 2011, Mingus worked as a security guard at the

Atomic Testing Museum The National Atomic Testing Museum in Las Vegas, Nevada, documents the history of nuclear testing at the Nevada Test Site (NTS) in the Mojave Desert about 65 miles (105 km) northwest of Las Vegas. The museum operates as an affiliate of the Smithson ...

Las Vegas Las Vegas, colloquially referred to as Vegas, is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Nevada and the county seat of Clark County. The Las Vegas Valley metropolitan area is the largest within the greater Mojave Desert, and second-l ...

Nevada Nevada ( ; ) is a landlocked state in the Western United States. It borders Oregon to the northwest, Idaho to the northeast, California to the west, Arizona to the southeast, and Utah to the east. Nevada is the seventh-most extensive, th ...

(pictured). In 2010, Mingus was featured on National Geographic's TV show, ''Area 51 Declassified''.

References

External links

Mingus appears on National Geographic's show "Area 51 Declassified"

Area 51 Uncensored Book Signing Henderson, NV

Pamelas Punch

A-Bombs Over Nevada
- Smithsonian Channel documentary. (appearance: 38:08) {{DEFAULTSORT:Mingus, Richard 1930 births Living people Military personnel from Ohio Nevada Test Site People of the Cold War Security guards