CHAPTER 18: THE OUTER CORE

CHAPTER 18: THE OUTER CORE

By Steve Douglass

As much as the Core Interceptors were—without even realizing it—my brain trust and sounding board, they represented the cerebral anchor side of my Interceptors Project. They provided an example of strategy, logic, and execution. They grounded my reality, and provided for me the analysis of what I was capturing. They helped me disregard the improbable and illogical and without knowing it kept me on the straight and narrow path to the truth. One you've ruled out what it probably was, you are left with what it might be. In their experience and wisdom I found a blueprint of the black world something I'd have to learn and navigate but on my own. As valuable as they were the real, emotional support came from my on-the-ground team, all of them my close personal friends.

They were the ones in the field with me. The ones who showed up, day after day, without fully knowing what they were stepping into.

Even with the level of trust we shared, none of them knew anything about Mark Hendricks until recently. I guarded that secret as carefully as I guarded Mark himself. It wasn’t because they wouldn’t have understood. It was because I didn’t want to burden them with the weight of what I knew—or what I was doing.

There’s a difference between trust and responsibility. And I chose to carry that responsibility alone.

Interestingly, the outer core of the project—local interceptors—ended up being the people I was actually closest to. We spent time together. We shared experiences. We had more than a few adventures along the way. Through those moments, I found myself edging closer to the truth about Roswell, even as they remained completely unaware of what I was really searching for.

They didn’t need to know. And at the time, neither did the inner circle. Some of them had actually met Mark, but never knew who he really was. To them he was just another one of us, a guy interested in black projects and covert technology just like them.

Secrets have a way of reshaping relationships, even when they’re kept with the best intentions. Looking back now, I can see how each layer of The Interceptors Project played its role—some with knowledge, some without—but all of them were essential.

Whether they realized it or not, they helped carry me closer to the truth. Soon, they'd find out and I'd like to think they kind of figured out what I was doing all along, this compulsion we all shared to get close to the black world.

All of the outer core shared the same underlying passions. First, radio interception—the art of listening, decoding, and catching signals that weren’t meant to be heard. Second, the pursuit of glimpses of cutting-edge, secret technology—the kind the powers that be believed was none of our business. And third, the thrill of the chase itself.

There was something electric about knowing we were connected through technology and deduction, scattered but working as one. We pieced fragments together, compared notes, followed patterns, and slowly figured things out. It wasn’t chaos or curiosity for curiosity’s sake—it was disciplined, collaborative thinking.

None of the outer core were dummies. Far from it. They were sharp, analytical, and driven by an instinct to question what didn’t quite add up. Each of them brought something essential to the table, whether they realized the full scope of it or not.

Together, we weren’t just chasing signals—we were chasing understanding.

Not to mention—it was fun. Real fun. We had some hell of adventures along the way.

We operated right up to the edge of what was legal, fully aware of where the line was, and then we waited to see if anyone would push back. Sometimes they did. Authority figures challenged us more than once, but intimidation only works if you let it. We knew our rights, and we stood on them calmly and confidently.

That was the key: everything we did was grounded in open-source intelligence. No shortcuts. No crossing lines. Just patience, curiosity, and the willingness to question what others accepted at face value.

It wasn’t reckless. It was deliberate. And it forged a bond between us that only comes from shared risk, shared knowledge, and shared moments where you realize you’re onto something real.

And sometimes that patience paid off in ways we never could have predicted.

On one Interceptors trip to New Mexico—specifically near Holloman Air Force Base—we witnessed something that genuinely caught us off guard. We set up camp at a state park overlooking Holloman, close enough to observe but far enough to blend in. From there, we settled into our routine: monitoring activity, taking notes, and spending days identifying and logging operational frequencies tied to White Sands Missile Range, the surrounding test ranges, and nearby Military Operations Areas.

We weren’t rushing anything. This was slow, methodical work—listening, cataloging, cross-referencing. As many discrete tactical and operational channels as we could reasonably uncover, we did.

Our base camp was my friend Ken Hanson’s RV, "The Bounder". It was perfect. Fully stocked, packed with radio scanning gear, bristling with antennas—and, just as importantly, equipped with all the comforts of home.This wasn’t some primitive setup. We had electricity, food, and a proper bathroom. It was completely nondescript. To anyone passing by, we looked like a group of people on vacation.

The only thing even slightly out of the ordinary was the forest of antennas mounted on and around the RV. Surprisingly, they drew very little attention. Nobody really asked questions—except for one curious man who finally couldn’t help himself.

He asked what all the antennas were for.

I told him, half-joking, that we were searching for aliens.

He shrugged, smiled, and walked away, clearly filing it under harmless nonsense.

Which was just fine by us.

One night, as we listened and watched activity at Holloman and across the White Sands Missile Range, both the maintenance and utility channels at Holloman suddenly came alive. At first, it all sounded routine—ground crews coordinating, checklists being read off, the kind of chatter you’d expect when aircraft were being prepped for nighttime training over the range.

Nothing about it raised alarms. If anything, it felt familiar. We’d heard this cadence before, the steady rhythm of people doing their jobs under cover of darkness. It suggested nothing more than another night of practice flights, another exercise playing out over the desert.

At least, that’s what we thought.

We had a solid vantage point on the eastern side, positioned at a slightly elevated location that gave us a clear view straight down onto the base. Visibility wasn’t an issue at all. With binoculars and spotting scopes, we could see almost everything that mattered.

From what we could tell, there was a noticeable uptick in activity. Ground crews were actively marshalling aircraft, moving with purpose, while security teams conducted perimeter sweeps around the base—standard procedure, nothing out of the ordinary on its own.

At the time, F-117s were still based at Holloman, so none of this immediately struck us as unusual. It fit the pattern of what we’d seen and heard before: a busy night, controlled movements, disciplined routines unfolding under the desert sky.

Still, the pace felt different—just enough to make us pay closer attention. Then, at one point, a call came over the ground control frequencies requesting light discipline. At first, we didn’t fully grasp what that meant in practice.

Then it happened.

Almost all of the runway and security lights near the flight line were switched off.

That got our attention.

We immediately perked up, fully alert now, because that kind of move wasn’t routine. Fortunately, we were prepared. We had night-vision equipment with us, and we brought it online right away, adjusting and scanning the darkened base as the scene shifted from ordinary to something very different.

Whatever was about to happen, it clearly wasn’t meant to be seen. In front of the NORAD alert hangars, we watched several vehicles converge on the apron. They came to a stop, and a number of uniformed personnel stepped out, moving with purpose—as if they were expecting something imminent. They gathered around two dark, rectangular spaces set into the concrete in front of the hangars.

At first, we assumed the alert hangars themselves were about to open. That would have made sense. We waited for the massive doors to slide back.

They didn’t.

Instead, something far stranger happened.

The ground itself gave way.

From those two black spaces, aircraft began to rise—slowly, deliberately—as if lifted by a massive elevator. The motion was unmistakable, eerily smooth, and immediately familiar in a way none of us expected. It looked exactly like the aircraft elevators you’d see on an aircraft carrier, except this was happening on solid ground, in the middle of the desert.

We froze.

None of us had anticipated that. Not this. Not aircraft emerging from beneath the surface, right in front of us, in plain view—if you knew where to look.

That’s when we realized we were watching something far outside the routine we thought we understood.We watched as the two aircraft rolled off the elevator and taxied toward the main runway, still completely blacked out. No navigation lights. No beacons. Nothing to help the eye.

Even with night-vision gear, it was almost impossible to make out their full shape. The darkness swallowed most of their features. The only thing we could say with any confidence was that they appeared somewhat triangular—not sharply defined, but enough to stand out as something unfamiliar.

We strained to see more, adjusting optics, trading quick observations back and forth, but the details refused to resolve. Whatever they were, they were clearly designed not to be seen—especially at night.

On the scanners, everything sounded calm and procedural. Clearance was given. One by one, they rolled forward and lifted off into the night, their departures spaced and deliberate. At first, we assumed we knew exactly what would happen next. They made a left turn, and we figured they were heading north into the White Sands Missile Range to work the Red Rio Range—a common enough route, something we’d heard and seen before.

Instead of continuing north, the formation adjusted course, turning east and then south. That alone was enough to snap our attention back to the radios. Moments later, one of the aircraft asked Cherokee Control if the McGregor Range was active.

Cherokee Control responded that it was not and issued vectors to the range.

That’s when the realization hit us—almost all at once.

They weren’t heading away from us.

They were coming toward us.

We looked at each other, then back through the optics, then back to the radios, suddenly aware that the separation we’d assumed was there no longer existed. Whatever these aircraft were, they were now flying a route that would bring them very close to our position, within a mile or so.

As the aircraft departed, the base lights at Holloman slowly came back on, as if nothing unusual had happened at all. We shifted our focus skyward, tracking them as they closed the distance. This was the moment we’d been hoping for. If there was ever a chance to really see something—something exotic, something new—this was it. Even a clean silhouette would have been enough.

We braced ourselves, optics up, night vision ready.

And then they passed almost directly overhead.

Instead of clarity, we got disappointment.

The night‑vision gear didn’t help at all. If anything, it worked against us. The anti‑collision lights on the aircraft burned so brightly that they completely washed out any detail, blooming across our field of view and erasing edges, angles—everything we were trying to discern. Whatever shape they had was lost in glare.

We listened closely as they went by, hoping sound might offer a clue where sight had failed. But even there, nothing stood out. The engines sounded… ordinary. Familiar. Like normal military powerplants doing normal military things.

We looked at each other and shrugged.

“Maybe they’re just F‑15s,” someone said.
“Or F‑117s,” another offered.

It was the simplest explanation, and in that moment, it felt like the right one. We logged what we could, packed the optics away, and told ourselves we’d probably just watched a standard sortie—interesting, sure, but not extraordinary.

At least, that’s what we believed at the time.

The three aircraft were operating under the callsign “Widowmaker Flight.” We listened as they worked the range, running multiple practice bombing passes. The radio traffic was professional, controlled, and entirely unremarkable on the surface. Standard range calls. Standard acknowledgments. Nothing flashy. Nothing that screamed experimental.

As the night wore on, a consensus formed among us.

They were probably F‑117s.

That explanation fit. Holloman was known for them at the time. Their mission profile matched what we were hearing. The lack of visible detail, the subdued operations, the nighttime training—it all lined up neatly. We logged the activity, noted the callsign, and mentally filed the experience away as interesting, but ultimately explainable.

And that’s where it sat for a long time. Not as a revelation.
Not as proof of anything extraordinary.

They flew past our position again on the return leg. Once more, we strained through optics and night vision, but the result was the same. No discernible shape. No clear outline. And the sound—still completely ordinary. They sounded like standard military jet engines, nothing exotic, nothing that stood out.

We told ourselves that once they landed, we’d finally see them for what they probably were: F‑117s. That explanation was still doing a lot of work for us.

Then something odd happened.

As they set up for approach, the runway and approach lights went dark again. That alone wasn’t unheard of, but it wasn’t standard either. We watched closely as the aircraft lined up for landing.

One by one, the aircraft slowed… and stopped.

Not slowed in the sense of reducing airspeed on final approach. They stopped in midair.

We stared through the optics, not saying a word at first, trying to make sure our eyes weren’t lying to us. But there they were—clearly visible now—hovering roughly a mile or so off the main runway. They weren’t perfectly still, either. Each one bobbed slightly up and down, subtle and controlled, as if held in place rather than suspended by momentum.

This wasn’t a momentary illusion. It lasted long enough for all of us to register what we were seeing.

Jets weren’t supposed to do that.

Whatever assumptions we’d been leaning on up to that point quietly fell apart. No one rushed to label it. No one jumped to conclusions. We just watched, silently, knowing we were witnessing something that didn’t fit any standard procedure we were familiar with.

One by one, each aircraft switched on a single bright landing light. The effect was almost clinical—no sudden movement, no rush. Just deliberate action.

Individually, they began to ease forward, drifting toward the runway with an almost unnatural smoothness. There was no sense of a conventional approach—no long, shallow glide slope, no obvious correction. Just slow, measured movement, as if each aircraft were being guided rather than flown.

Once on the ground, the aircraft slowly taxied back toward the same area in front of the NORAD alert hangars. There was no rush, no confusion—just the same calm, deliberate pacing we’d seen all night. One by one, they lined up over those dark rectangles in the apron.

Then, in reverse of how they’d appeared, they descended.

The ground seemed to open just long enough for each aircraft to sink smoothly out of sight, as if returning to wherever they had come from. When the last one disappeared, the surface closed back up, leaving nothing behind that suggested anything unusual had just happened.

Moments later, the base lights came back on.

And that was it.

We just stood there for a second—grinning, stunned, quietly amazed. There was no shouting, no wild speculation. Just that shared look people give each other when they know they’ve witnessed something rare, something they’ll be replaying in their minds for a long time.

What made it even better—what sealed the moment for me—was knowing I had captured the entire sequence on video.

Not just impressions.
Not just memory.
Actual footage of the night everything we thought we understood bent, just a little.

Whatever those aircraft were, we’d seen them. We’d logged them. And now, we had proof that this wasn’t just a story—it was something we watched unfold, together, under a dark New Mexico sky..

The video aired once on television.

At the time, I had already drawn some attention after appearing on Unsolved Mysteries, and that exposure led to a call from a reporter at KVII‑TV who wanted to do a story. Interestingly enough—and something I never could have predicted—years later I would end up working for that very same station in news. I still do.

When we met, I showed him the video. Not just that one, but several others—clips I’d captured over the years that fell into the category of what I can only describe as high weirdness. He watched carefully, asked thoughtful questions, and said very little while the camera was rolling.

Off camera, though, it was a different conversation.

We talked openly about what he’d seen, about patterns, about things that didn’t sit comfortably inside conventional explanations. That conversation naturally drifted toward Area 51 and Roswell. At the time, the two felt inseparable—like twin poles in the same mystery. If you were talking about one, the other was never far behind.

Later, Mark would bring clarity to that assumption.

He didn’t dismiss Area 51 outright, but he reframed it in a way that stuck with me. He told me that while there was activity there, it wasn’t where the answers I was looking for lived.

“Stick to New Mexico,” he said.
“Area 51 is for test pilots and tourists.”

That statement landed harder than it sounds. Coming from Mark, it wasn’t opinion—it was direction. It suggested that what I’d witnessed near Holloman, what we’d documented through patience and open‑source intelligence, wasn’t an isolated event or a coincidence.

It was part of something larger.Something geographically rooted.
And something that, whether by design or by chance, I had already been circling for years.

Looking back, that night near Holloman wasn’t the beginning—and it certainly wasn’t the end. But it was a turning point. One of those rare moments when experience, evidence, and quiet guidance began to align. And, more importantly, I wasn’t alone.I had witnesses.

That made all the difference. And once they did, there was no unseeing it.