A citizen of Poland has been convicted and sentenced to time served after he admitted to coming to the U.S. to photograph the secret military base in Nevada that contains the famed Area 51.
Michal Rokita’s photos and video were then used in a livestream on YouTube hosted by Dreamland Resort, which tracks the doings at Area 51, which has been the site of testing for advanced military aircraft and is at the heart of conspiracy theories about alien technology.
Rokita pleaded guilty to one count of photographing defense installations without permission and one count of publishing photos without permission.
Investigators said he came to the U.S. on April 7 on a tourist visa with his camera equipment — including a stabilized telephoto lens that could magnify images by 125 times.
He went to Tikaboo Peak, the closest spot for observing the secretive base on the Nevada Test and Training Range, which contains Area 51. He also visited the Tonopah Test Range.
The area is famous for its warnings against intrusion and even photography.
Rokita, in the livestream video, made clear he knew he was photographing an off-limits installation and talked about methods to evade detection to try to get into the base. He and Joerg Arnu, the operator of DreamlandResort.com, also speculated on the livestream about what they were seeing in the images that Rokita obtained.
At one point, Mr. Arnu addresses a viewer’s question about potential blowback.
“I’m sure they don’t like it, but it’s not really that we’re doing anything illegal,” he said.
“If [there was] something to worry about, they wouldn’t let me to get into the country,” Rokita said, joking that he was using his real name in the video. “I have nothing to worry and nothing to hide. I’m just a guy who’s interested in the aircraft.”
A woman, identified in court papers by the initials GAP and a fellow traveler with Rokita, also appears in the livestream.
An Air Force investigator, in court papers, made clear that the service branch wasn’t confirming or denying the “accuracy” of any of the speculation made in the livestream.
The video remained available online as of Tuesday.
