Beneath the small town of Dulce, New Mexico, lies a seven-level underground base jointly operated by the U.S. government and aliens — or so claims a former security officer who says he worked there.
Dulce, New Mexico. A town of roughly 3,000 people on the Jicarilla Apache Reservation, about 370 kilometers north of Albuquerque. Red rock mesas and dry plateaus stretch in every direction. It is, by all outward appearances, a quiet and unremarkable place.
But in conspiracy lore, Dulce is one of the most terrifying locations on Earth. Deep beneath Archuleta Mesa, the hill overlooking the town, lies an alleged massive underground base jointly operated by the U.S. government and extraterrestrial beings.
In 1995, a man named Phil Schneider, who described himself as a former government underground construction engineer, gave a series of public lectures with explosive claims. According to Schneider, during the 1979 expansion of the Dulce facility, a drilling team accidentally breached a cavern housing Grey aliens, triggering a firefight. This so-called "Dulce War" allegedly killed more than 60 human soldiers and numerous aliens.
Schneider was found dead in his home in 1996. The coroner ruled it a suicide. His supporters insist he was silenced.
The single most influential source of the Dulce legend is the testimony of a man named Thomas Castello. Castello claimed to have been a security officer at the Dulce base and provided an elaborate description of the facility.
According to his account, the base has seven levels. The upper levels are under government control, but as one descends, alien authority increases. Level six is called "Nightmare Hall," where genetic experiments are conducted. Level seven contains thousands of cryogenically preserved humans.
Castello allegedly smuggled out photographs and documents known as the "Dulce Papers," but these materials have never been publicly verified. More significantly, Castello's own existence has never been independently confirmed.
Note: No evidence supports the existence of the Dulce base. The following presents the topic as a cultural phenomenon.
UFO researchers and investigative journalists have repeatedly surveyed the area around Dulce. No physical evidence of an underground base has ever been found. Geological surveys have detected no signs of large subterranean cavities.
Representatives of the Jicarilla Apache Nation have denied the base's existence. Most Dulce residents treat the story as an urban legend.
However, a series of unexplained cattle mutilations reported in the area during the 1970s may have provided the fertile ground from which the Dulce legend grew.
The Dulce story is a quintessential example of the "underground base" motif in American conspiracy culture. Area 51, Denver International Airport, Mount Weather: Americans are drawn to narratives of secrets buried beneath the earth.
These stories reflect a deep fear of invisible power and a fundamental distrust that "the real truth" is always hidden. What lies beneath the red rock of Archuleta Mesa? The answer is almost certainly rock and dirt. But the human imagination can always dig deeper.
