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| Top Secret Tourism: Your Travel Guide to Germ Warfare Laboratories, Clandestine Aircraft Bases and Other Places in the United States You're Not Supposed to Know About | 
 enlarge | Author: Harry Helms
Publisher: Feral House
Category: Book
List Price: $14.00
Buy New: $7.91
You Save: $6.09 (44%)
Buy New/Used from $7.89
Avg. Customer Rating:  (18 reviews)
Sales Rank: 52188
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 224
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 8.4 x 5.1 x 1.1
ISBN: 1932595236
Dewey Decimal Number: 917.30493
EAN: 9781932595239
ASIN: 1932595236
Publication Date: April 1, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
Here is the unseen America of government facilities and installations protected by a wall of secrecy, deception, and misinformation. It includes huge, isolated areas (some larger than the states of Connecticut and Rhode Island), along with innocuous office buildings located in the middle of major cities. This "other America" has an enormous impact on your life, but you probably have little idea of its extent, scope, and power. This book invites you to visit this top-secret America. Listings are by state, and each facility/site entry gives its history, discusses the activities carried on there, explores various rumors, and provides maps and directions to every location. Author Harry Helms visited and photographed a number of sites in this book. None of the intelligence here was taken from classified sources; everything was on the public record and obtained by patient digging. Since the 9/11 attacks, much of this information was removed from public dissemination. To those who think a book like this discloses vital government secrets, Helms says: "Get real. If I can find this stuff out, the Russians, Chinese, and various terrorist groups also found it out a long time before I did." Adventurous travelers and truth-seekers will want to know how to navigate within top-secret America.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 13 more reviews...
 Not what I was expecting but entertaining none the less August 8, 2008
When looking at the description before ordering the book I was expecting more of a "hands-on" travel guide. By this I mean more of a personal journal of visiting (or attempting to) the sites. The book is more like a series of 2-3 page encyclopedia entries with a few photographs and black, line art type maps. Most entries lack even a photo which was disappointing.
I actually was amused at the tongue-in-cheek style and was not put off by it. The lack of even a basic list of sources renders the information suspect without further investigation yourself. Despite this, I took the history and anecdotal stories at face value and just enjoyed the quick read.
I would say the book serves as a quick overview that may entice a reader to dig on the internet for more information about the sites. I had already heard about most sites listed so there was little "new" information contained inside. What was "new" is, as mentioned above, not backed by any sort of source so it takes some of the shine off the book in my opinion.
If you want a book that is easy to read in short sections and does contain some unusual tidbits of history about these places and are not put off by a bit of coarse language then you'll get what you pay for. If you are looking for actual accounts of a personal visit to each site with lots of pictures you are looking at the wrong book.
 Not really a travel guide, but entertaining July 10, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I expected a lot more from this book. It's not really a travel guide, although it does give crude maps and textual directions to each place. There are very few pictures, and most of those are for Area 51. The text is very entertaining though, but not very useful. Each site gets at least a couple pages, but there's nothing in-depth about any site. I'm not sure how much of the information comes from the author's experience visiting the sites and how much is just hearsay. He told only a few stories about his own experience, and I would have liked to read more of a travel diary about the author's experience going to each site, even if just to look from far away.
Although the book presents nothing that you can't legally get on your own, I would have liked to see an appendix listing the source material, contact information for public affairs officers, websites, and so on. There's no bibliography for further reading on any particular site. The book's best use is its table of contents. You're going to have to do more research on your own anyway.
At times the language is coarse and I think the book would have been better served without sarcasm, but I think the author was pandering to his audience. Some naive politcal commentary creeps in as throw-away jokes, and might have been more appropriate if the author fleshed out the history a bit more.
Despite being disappointed in the marketing and categorization of the book, I did have a good time reading it, just like I occasionally need to watch a UFO show on TV.
Not very impressive May 23, 2008
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
No wonder the publisher or author doesn't offer a "Search Inside This Book" link. If you were able to read the table of contents of this book you would see everything you've probably already seen or heard of and lots of large military installations that aren't really secret or hard to find at all. Being an Air Force brat my entire childhood and then serving in the Army myself for six years, I've been to over a dozen of the installations listed in this book and not only are they widely visible and accessible to military members and their families, they also give tours to the public and have a large civilian workforce inside them. Been inside "Cheyenne Mountain", been underground at the former "SAC headquarters" and even to this very day I do work in and around various naval facilities including a nuclear submarine base, only having to show my drivers license, signing in, letting them search my vehicle and getting an I.D. tag. Next thing you know I'm 50 feet away from the flight line or looking inside an F/A-18 hanger. No "top secret" clearance or elusive James Bond tactics necessary.
There are tens of thousands of places across America that have restricted areas regardless of what they are or what activities they do. Our local utility company's headquarters building for instance has very tight security, many restricted areas and armed guards to protect from sabotage, terrorism and people pissed off about their electric bills but that doesn't and shouldn't automatically qualify it as a "top secret" destination. There's nothing new or exciting listed at all in this book unless you haven't watched the Military or History Channel or have been without internet access for the past fifteen years. There's absolutely nothing, not one thing like, "the dark brown building downtown by the post office and next to the river, the one with no windows or markings, it's actually a top secret munitions cache and surveillance center". No under your nose type stuff that the book's description implies. Instead you get stuff like what's in the "Florida" chapter of the book. There's only one entry for the entire state of Florida and it's the "Wackenhut Corporation", nothing else period. Most any Florida resident, military, civilian or even a rest stop janitor could and would point you to better places like Eglin AFB, CENTCOM or the military section of the Kennedy Space Center instead of a "rent-a-cop" headquarters.
Buy it used or even better, do a Google, Wikipedia or search any property appraiser's website for any US city for this kind of stuff and you'll get better results. Example, the current Rachel, Nevada (Area 51) official home page (Amazon doesn't allow posting links) tells you there's no gas anymore in Rachel and the next closest station is 60 miles away. Do your own homework and you'll come out ahead, trust me.
And since I totally expect the author to cry foul about this review, maybe even write himself another 5-star review (anyone else notice that?) I challenge him to post the table of contents online and let you, the would be consumer decide.
Great Vacation Guide! May 21, 2008
0 out of 3 found this review helpful
This is a really good book for those 'out of the way' vacation spots. No matter where you want to go on your vacation, there's an interesting 'little known' place nearby!
Fun bok filled with things you knew and things you probably didn't know!!! March 8, 2008
0 out of 3 found this review helpful
This is one of those books you have to get for the conspiracy theorists in the family. Fun book to read and have.
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