Dreamland
Phil Patton
Random House Publishing Group
There is a place in the Nevada desert the size of Belgium that doesn't officially exist.&nbsp;&nbsp;It is the airbase where test flights of our top-secret experimental military aircraft are conducted and --not coincidentally--where the conspiracy theorists insist the Pentagon is hiding UFOs and aliens.&nbsp;&nbsp;This is Dreamland--or Area 51.&nbsp;&nbsp;For Phil Patton, the idea of writing a travel account of a place he couldn't actually&nbsp;&nbsp;visit was irresistible.&nbsp;&nbsp;What he found was a world where Chick Yeager and the secret planes of the Cold War converged with the Nevada Test Site and alien landings at Roswell.<br><br>A think tank for aviation engineering, Dreamland can be seen from a summit outside the base's perimeter, a hundred miles north of Las Vegas.&nbsp;&nbsp;On Freedom Ridge, groups of airplane buffs gather with their camouflage outfits and binoculars.&nbsp;&nbsp;These are the Stealth chasers, the Skunkers, guys with code names like Agent X and Zero,...