Long known as the Nevada Test Site and now called the Nevada National Security Site, the sprawling land mass deep in the southern Nevada desert is home to some of America's most sensitive installations and pockmarked with craters from past nuclear explosions. It's here that a peculiar and deadly incident occurred on January 28th, 2019.
At 5:18pm local time, a man drove through the security checkpoint at Mercury, which is located roughly 70 miles north of Las Vegas. The austere enclave off U.S. Route 95 has long acted the basecamp for the Test Site's operations. A car chase ensued, with the notoriously territorial private contractors that guard the massive installation and Nye County Sheriff deputies pursuing the rogue vehicle.
The chase went on for roughly eight miles before the car pulled over. A man got out of his car with some type of metallic cylindrical object in his hand and confronted his pursuers. He would not respond to verbal commands and was shot dead by both security personnel and law enforcement officers as a result.
An official statement from the Department of Energy, whose National Nuclear Security Administration runs the site, says that they have contacted the FBI to help investigate the strange incident.