A former US Army sniper has alleged that a covert military operation took place near Area 51, where at least one American soldier was reportedly killed in a confrontation with reptilian-looking aliens.
Nick Betts, co-host of the Liberty Risk podcast, said an unnamed member of the military’s elite special missions community told him that soldiers had been issued directed-energy weapons to track three creatures that had entered a highly classified US facility.
The alleged operation took place in a deep underground tunnel near the Nevada installation. According to the account, one soldier was shot in the chest and killed instantly by a weapon similar to those carried by the team.
“They said that they f****** shot this creature that was bipedal, mildly reptilian-looking but had fingers and was using this weapon system,” Betts said.
Betts said the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) member described the incident during a night of drinking while the two were involved in a documentary about the ongoing war in Ukraine.
The veteran sniper, who served in both Iraq and Afghanistan, told his Navy SEAL co-hosts, Kevin Kent and Ryan Williams, that he came to believe the story after witnessing the stunned response of another soldier who was allegedly involved in the Area 51 mission.
Betts said both the source who first told him the story and the other JSOC member warned him not to discuss it. He also claimed that their participation in the documentary was abruptly cancelled after he asked about the alleged incident the next morning.
“I would have chalked it up to the wine if it wasn’t for being choke slammed up against a f****** wall in the morning at 6am,” Betts said.
Area 51, an area of more than 2.9 million acres, is located at the Nevada Test and Training Range
The US military and the White House have consistently said there is no physical evidence proving the existence of UFOs or extraterrestrial beings.
Betts acknowledged that the JSOC soldier’s account was delivered while the man was intoxicated. However, he insisted that the source remained lucid and was not “sloppy” when describing the alleged encounter.
He added that the other special forces veteran was not in the same hotel room in Poland when he heard the story. That, Betts said, made the soldier’s angry reaction appear genuine rather than staged or influenced by the original conversation.
“I’m like, ‘Hey, so and so told me you know a thing or two about aliens.’ Dude, he f****** stops, turns me, grabs me by the f****** neck, and f****** slams me up against the wall,” Betts recalled during a podcast episode in December 2025.
“And he’s like, ‘Nick, I f****** swear to God. Never f****** talk about this again.’”
The soldier who allegedly disclosed the story told Betts that military officials at Fort Bragg in North Carolina had called the JSOC unit in for an emergency deployment to an underground facility several miles from Area 51.
Since the 1940s, the Nevada complex has been the subject of claims involving secret UFO research and the development of experimental aircraft.
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After departing Fort Bragg, the team was reportedly briefed at Area 51 and equipped with advanced weapons that fired energy blasts rather than conventional rounds. They were then flown by Black Hawk helicopter to the entrance of a long tunnel leading into the underground complex.
The reptilian theory, claiming shape-shifting reptilian aliens secretly control Earth, surged in popularity through conspiracy theorist David Icke in the late 20th century (Stock Image)
Betts said the emergency was triggered when the underground site stopped transmitting its routine radio checks. A quick-reaction force sent to investigate also allegedly failed to return.
The former sniper did not say whether his source knew if those soldiers had been killed or remained missing.
Once inside the facility, the source claimed a team of about six soldiers began sweeping through the tunnels and encountered the first reptilian invader using the same type of weapons they had been given.
‘As they’re coming around on this outside, the outside left guy gets f****** hosed with one of the guns that they’re using like straight to the chest and f****** dies,’ Betts recounted.
The group allegedly returned fire and killed the creature. Betts’ JSOC source added that the mission ended with all three reptilian aliens being found and killed.
However, the remains of the dead US soldier were allegedly cremated on site, which the rest of the team protested because of the serviceman’s Catholic beliefs.
The source also claimed that a cover story was created, saying the soldier died in a training accident that incinerated his body.
According to Betts, the mysterious base the reptilians had invaded was more advanced than even the most secure levels of the Pentagon.
Area 51 sits on a highly restricted part of the Nevada desert which has been tied to UFO theories since the 1940s
‘It was, you know, almost looked like “Independence Day,” where they have the glass windows and things like that and access points with full handprints and biometrics and then also an iris reader,’ he described.
The survivors of the alleged battle in Nevada were taken to sign documents, possibly a non-disclosure agreement, and underwent biometric scanning of their hands and eyes.
Betts noted that after he was ordered to leave the documentary set in Poland, which took place at an unrevealed point after 2022, the two soldiers never spoke with him again.
Betts’s claims are not the first mention of a race of beings which allegedly appear to be reptilian.
Multiple government whistleblowers, including astrophysicist Dr Eric Davis and retired Air Force Major David Grusch, have alleged that at least four alien species exist, including a race known as the Reptilians.