Man with AREA 51 license plate gets tickets from fake plates

Seven years ago, Reno resident Chris Sandoval got a set of brand-new personalized license plates from the Nevada Department of Motor Vehicles: "AREA 51," a reference to the secretive Air Force base in Lincoln County rumored to house crashed UFOs.

But thanks to those plates — or rather, thanks to replica AREA 51 plates sold as souvenirs — Sandoval has received hundreds of tickets and fines from throughout the United States. Two weeks ago, he even received a police inquiry about a hit-and-run. He estimates he's spent nearly $5,000 in legal fees to fight the undeserved fines.

"If I had to estimate, I would say over the course of seven years, it's probably been about 300 (violation notices)," Sandoval told the RGJ.

He's sent off letters disputing each of the charges, but the letters keep coming.

Although Sandoval says he's not big on UFOs, he's pretty well-versed in the lore surrounding Area 51.

Long suspected to be the site of secret weapons testing, Area 51 has embedded itself in American pop culture and conspiracy theories, and inspired thousands of people to gather in the desert in 2019 to "raid Area 51" to learn its secrets. (For the record, Sandoval says he did not attend the raid.)

So why get these specific plates, then?

After five or six searches to find something interesting, Sandoval saw that AREA 51 was available. He applied for the plates with the DMV and received them shortly thereafter. The legitimate plates, that is — the ones with AREA 51 in blue text.

But there are countless souvenir plates out there, also produced by the Nevada DMV. They're exact replicas of Sandoval's except AREA 51 is in red text to distinguish them from the originals.

Unfortunately, most black-and-white toll booth cameras can't tell the difference.

Soon after Sandoval got the new plates, notices rolled in from across the country, asking him to pay up for his alleged cross-country crime spree.

"I think if there's a toll in this country, there's someone with an AREA 51 plate that's gone through it," Sandoval said.

He started sending out form letters to each agency explaining the situation and disputing the charges, a strategy that worked well for several years. Still, it hasn't been foolproof. Colorado has a fraud alert system that will stop future violation notices from being issued. Oklahoma, on the other hand, has told him they can't prevent the notices from being sent out.

Eventually, Sandoval had to bring in a legal team to write a letter with stronger wording.

"I started sending out cease-and-desist letters to these agencies, stating that they were violating my rights in so many words because they already basically know that I'm not responsible for them."

Recently the TikTok channel @licenseplatetok shared a series of videos Sandoval posted about the challenges of owning the original AREA 51 plates. His frustration in the videos is palpable.

"I've had state agencies coming after me for seven years harassing me with fraudulent debt and even the threat of an arrest warrant in my name. Why? All because I own this plate," he says in one video. "It's because people from all over this country are buying fake Nevada AREA 51 plates, and mounting them to their cars, driving through a toll — and guess who gets the bill? I do."

Recently, Sandoval was briefly a suspect in a hit-and-run accident in Las Vegas. An eyewitness reported the plates on the fleeing car, and Sandoval was contacted by the Las Vegas Metro Police Department. Rather than the usual form letter, Sandoval sent a walkaround video of his undamaged car to the detective investigating the case. (The detective admitted to Sandoval he knew it was a long shot.)

Still, Sandoval doesn't begrudge the state DMV for selling replicas of his plate.

"They definitely should not stop," he says. "They get revenue from it. Anything we can do to keep our state income-tax free."

Sandoval's experience isn't unique among personalized license plate owners. Sparks resident James Mensinger snagged "ELVIS" plates back in 1978, and also racked up violation notices from across America totaling several thousand dollars. Some states threatened to damage his credit rating. It took the intervention of the office of Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto to cancel the fines from Kentucky, which was particularly zealous in pursuing Mensinger.

Ethan Craft, creator of @licenseplatetok, notes that certain Nevada personalized plates can be particularly vulnerable.

"They really incentivize people to buy these souvenir plates in bulk so businesses and stores will buy them," Craft said.

In Nevada, one-off replica plates can be ordered for $15; 10 or more plates in the same design drop down to $4.50 each.

Eli Rohl, public information officer with the Nevada DMV, didn't have revenue data at hand from the state's replica plate program, but souvenir shops are a regular client.

"A lot of it is gift shops that are buying small quantities to stock shelves," Rohl told the RGJ — plates like WE GOLF, JUST WED, and yes, ELVIS and AREA 51.

Nevada's replica plates are particularly authentic.

"The state prison produces them on the exact same blanks that the real plates are," Craft says. "That's why they have the same security holograms. That's why … the letters are red just to differentiate them, because otherwise they're identical."

Other states that have turned replica plates into a sizeable revenue stream, including Virginia and Idaho, print the word "sample" in the upper right corner where the registration sticker usually is placed.

On the plus side, Sandoval says he's never had the original plates stolen. His vehicle is in a secure garage, and he says he doesn't drive much anyway.

And he may have run out of state and local agencies to contact. He used to get a few notices a week; now he says he might get one a month. After fighting so hard for so long, he says he feels like the caretaker of the plate.

Still, it's taken years to get to this point. Did he ever considered trading them in, or selling the plate to someone else?

"Never," Sandoval told the RGJ. "It's never crossed my mind. Not once."