The Legend of Green Mist in Chino Hills

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Did you ever go up to Green Mist?

Was there a local legend where you grew up that no one could explain? Was there a spot that was shrouded in mystery? We had such an area in Chino Hills called “Green Mist.”

I graduated from high school in 1989, but it wasn’t until 1997 when I was a police officer that the mystery of Green Mist was finally solved for me.

When I was in high school the kids would talk about an area in Chino Hills called Aerojet or Green Mist. The words were used interchangeably.

The local legend said there was a missile launch site up there. It was also a place of animal sacrifice and satanic worship. There was talk about a Green Mist or fog that hung over the hills at times that couldn’t be explained.

This area was the forbidden spot that you had to visit at night before leaving high school. It was just something you had to do.

So, one night during my senior year, four of us drove up to Chino Hills in my 73 VW Bug to visit Green Mist.

We drove down Peyton Dr, which dead ended at Woodview Rd. A right turn and then a quick left led you into a dark wooded area with no street lights. It was pitch black.

My car slowly went up the road as we waited for some satanic cult to appear in robes like zombies in the night. The trip up this road was like a conveyer belt with no reverse. There was no turning back. We were committed to go all the way to the top.

The goal was a locked gate with a security camera a few miles away. We just had to make it to the gate and back without the car stalling or some other crazy thing happening in the dark. This was Green Mist. According to legend, anything was possible.

This was the stuff horror movies were made of.

The road started to climb and curved back and forth as it went up the side of the hill. There were no guard rails and the drop off over the edge into the canyon added to the mystery of the area.

After an eternity in the dark we made it to the end of the road. No ghosts or people in robes attacked us so it was all downhill from here. Down we went, hoping not to encounter anyone. When we got back to Peyton Dr we were finally able to breathe a sigh of relief. We even had a sense of accomplishment. Don’t laugh. It was just part of growing up in that area.

Let’s fast forward to 1997 when Aerojet came up again.

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One night I was working when I stopped at a gas station. A man walked up to me and asked if his kids could look at my police car. I said sure and opened up the doors so they could look inside.

Out of the blue the father said, “I used to work for Aerojet.” What were the odds of him saying that 8 years after I graduated from high school? I don’t know why he brought it up, but I’m glad he did.

“What was Aerojet?” I asked.
“We were a defense contractor.”
“What did you do up there?”
“We made weapons for the military.”
“Was there a missile silo up there?”
“No,” he said with a laugh.

He went on to tell me they used to put land mines up in Chino Hills during the Vietman war. He said they used to take human cadavers and blow them up so see how much damage was done with a land mine. They would then take the body back and study it. They would then tweak the power of the land mine so it would maim rather than kill.  When he saw the surprise on my face he said, “It was war.”

He also said every once in a while a cow would blow up and they eventually stopped doing that when more houses were built in the area.

That’s when he said the one thing that solved the mystery of Green Mist for me. During his story he told me how they exploded different gases to do tests. He said, “Sometimes there was fog and it would turn green from the gas. It was a green fog.”

That was the Green Mist! The mystery was solved.

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Today, my son and I made the Green Mist journey. We drove up to Chino Hills and turned onto the old road that was narrower than I remembered. There were the same old trees with branches like arms and fingers reaching out to us as we made our way around the curves. At one point my 12 year-old said, “I can see how this could be scary.” I told him there was something weird about the area and he agreed.

You can only go so far now because the road is closed. We drove to another spot and parked. We then hiked uphill all the way up to the gate, which is still locked. The security camera is still there and stands as a symbol of the secrets the hills still have after all these years.

The sign warned of “Danger- Explosives Hazardous Waste Area” as a reminder that this place was once a “war factory” in the hills that no one knew about.

We stood triumphantly in front of the gate as we took in the view of the valley. It was hot after our uphill hike and the afternoon breeze felt good. We then started down the hill back to reality.

It’s funny how this one spot had been the subject of so many high school conversations for years from the 1960s to the mid-1990s.

And here I was again in 2015 with my son. We even took a selfie up there.

My son was fascinated by the story of Green Mist and he said he would hike up there again. As we walked back down he said, “That was fun.” As a father, that’s all you can ask for. He’ll never forget the first time he went up to see Green Mist, just like I never forgot mine.

I find it amazing how this road could capture my son’s curiosity 26 years later like it had for us back in the day.

As for the Aerojet area. It closed down in 1995 and is part of a $46 million cleanup. Google “Aerojet Chino Hills” and you’ll be shocked at what was going on up there for almost 40 years. Mustard and tear gas weapons were exploded, along with depleted uranium-tipped projectiles. There was also contaminated runoff that made its all the way to the Santa Ana River into Orange County. There were also cases of cancer that was blamed on the run off.

Today there’s  a golf course and housing track called Vellano a few hundred feet away. I wonder if any of those people know the legend of Green Mist.

122 thoughts on “The Legend of Green Mist in Chino Hills”

  1. Great article…I grew up in Los Serranos (The original hills). We used to go up there all the time as well as the golf course. It still has that mystery surrounding it. I can’t wait to take my son up there when he’s old enough…

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    • Thanks. Park at Vellano park. There’s a trail from there that gets you to the road. As we got close to the gate a truck pulled up. It stopped and the driver opened the gate. He then drove through and closed it. He drove by us and didn’t stop. It was a regular pickup truck. Not security. Of course, it didn’t added more to the mystery. haha

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    • My parents bought a older home in Los Serranos and rented it out. My Grandparents, and 2 of my Aunts also bought homes in Los Serranos many years ago. We would come visit family and go to the gold course which was really close. We found a rope tied to a big tree and would swing over the ditch between the road and golf course. My little brother would ride his little motorcyle up the hills were the homes were built on Country Club. Great memories. Wish I had known about the Green Mist I would have so been there too.

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  2. I found out about Aerojet a few years ago after doing a little digging on Google. The last time I went to Chino I drove up through Vellano (as far as I could) and you can see more of the area behind the cattle guard gate. There are all kinds of theories about the “green mist’, one of them being headlights shining off the fog on HWY-71.

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  3. My kids used to tell me about the green mist as we lived in the area from 1977 to 1993..Other stories of that area was Jaquien Murrieta, the burning tree near Pipeline and the golf course, the sounds of drums. Again just some of stories about that area.

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  4. A friend who rode bicycles, use to ride up there in the 80’s. He was always stopped by armed security if he came to close to the fences surrounding Aerojet. We knew something was going on up there especially when we could hear explosions.

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  5. I grew up in chino hills as did my husband. We’d both hung out in green must and even got thru the fence once ( we were quickly escorted out by police). Ten years later we bought a house in vellano and could see the very spot the police had escorted us out from our master balcony. When we bought we did have to sign a bunch of papers about Aerojet. They had to do special testing on the water because of the chemicals that had been in the ground as well as soil testing because some of the green fig actually did cause cancer and quite a few children died in the local area at the time – the lawsuits and settlements were still on file. Scary stuff. Apparently the wind blew the fog and mustard gas remnants into the school yard. Thankfully all the soil and water tests had come back clean. We have four young kids so I read thru it all before we signed:)

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  6. Kevin Cooper, KKK, and Satanic Worship Ha. I remember that. A group of friends and I went up there and we were so freaked out by noises in the trees and from the long dark street. We ended up running for our lives. It was probably an animal

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    • Knew about the Green Mist when I was a kid… Defense contracts – ’nuff said. As for Kevin Cooper… REAL! I heard the announcement as the only survivor went to my elementary school. After school, my neighbor’s father drove us by and we could see into the home as the investigation was happening! Blood everywhere on the walls! They ended up leveling the home and rebuilding on it.

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      • I never made it out to that house. I heard that was one of those places that people visited. A long time ago i met the first Deputy who went inside that house. He zoned out when he told me the story. It was like he was there all over again. He still knew their names. Very sad indeed.

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      • The father of the child that was on his first sleepover at the house was a Cal Poly professor. It was and is incredibly sad.

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    • Kevin Cooper’s murderous spree was off English Road, which is about 5 miles North/East of the old Aero Jet/Green Mist. Cooper was never at Green Mist.

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  7. Wow! I hadnt heard of the Green mist in over 15 yrs , we guys took girls up there to “show and scare” lol then “Comfort” them after lol …. one time we were a bunch partying up there and an old sheriff dude drove up and scared the shit out of us as he was driving up then told us nicely to leave lol …. and the pigman …. dont get me started lol …

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      • We lived close enough to hear the explosions. They would rattle the windows. Once, while we lived there we got a call from a news agency wanting to know if we could see anything or had been evacuated. There had been an explosion that I believe may have killed a woman employee.
        My kids would go hiking up there and get run off by security on a regular basis. For them, it was like playing ‘War Games’ and breaching the Aero Jet fence and escaping was part of the game.
        Thinking about that now, it probably wasn’t such a good idea but they lived to tell about it.

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  10. Back in 85-86 we hiked through that whole area. There are abandoned homes in the hills up there that were really old. Does anyone remember the Hill of Hope group up there as well?

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  11. I graduated in 1990 from Don Lugo, green mist was definitely a weekend destination spot during high school. I grew up in a neighborhood off of Peyton and bayberry from the late 70’s to the mid 80’s and can remember hearing what sounded like bombs coming from the hills. In my late teens I worked for chino auto parts, and I used to deliver parts to aero jet. I’ve been all the way inside. For sure the scariest part was the drive up however once inside past the fence and the guards it looked like a normal company. Not what I had expected at all especially after all the years prior that had all of our minds spinning with wonder and curiosity. I didn’t get to see any of the top secret stuff but my curiosity had been satisfied. With that being said “green mist” will always be a unforgettable memory from my youth.

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  12. I also grew up in Los Serranos, the golf course and horse trails were basically my playground. Funny I never heard of green mist, but I could have sworn I heard strange noises coming from the hills every so often, freaky noises, almost not human. Then again I was just a kid. lol

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  13. when i was a kid around 1991-92″ i would walk thought the ravine in los serranos country club golf coarse hunting frogs. one day i sw something huge swinging through the trees screaming….as a 9 years oldi knew it had to be some mutation escaped from aerojet. lol.

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    • Wow that’s crazy! I used to fish all the time in one of the large lakes (and hide and duck from the rangers when they came by! lol) 😉

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  14. My mom worked at Aerojet. When I worked for the YMCA up at Los Serranos Elementary, I used to tell that story to the kids around Halloween time. There are tunnels underground that go straight to Pomona and beyond. The military has many of them so they can move cargo etc.

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  15. I lived a few miles down from this place. I was in hs at Don A Lugo and yes it was a friday/sat nite spot. Ive seen guards as we were cow tiping. And one nite i guess our music was to loud for the cult that lived or gathered down below the gated area. As we have seen them burn star/cirle cult stuff i dont understand. But yes one nite they marched up in brown robs. Never spoke or harmed anyone. But sure scared the crap outa us. I never bothered them again.

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  16. Wow Yes The stories of the kids who had cancer that live in the homes nearby. I live next to this place I heard about the green mist.even went up there at night to see it..

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  17. I also have lived here in Chino Hills since 1977. Recently my husband and I did the mild hike up there and there was people working and driving back and forth. Doing what was the mystery? I would never buy a house up there regardless of some positive tests unless I paid a private company to conduct for myself. No disrespect.

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  18. i ride my bike up that road all the time to the gate. One day the gate was open and I went through. Security yelled at me over the intercom and scare the heck out of me. They are harmless though because I know someone who is a guard up there. They are up there just to keep people off the property. Nothing dangerous anymore. The trees at the start of the road are the creepiest part.

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  20. Wow!!! I graduated from Ayala 3 years ago and kids still talked about this. Not really about the green mist but how there is a missile silo in the hills and that it was used for wartime testing. My friend lives in Vellano so Lord only knows whats in those hills. I had some friends senior year go very deep in tje hills…i believe carbon canyon and found and took a picture with a giant white statue and claimed there was a cult. They said they felt someone was watching them and they later fled. Theres a cult in Chino Hills they said and that story ran wild only 2 YEARS AGO!!! You never know…..

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  21. I GREW UP IN LOS SERRANO FROM 77 TILL 95.. MOM WORKED NIGHTS AT AEROJET..FOR 10 YEARS .. UNTIL THE PLANT CLOSED… AS KIDS WE ALL USED TO GO UP THERE AND SCARE EACH OTHER …. MY MOM HAS TOLD ME STORIES OF A LADY IN A WHITE DRESS THAT HAS BEEN SEEN BY SOME OF THE EMPLOYEES ON THERE WAY DOWN THE HILL IN THE EARLY MORNINGS. . THE PLANT ALSO HAD SOME ACCIDENTS THAT BLEW THE ROOF OF BUILDINGS AND EMPLOYEES WERE LOST…. AEROJET MADE TANK BUSTER ROUNDS FOR THE A10 WAR HOG FIGHTER JET.. .. MAN MEMORIES OF BACK IN THE DAY.. I LOVE THOSE HILLS THERE WAS ALWAYS SOMETHING TO DO WITH GREEN MIST AND THE GULF COURSE. ..

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  22. Ok, now I’m really going to visit this area “the green mist” with my husband. I always had this odd n eery feeling passing by there n wondered about that particular area even before hearing any of this. So interesting

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  24. I grew up in Glenmeade from 1969 thru 1982 and do remember the rumors of the green mist. I don’t remember random explosions but I do remember somewhere around 1976 a huge explosion up there in the middle of the night that shook windows in The “Meade” .
    Those are some beautiful hills I just hate to see it become completely developed there needs to be a natural park up there.

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  25. I use to go there while in high school. also swang out over a gully on a rope near there. got stabbed by a rival group up there too.

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  27. Hello to all here. I’m from Pomona…please no haters, lol, 1953-1973. Great story here, i was on the edge of my seat with every word and all the comments! All I can say to the officer that wrote the article…wow, why aren’t you a mystery writter? I want to year more. Gotta be some more stories from surrounding areas. Your writing is excellent! Thanks to all.

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  28. I used to live really close to that area and from a hill about 500 yards away you can see trucks going up there about a dozen of them at a time around 2am this was on multiple occasions and in 2014 . So there is some activity still going on there , also I went under that main fence acouple years back and a voice came on the intercom saying to leave immediately . I Wonder what they are still doing up there ?

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  29. All very interesting. Lived in Los Seranos for 2 years in 1980-82 , and have relatives and friends who were raised there. Never heard that story….very interesting to hear. I remember the area well ,and even delivered mail in Los Serrano’s and Chino Hills that time period.

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  31. I graduated from Esperanza High School in 1990. As a sophomore and beyond, we spent many a weekends 4x4ing invthose hills. I’ll never forte the time we accidentally came across this area. And yes, they did satanic rituals up there all the time. Not only did it scare the crap out of us, but to see what was left behind would make the hair on your neck stand up. That first night I’ll never forget we were chased out by people in dark robes and our friend Tonya Roberts was trying to jump in the back of Bobby Brazils truck and fell out. It was horrifying. Great memories.

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    • I was there in the early 70s, it was also known as purple haze. at the bottom there was a deep gully with a rope hanging from a tree and all of us would swing on the rope out over the gully, if you fall you die. one night some gang members came and beat me up and stabbed me in the butt with a broken beer bottle still have a big scare on my rump.

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    • I remember that night, poor Tanya. We kept going back for more many weekends after…Stupid teenagers… aka John Christensen, Greg Peters, Dave Blackburn

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  32. Good writeup. Chino Hills is great for mysteries like the Green Mist, Aerojet, the Pigman, Kevin Cooper, the albino cult monks, Satanists, etc. But I always found the more interesting portion Carbon Canyon. Even the boring stuff like the La Vida hot springs and the snowless ski resort have fascinating histories, nevermind things like the actual cult that still exists (seceded from the Catholic church and has their own prophet), the strip club kingpin who was murdered, or all the stories of bootlegging and prostitution in Sleepy Hollow during prohibition because it was on the county line. Heck, even the basics of “who owned what” is confusing all the way from Yorba Linda through Diamond Bar and Brea, covering Chino Hills State Park and Carbon Canyon. It’s all weirdly interconnected.

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  33. I went to the green mist as part of high school adventures. I also remember stories of albino’s living in the area, who would come out and play volleyball at dark, so the sun wouldn’t burn them. Humm, green mist, albino’s playing volleyball. The stuff kids think of! Anybody else hear stories about albino’s playing in the green mist??

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  34. Im class of 07 at Don Lugo and I’ve heard stories about the green mist.

    My group of friends and I decided to take a trip up the road at night where it was pitch black. It was creepy and mysterious. We had flashlights and were walking around. All of a sudden, one of the flashlight’s became really dim, then stopped working. Now that the mystery is solved, it was a battery malfunction =P

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  36. A bunch of guys we used to hang out with (probably ’90,’91 ish) took my sis, some girl friends and I there once. They told us about the satanist groups and animal sacrifices while we were on our way up-You know, past the point of no return. So we get there, and yes, it’s as creepy as they described. All of a sudden, one of the guys says: “Did you hear that?” Yes, we had heard. It was the sound of things whizzing quickly past our heads. “Oh man, someone is out there with a gun. There’s a silencer on it.” Sure as heck, we’re hearing “bullets” hit things nearby. Suddenly, one hits our friend. We see “blood.” Naturally, we all freak. Next thing you know, three guys with guns come from different directions…running at us, yelling like complete nut jobs. Death seemed imminent, and the girls clung to each other, screaming until the masked men reveal themselves. More of our idiot male friends who had been posted there with paintball guns, waiting for us to come up. I was SO angry, and I’m pretty sure I did my fair share of smacking those guys around, but only for a minute. Because you’ve got to admit…that was a good joke.

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  37. DAL ’89 graduate here. Drove up with a group of us crazy FFA kids one dark and uber scary night…I think I kept my eyes shut and scootched away from the window as much as I could. HaHa. We lived on Pageantry Place in Chino Hills at that time…heard all the great stories, The Pig Man, Aerojet, Kevin Cooper, Burning Crosses, etc.

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  38. I lived in Glenmeade from 68 to 77. Remember there was a very big accident that rained down shrapnel into Los Seranos. Spring to Winter of 77 I was homeless living in a lean to in those hills. I would go up to my “spot” and watch the bangs. Normally at 10 in the morning or 2 in the afternoon. Finally joined the Air Force and what did I end up doing? Working on munitions. I wonder why?

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  39. Oh, by the way, there was an incident up there where a bunch of Chino High students saw the living green mist in the trees in about 1975 and left at high speed. its amazing what you can do with some rope, plastic sheeting, a car battery, an alternator and a lightbulb painted green. 🙂

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  40. I remember going up there a lot of nights to smoke bowls and get with girls. Graduated in 1996 from El Dorado. Always wondered what those cement silos sticking out of the hills were. As far as the weird stuff, I think it was a fascinating place that attracted many people, including satanic cults, young couples looking for a place to fool around, and many others. All adding to the stories and mystery of the area. The most memorable time was when I was with a girl I had just met at a party, we went up there and after about a half hour, someone started talking over a loud speaker near that gate with the camera, that we were in danger and had to leave immediately. All of a sudden orange flashes and faint bass like sounds started coming from those silos in the side of the hills. We were so freaked out and I sped down the hill as fast as I could without flying off the cliff. Never went up there again…

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  42. I grew up in Carbon Canyon and I am 40 now. For quite a few years as a young teenager I lived down the dirt road at the very top of the s turns that heads towards Green Mist/Aerojet from the back side.(The dirt road is closed now and you get to those homes from Carriage Hills.) My house was the closest house to the back part of place at that time and the back was where they blew stuff up. It was not uncommon for me to feel the ground shake from the explosions so I was very intrigued as a kid and would sometimes hike to the fence line where their were clear warnings not to enter. In my late teens I would drive up there with friends and stop on the road just short of the gate and camera and we would hang out and party a bit. So many stories about this place where going around. One of my 1st jobs was working for Napa Auto Parts in Chino and I actually got to deliver auto parts up there a few times. There were quite a few mobile home units all set up together in a few groups and thats where my trip ended and I would walk into one of the units to deliver the parts they had ordered. Who knows all the crazy things they exploded further back in that place and the front part was where they allowed for deliveries along with some office work but the back part was strickly of limits.

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  43. That was a great story. I remember going up there in high school. I graduated from Chino High in 78′. We would all go up there and get creeped out. My dad was a police officer in Chino and always told us to stay away from the area…which is why we HAD to go! lol When I saw this article it made me smile as it brought back a ton of memories. Thanks for sharing it with all of us Chino natives.

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  44. I have firsthand experience of being inside. I was a security guard there. Basically, people that live in that area of Chino know about all kinds of explosives being stored in bunkers there because there are stories in the newspaper like the one about some teenagers that somehow took mortars from there and buried them in their backyard. I hope everyone knows that’s an incredibly stupid and dangerous thing to do, so don’t go in their people. That’s why the guards have to be there–because of idiots like that. So, I’m not giving away information here that’s secret. Before I begin… to the dummies: don’t go past the gate.
    We had to walk around in the pitch black darkness and check the locks on the containers that hold the explosives. It felt like I was in a horror movie walking around each building in the dark with the old rusty hinges on buildings and gates slowly creaking. There were black widows with their webs strung across the paths we would check, trading off every 30 minutes. There was mist that would gather around the paths we’d walk along, so the atmosphere was pretty surreal at times. Suddenly an animal would scurry in the bushes or across a path and it would be a pretty unnerving sometimes. The place has been fenced off for a long time, so there are so many animals inside that you don’t see around the newly built homes outside. For instance, one time I turned around the corner of this old building with my flashlight and the moon as my only light and a full grown male deer (buck) slams it’s hooves and runs away. You can see foxes, coyotes, raccoons, families of deer, etc. you could hear what seemed like 20 coyotes howling at one time like they just caught an animal. One time this girl mentioned she saw a rattlesnake as she ended her shift and I began mine. I drive up to this chain link gate and park (inside are many of the big metal constructions containing who knows what that had the locks we had to check). As I place my foot out of the truck I jump and leap away because there was a baby rattlesnake maybe two feet away on the black pavement. I slowly crept back and saw that it’s head was crushed. Wtf? The girl must have gotten incredibly lucky and walked in just the right place and instead of getting injected with venom, killed it. She didn’t even know. Hearing about the depleted uranium made me keep in mind that I shouldn’t make that my long term place of employment. My last story is about when those hills were on fire. A huge blaze engulfed all through the hills around Orange County and then consumed the entire area we patrolled. Hope those mines, mortars, etc. are sealed and buried well, right? Anyway, try to recall your boss at some low paying job you’ve had. This is the kind of decision mine made: my boss said to just keep patrolling in the truck even though the fire was covering the hills we drove past. I said okay when they were a bit distant, but eventually as I drove by it looked like a vision of hell. I thought of the video game series Onimusha because even in the darkness of night the seared black hills stood out and there were all these glowing hot clumps of flame everywhere. Big flames were roaring just over the nearest hill where our guard shack and driving path was when I called my supervisor again and he said to stay there. Nuts, right? The whole place was covered in smoke and–think of a painting of green hills, with some in the foreground and some crossing behind creating depth. The hills I saw as I looked down and across the valley were charcoal black as far as I could see and were glowing orange in wide patches. I could see huge flames off in the area closer to our guard shack and the only exit road. The road would have been blocked off in no time and we would have been trapped and I don’t know… What…? We’d have to jump a fence and descend through the hills? Or speed through the fire in the truck? Or sit there with, say, 30 feet of pavement between us and a hill engulfed in flames? Never trust your supervisor at a low paying job, kids. Of course I drove out of there, locked the gate behind me and watched the whole become consumed with fire from the neighborhood below.

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  45. This is so funny. We didn’t live in Chino Hills for long, but “Green Mist” was definitely something that came up while living there and going to Chino High from ’86 – ’90. For a time after that, Burns International Security Service had the contract for the gate work there and a friend of mine was posted there. I used to catch tarantulas up along that road. I’m surprised by how far they’ve pushed the lockout gate to… There also used to be a paintball field around there, or at least a place where people would paintball.

    …Green Mist. That just makes my day…

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  46. I grew up about a mile away from this local legend. In Jr. High i ran cross country and this was the road we trained on. The small forest of trees at the beginning of the road was a spot my friends and i would go “paintballing” in. Always had a blast up there no matter what we did. As a kid we would often hear the explosions and knew exactly where it was coming from. My dad, a vietnam vet, always described the sound as a ” sonic boom”. We had always heard about the “green mist” mystery but i never saw it first hand. But during my high school years we would drive up there to hang out, enjoy the scenery, and often would contemplate a way to get through the gaurd gate to no avail. Then an idea came my way.
    The second semester of my senior year of high school i was looking for a part time job. Got the bright idea to request an application for employment at the facility just to see what would happen. Expecting a pointless waste of time I drove up that winding road to the gate, pressed the intercom button and waited a brief moment for a response. “Can i help you?” replied a deep voice. Laughing silently under my breath i asked if i could come in to obtain an app for employment. I assumed they would direct me to some office somewhere far away or just give me a phone number to call being that the complex was so “top secret”. Nope! Ten seconds later i hear a loud buzz and the gate opens up! The gaurd instructs me to drive up to the first small shack on the left and he would provide one for me. Totally shocked!! After all the years of running, biking, and driving up that road to a spot where i wondered what it would be like just to see the gate open, and now im driving in?! Haha! Cool. I drive in about a hundred yards to small wooden guard shack feeling like secret agent 007. The uniformed man already had a three page application in hand. I roll down my window, he hands me the app and said to just bring it back when its completed. He promptly instructs me to turn around and exit the facility. Took all of about 3 minutes. Haha! Success.
    Well it was cool at the time and whenever the subject of areojet came up i would always bragg that ” I actually drove past the gate and onto the legendary property”.
    I never did return to submit the application. I had already completed some wacky childhood goal of entering into the twilight zone area of Chino Hills. Thats my tiny Areojet claim to fame!!

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  47. I graduated from Bonita High School in La Verne. We used to go to the Green Mist all the time in the early 70s. I remember we heard stories of dead animals and one time we saw a dead cow. I never knew about Aerojet and now it all makes sense. We saw the green mist coming over the hill a few times. We would get scared to death and drive out of here as fast as we could. Thanks for s great article.

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  48. Reading those stories brought back HUGE memories for me. My family moved into upper Los Serranos in 1955! We lived there for 10 years until I was in fourth grade. Too many stories to tell. Green mist, talking trees…we used to travel the fence of the Aerojet facility and catch wild guinea pigs. We always thought they were truly guinea pigs in that they were radioactive or drugged. They never lived that long. We would hike up the trail and hear walkie talkies and it reminded me of scenes from War of the Worlds.
    There was los serranos elementary school that got its’ windows blown out when I was in first grade. It happened early in the morning. Thought it was an A bomb. No school for days. Enjoy the stories….because they are REAL!!

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  50. Wow, I used to ride my motorbike up that road a lot but NEVER new of any of the stories!! Still live in Chino Hills, carbon Canyon, such a great place to live!!!

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