YouTuber facing federal charges after taking drone footage of top-secret ‘underground Pentagon’, FBI claims

A YouTuber is facing federal charges after he flew a drone over a highly sensitive military installation known as the “underground Pentagon,” capturing footage of the ultra-secure compound that he later posted online, according to an FBI probable cause affidavit reviewed by The Independent.

Stuart Dale Bennett, who runs the “Area 82 Surveillance911” YouTube channel, is accused of gathering aerial recordings of the Raven Rock Mountain Complex, which has been described as one of the nation’s “most closely guarded secret military facilities, roughly comparable to ‘Area 51’ in southern Nevada.”

The self-contained 650-acre subterranean city, hidden deep within a hollowed-out mountain on the Maryland-Pennsylvania border and known as the “underground Pentagon,” is meant to serve as an emergency relocation site for top U.S. officials and vital military operations in the event of a nuclear attack or other catastrophe.

The affidavit, filed February 12 in support of a criminal complaint against Bennett, alleges the videos appeared to depict “critical infrastructure of importance to national security” – specifically, two clips titled, “Raven Rock Mountain Complex COG Site (2nd Pentagon),” and “Blue Ridge Summit / Former Fort Ritchie Communications Site with lots of secret squirrel antennae.”

“Notably, the Area 82 Surveillance911 YouTube channel actually included video titles that in some cases identifies sites as being considered ‘classified’ or ‘Top Secret,’” the affidavit states.

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“Additionally, Area 82 Surveillance911 had a folder titled, ‘Classified Secret Sites’ which contained approximately seven videos of UAS overflight of U.S. Government facilities,” the affidavit continues.

The investigation into Bennett, from Maryland, began on September 8, 2025, when an unidentified U.S. military official contacted the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, made famous by TV series NCIS.

Theofficial flagged a YouTube channel that had posted drone footage a week earlier of what the probable cause affidavit describes as “an identified sensitive U.S. national defense facility.”

Ten days later, the FBI joined the investigation, the affidavit states. Agents reviewed the channel, “Area 82 Surveillance911,” maintained by a user going by “mtsxhacker,” and flagged multiple videos of Raven Rock, which “appeared to have been taken from an Unmanned Aircraft System,” according to the affidavit.

The agents traced the account’s IP address, and subpoenaed YouTube for the associated email and recovery phone numbers, identifying mtsxhacker as Bennett, who had used them previously to “submit unrelated complaints to the FBI,” the affidavit continues.

On September 24, a federal magistrate judge approved a trio of search warrants allowing the FBI to search Bennett’s residence, vehicle, and person, along with any electronic devices discovered along the way, the affidavit goes on. The following day, it says agents seized a Potensic Atom drone, four micro-SD cards, and an HP Z240 Tower Workstation, from Bennett’s bedroom.

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“During the execution of the search warrant, FBI agents observed that Bennett’s computer monitor (connected to his HP Z240 Tower Workstation) displayed that the Area82 Surveillance911 YouTube channel was logged into and appeared to have a video processing for upload to the channel,” the affidavit states.

A U.S. Customs and Border Protection unit specializing in advanced drone forensics, the Center for Air and Marine Drone Exploitation, (CAMDEx) extracted the contents of one of the micro-SD cards, revealing off-limits footage of Raven Rock, according to the affidavit. It showed an area of the facility called “Site C,” reportedly a key communications site at Raven Rock, and had been taken on September 6, 2025, the affidavit alleges.

The airspace surrounding Raven Rock is restricted, and the affidavit says Bennett “did not seek, nor was granted by the relevant U.S. Government authorities, authorization to conduct such overflight.”

A separate review of Bennett’s computer turned up queries to Google Maps for directions between his home and the Raven Rock complex, as well as visits to websites about the facility, according to the affidavit.

Investigators also located a photo Bennett saved to his files, titled, “2 hf antenna and microwave towers on top of Raven Rock,” along with four videos of off-limits drone footage taken there, the affidavit states. Additionally, it says, Bennett’s search history showed that he visited his own YouTube channel on September 7, 2025 and watched the “Raven Rock Mountain Complex COG Site (2nd Pentagon)” video.

On November 10, 2025, the FBI and NCIS interviewed Bennett at the FBI Baltimore Field Office. Bennett told agents “that he owned and flew UAS,” but was not properly licensed to do so, and admitted to being behind the Area 82 Surveillance911 YouTube channel, the affidavit contends.

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“Bennett admitted that he knew he was not permitted to fly UAS over military bases,” it says, adding that Bennett claimed someone named “Elliott” had given him “a list of interesting government sites to fly over,” including Raven Rock.

Bennett, who does not have an attorney listed in court records and was unable to be reached for comment Monday is charged with the knowing and willful violation of national defense airspace. He is set to make his initial appearance in court on February 20.

If convicted, he faces up a year behind bars.

Strategically set about six miles north of the Camp David presidential retreat, Raven Rock is the alternate command center for the North American Aerospace Defense Command and the United States Northern Command, or, NORAD and USNORTHCOM.

In a doomsday-type scenario, a helicopter squadron from Joint Base Andrews would immediately fly a “small number” of senior government officials to Raven Rock and a handful of other hardened bunkers to ensure the continuity of essential government functions, according to historian and journalist Garrett Graff’s 2017 book, Raven Rock: The Story of the U.S. Government's Secret Plan to Save Itself – While the Rest of Us Die.

Among others, Paul Wolfowitz, the deputy secretary of defense under President George W. Bush, was reportedly evacuated to Raven Rock on 9/11.