Less than 100 miles from Las Vegas, Nevada is the most famous secret military installation on the planet. Rumors swirl around this base, much like the mysterious aircraft that twist and turn in the skies overhead. Although it’s known by many names, most people call it by the Atomic Energy Commission’s (AEC) designation: Area 51.
There are several theories about how Area 51 got its name. The most popular is that the facility borders the Nevada Test Site (NTS). The AEC used the NTS as testing grounds for nuclear bombs. The NTS is mapped as a grid of squares that are numbered from one to 30 (with a few omissions). Area 51, while not part of this grid, borders Area 15. Many say the site got the name Area 51 by transposing the 1 and 5 of its neighbor. Another popular theory is that the number 51 was chosen because it was not likely to be used as part of the NTS system in the future (in case the NTS expanded later on).
The first documented use of the name Area 51 comes from a film made by the company Lockheed Martin. There are also declassified documents from the 1960s and 1970s that refer to a facility called Area 51. Today, officials refer to the facility as an operating location near Groom Lake when speaking to the public –The name alone inspires thoughts of government conspiracies, secret “black” aircraft and alien technologies. Facts, myths and legends weave together in such a way that it can become difficult to separate reality from fiction. What exactly goes on in this installation? Why did the government alternatively acknowledge and deny its existence until the 1990s? Why is the airspace over it so restricted that even military aircraft are forbidden from flying through it? And, what does it have to do with Roswell, New Mexico?
Each question seems to have a million different answers. Some answers are plausible, while others stretch credulity so far that if someone said it out loud, you might feel the urge to back away from them slowly. In this article, we’ll look at the facts as far as anyone outside of the facility can determine them and examine the more popular theories about Area 51.
What’s In A Name?Area 51 is known by many names. Kelly Johnson, who was responsible for the facility’s construction, named it Paradise Ranch (he was being sarcastic). Other names for the base include The Ranch, Watertown Strip, The Box, Red Square, The Farm, Groom Lake, Dreamland and the romantic name Air Force Flight Test Center, Detachment 3.
Area 51’s coordinates are 37°14′36.52″N, 115°48′41.16″W. You can get a great view of it using Google Earth. Just type “Area 51″ into the “Fly To” field and the map does the rest. For decades, the base remained hidden from almost everyone, but in 1988 a Soviet satellite photographed the base. Several publications acquired the photos and published them. The secrecy of the base is still of paramount importance, but as far as satellite coverage is concerned, the cat is out of the bag.
A dry lake bed called Groom Lake borders the base. To the west is the NTS. The closest town is Rachel, Nevada, which is 25 miles north of the base. The base itself occupies only a fraction of the more than 90,000 acres it sits on. It consists of a hangar, a guard shack, a few radar antennas, some housing facilities, a mess hall, offices, runways and shelters. The shelters are “scoot and hide” buildings, designed so aircraft can quickly move under cover when satellites pass overhead. Some allege that what you can see on the surface is only a tiny part of the actual facility. They believe that the surface buildings rest on top of a labyrinthine underground base. A few claim the underground facility has up to 40 levels and that it is attached via underground railways to other sites in Los Alamos, White Sands and Los Angeles. Skeptics are quick to point out that such a massive construction project would require an enormous labor force, the removal of tons of earth that would have to go somewhere and the need for a huge amount of concrete and other construction material. The lack of evidence convinces skeptics that, for the most part, what you see is what you get. Believers, on the other hand, dismiss the skeptics’ doubts.
So what goes on at this base? According to the Air Force, the facility’s purpose is for “the testing of technologies and systems training for operations critical to the effectiveness of U.S. military forces and the security of the United States.” All specifics regarding the facility and the projects housed there are classified. What is known is the Air Force, the CIA and Lockheed have used the base as a staging ground for test flights of experimental, secret aircraft, also known as black aircraft. The base served as the development and testing facility for cutting edge aircraft technology from the U-2 spy plane to the F-117A Stealth Fighter.Some believe that an alien spacecraft crashed in Roswell, New Mexico, and that the government shipped the wreckage and a body to Area 51 for examination and study. A few go even further, claiming the facility has underground levels and tunnels connecting it to other secret sites, and that it contains warehouses full of alien technology and even living alien specimens. Some theorize that the aliens are actually the ones running the show and that their goal is to create a human-alien hybrid (the aliens seem to have lost the ability to reproduce on their own). Stories cast the aliens in roles from benevolent visitors to evil overlords who subsist on a paste made from ground-up human bits. Air Force representatives have publicly denied that aliens have anything at all to do with Area 51, but that seems to have only strengthened conspiracy theorists’ wilder suggestions. June 24, 1947, was the day the term flying saucer entered the American vocabulary. That was the day Kenneth Arnold reported sighting a UFO while piloting his private plane over Washington state. He said the object flew like a saucer would if you skipped it across the water, and the flying saucer was born. On July 8, 1947, Roswell Army Air Field issued a press release written by General William “Butch” Blanchard, stating they had recovered the remains of an unidentified flying object. The Army quickly retracted the statement, but not before it ran in several papers. According to the Army, it was not a flying disc at all, but a weather balloon. Years later, declassified documents said that the object recovered at Roswell was actually a balloon created for a surveillance program called Project Mogul. The weather balloon story was a cover for this secret project. Of course, UFO believers say that the spy balloon story is also a cover, and that the Army really did recover an alien craft.Because the airspace around and above Area 51 is used for test flights and training missions, it is quite possible (and even probable) that you’ll see aircraft flying overhead. Sometimes that aircraft might be exotic, perhaps even unidentifiable to the untrained eye. Even familiar aircraft might fool you into thinking you’ve seen something not of this Earth. Skeptics point out that many reported UFO sightings coincide conveniently with the scheduled daily arrival of the Janet flights to the base. Many of the formerly classified projects at Area 51 really do look to be otherworldly. UAVs in particular seem strange, as they don’t require a cockpit or doors. In addition, many training exercises use bright flares to draw off missile fire or even just to distract onlookers while secret aircraft go through maneuvers.
A popular spot to watch for UFOs is the Black Mailbox on Nevada Highway 375. The mailbox belongs to a local rancher and became famous when Lazar said it was the location he’d bring people to in order to watch scheduled test flights of alien spacecraft. Today, the mailbox has been repainted white and the rancher has said many times that he doesn’t believe any of the craft flying overhead are alien in origin.
During World War II, the Army Air Corps (precursor to our modern Air Force) built several runways in Nevada, including a pair of small runways at Groom Lake. They named the spot the Army Air Corps Gunnery School. After the 1940s, the runways were abandoned.
In the early 1950s, the CIA entered a partnership with Lockheed to develop high altitude aircraft to use in surveillance missions. Kelly Johnson of Lockheed helmed the project. He formed a department of engineers and test pilots that eventually took on the name Skunk Works. The Skunk Works department was famous for being very secretive and nearly fanatical in the pursuit of their goals.
The CIA and Johnson both knew that secrecy was critical to their success, and so Johnson needed to find a location to develop and test secret aircraft. He wanted a location that was remote enough to avoid notice, yet still close enough to a major city so that supplying the facility would not be a monumental task. The site would need to be easily accessible by aircraft and out of the way of commercial and military flight paths. It would also need space to house a sizable force of military and civilian employees.
In 1955, he traveled to Nevada with test pilot Tony LeVier and CIA representative Osmond Ritland to find a good place to use as a base of operations for test flights. Ritland trained at the Gunnery School and told Johnson about it. Johnson decided the location was ideal for their operations.
Four months later, crews completed the initial construction. U-2 test flights began and President Eisenhower signed an Executive Order restricting the airspace over Groom Lake. The CIA, the Atomic Energy Commission and Lockheed oversaw base operations. Eventually, control of the base would pass to the Department of Energy and the Air Force.
The term “Area 51” is now popularly associated with UFOs but few people know what it actually means. Area 51 – sometimes referred to as Groom Lake or Dreamland – is an area of the Nevada desert, located just north of Las Vegas, which is used by the US military for testing experimental aircraft. The stealth fighters and bombers, and the famous U-2 spy plane, all were seen here before they moved into use by the American military. But, advanced as some of these aircraft may be, some believe the technology present at Area 51 goes way beyond even that.For years, Area 51 has been linked to the UFO mystery. Much of this derives from the story of one Bob Lazar. Lazar came forward in the 1980s, claiming to be a technician who had worked at Area 51 on a secret project to reverse engineer a UFO. According to his account, Lazar worked on the propulsion system of the flying saucer which was powered by a mysterious compound called “Element 115.” Lazar boasts of having seen a flying disk, approximately 30 feet in diameter, take off in a test flight while under remote control. Internally, the saucer he saw – and he says there were up to eight others, all different – featured no sharp surfaces. Everything was curved. The use of space was inefficient, he says, and the craft was clearly designed for beings smaller than humans.
The UFO research community has been greatly divided on the issue of whether or not Bob Lazar is credible. Critics say that educational credentials did not check out. But Lazar’s supporters insist the authorities have been systematically erasing any paper record which referred to him – so that there would be nothing left to corroborate his story.
Indeed, the military originally denied that he had worked for them at all. When Lazar was able to produce an internal telephone directory showing his own name, however, they acknowledged that yes, he had worked for them, but not in the capacity he claimed.
Lazar also demonstrated a payslip which contains the intriguing designation E-6722MAJ. This is interesting because it suggests a connection with MAJESTIC-12, or MAJ-12, the secret organization some believe was created by the US government to deal with all extra-terrestrial-related matters.
Apart from the Lazar story, Area 51 has been linked to a number of rumors and conspiracy theories. Some of those who think the moon landings were faked believe the astronaut footage was filmed, not on the lunar surface, but in a studio built at Area 51. In the 1990s, some interesting video material surfaced. It showed the interrogation of an insectoid-looking alien, and had reportedly been smuggled out of Area 51. An indication of the importance the US government attaches to preserving secrecy at Area 51 came with Skylab space mission in 1974. The astronauts were going to be taking photographs of the Earth’s surface, but were given specific instructions NOT to photograph exactly one place on the entire planet: Area 51. Despite these instructions, whether inadvertently or not, they did photograph the area, setting off an internal debate within the American government about whether or not the images could be made available to the public in the usual way, under Freedom of Information legislation. In the event, they were not. It is extraordinary that this area was regarded as so important, however, and it does tend to buttress, even if only indirectly, many of the conspiracy theories.
Fortunately for us, satellite imagery is now available to the masses. You can see Area 51 for yourself on Google Maps. If you click the Map tab, you’ll notice there isn’t one! Spooky! Also, the highest zoom level on the satellite image isn’t available for some reason. If you zoom in as far as you can go, however, you’ll see some aircraft on the landing strips, including what look very much like black helicopters (so the conspiracy theorists were right!). There are even a few strange circular shapes. Round buildings, just shapes on the ground or flying saucers waiting to take off? Have a look and decide for yourself.Today the area surrounding the base is patrolled by guards carrying automatic weapons. They are authorized to use deadly force against intruders and are backed up by helicopters and networks of motion sensors buried beneath the ground. Area 51 is part of the much larger Nellis Air Force Range, which is used for testing military aircraft. All but a select few of the test pilots are warned not to enter Area 51’s airspace, however. The pilots refer to this super-restricted airspace as “The Box” and, if they do happen to stray into it, can expect to be harshly interrogated and rebuked afterwards. Whatever goes on at Area 51, someone doesn’t want us to find out about it.
Area 51 has been at the centre of so many conspiracy theories, you have to wonder: could there be so much smoke without some fire?
Gyan.com
