AREA 51 TOP 10 FACTS
AREA 51
REVERSE ENGINEERED
NAZI SPACECRAFT?
"TITTER YE NOT"
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Late one afternoon out at Area 51, a Cessna
aeroplane landed at
the "secret" base. The pilot was handcuffed and taken to the interrogation room.
The pilot's story was that he took off from Vegas, got lost, and spotted the Base just as he was about to run out of fuel.
The Air Force ran a
full FBI check on the pilot and held him overnight.
By the next day, they were finally convinced that the pilot wasn't a spy. They gave him a terrifying "you-did-not-see-a-base" briefing, complete with threats of spending the rest of his life in prison, told him Vegas was that-a-way on such-and-such a heading, and sent him on his way.
The next day, to the total disbelief of the Air Force, the same plane showed up again. MP's surrounded the plane... only this time there were two people inside.
The same pilot jumped out and said, "Do anything you want to me, but my wife is in the plane and you have to tell her where I was last night!"
*****************
The United States Air Force facility commonly known as Area
51 is a remote detachment of Edwards Air Force Base, within
the Nevada Test and Training Range. According to the Central
Intelligence Agency (CIA), the correct names for the facility are
Homey Airport (ICAO:
KXTA) and Groom Lake, though the
name Area 51 was used in a CIA document from the Vietnam
War. Other names used for the facility include Dreamland, and
nicknames Paradise Ranch, Home Base and Watertown. The
special use airspace around the field is referred to as a
Restricted Area 4808 North (R-4808N).
The base's current primary purpose is publicly unknown;
however, based on historical evidence, it most likely supports
development and testing of experimental aircraft and weapons
systems (black projects). The intense secrecy surrounding the
base has made it the frequent subject of conspiracy theories
and a central component to unidentified flying object (UFO)
folklore. Although the base has never been declared a secret
base, all research and occurrings in Area 51 are Top Secret /
Sensitive Compartmented Information (TS/SCI). In July 2013,
following an FOIA request filed in 2005, the CIA publicly
acknowledged the existence of the base for the first time,
declassifying documents detailing the history and purpose of
Area 51.
Area 51 is located in the southern portion of Nevada in the
western United States, 83 miles (134km) north-northwest of
Las Vegas. Situated at its center, on the southern shore of Groom Lake, is a large military
airfield. The site was acquired by the United States Air Force in 1955, primarily for the
flight testing of the Lockheed U2 aircraft . The area around Area 51, including the small
town of Rachel on the aptly named "Extraterrestrial Highway", is a popular tourist
destination.
The original rectangular base of 6 by 10 miles (9.7 by 16.1 km) is now part of the so-
called "Groom box", a rectangular area measuring 23 by 25 miles (37 by 40 km), of
restricted airspace. The area is connected to the internal Nevada Test Site (NTS) road network, with paved roads leading south to Mercury and west to Yucca Flat. Leading northeast from the lake, the wide and well-maintained Groom Lake Road runs through a pass in the Jumbled Hills. The road formerly led to mines in the Groom basin, but has been improved since their closure. Its winding course runs past a security checkpoint, but the restricted area around the base extends further east. After leaving the restricted area, Groom Lake Road descends eastward to the floor of the Tikaboo Valley, passing the dirt-road entrances to several small ranches, before converging with State Route 375 the " Extraterrestrial Highway ", south of Rachel.
Area 51 shares a border with the Yucca Flat region of the Nevada Test Site , the location of 739 of the 928 nuclear tests conducted by the United States Department of Energy at NTS. The Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository is 44 miles (71 km) southwest of Groom Lake.
Groom Lake is a salt flat in Nevada used for runways of the Nellis Bombing Range Test Site airport (KXTA) on the north of the Area 51 USAF military installation. The lake at 4,409 ft (1,344 m) elevation is approximately 3.7 miles (6.0 km) from north to south and 3 miles (4.8 km) from east to west at its widest point. Located within the namesake Groom Lake Valley portion of the Tonopah Basin, the lake is 25 mi (40 km) south of Rachel, Nevada. The origin of the Area 51 name is unclear. The most accepted comes from a grid numbering system of the area by the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC); while Area 51 isn't part of this system, it is adjacent to Area 15. Another explanation is that 51 was used because it was unlikely that the AEC would use the number.
Lead and silver were discovered in the southern part of the Groom Range in 1864, and the English Groome Lead Mines
Limited company financed the Conception Mines in the 1870s, giving the district its name (nearby mines included Maria, Willow and White Lake). The interests in Groom were acquired by J. B. Osborne and partners and patented in 1876, and his son acquired the interests in the 1890s. Claims were incorporated as two 1916 companies with mining continuing until 1918 and resuming after World War II until the early 1950s.
The Groom Lake test facility was established in April 1955 by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) for Project Aquatone, the development of the Lockheed U-2 strategic reconnaissance aircraft. As part of the project, the director, Richard M. Bissell, Jr., understood that, given the extreme secrecy enveloping
the project, the flight test and pilot training programs could
not be conducted at Edwards Air Force Base or Lockheed's
Palmdale facility. A search for a suitable testing site for the
U-2 was conducted under the same extreme security as the
rest of the project.
He notified Lockheed, who sent an inspection team out to
Groom Lake. According to Lockheed's U-2 designer Kelly
Johnson:
... We flew over it and within thirty seconds, you
knew that was the place ... it was right by a dry lake. Man
alive, we looked at that lake, and we all looked at each other.
It was another Edwards, so we wheeled around, landed on
that lake, taxied up to one end of it. It was a perfect natural
landing field... as smooth as a billiard table without anything
being done to it. Johnson used a compass to layout the
direction of the first runway. The place was called "Groom
Lake". The lakebed made an ideal strip from which they could test aircraft, and the Emigrant Valley's mountain ranges and the NTS perimeter, about 100 miles north of Las Vegas, protected the test site from visitors. The CIA asked the AEC to acquire the land, designated " Area 51 " on the map, and add it to the Nevada Test Site.
During the Cold War, one of the missions carried out by the United States was the test and evaluation of captured Soviet fighter aircraft. Beginning in the late 1960s, and for several decades, Area 51 played host to an assortment of Soviet-built aircraft. Under the HAVE DOUGHNUT, HAVE DRILL and HAVE FERRY programs , the first MiGs flown in the United States were used to evaluate the aircraft in performance, technical, and operational capabilities, pitting the types against U.S. fighters. This was not a new mission, as testing of foreign technology by the USAF began during World War II. After the war, testing of acquired foreign technology was performed by the Air Technical Intelligence Center (ATIC, which became very influential during the Korean War), under the direct command of the Air Materiel Control Department. In 1961 ATIC became the Foreign Technology Division (FTD), and was reassigned to Air Force Systems Command. ATIC personnel were sent anywhere where foreign aircraft could be found.
The amount of information the United States government has been willing to provide regarding Area 51 has generally been minimal. The area surrounding the lake is permanently off-limits both to civilian and normal military air traffic. Security clearances are checked regularly; cameras and weaponry are not allowed. Even military pilots training in the NAFR risk disciplinary action if they stray into the exclusionary "box" surrounding Groom's airspace. Surveillance is supplemented using buried motion sensors. Area 51 is a common destination for Janet, the de facto name of a small fleet of passenger aircraft operated on behalf of the United States Air Force to transport military personnel, primarily from McCarran International Airport .
In January 2006, space historian Dwayne A. Day published an article in online aerospace magazine The Space Review titled "Astronauts and Area 51:
the Skylab Incident". The article was based on a memo written
in 1974 to CIA director William Colby by an unknown CIA official. The memo reported
that astronauts on board Skylab 4 had, as part of a larger program, inadvertently
photographed a location of which the memo said:
There were specific instructions not to
do this. This was the only location which had such an instruction.
Although the name of the location was obscured, the context led Day to believe that the
subject was Groom Lake. As Day noted:
In other words, the CIA considered no other spot
on Earth to be as sensitive as Groom Lake.
The memo details debate between federal agencies regarding whether the images
should be classified, with Department of Defense agencies arguing that it should, and
NASA and the State Department arguing against classification. The memo itself
questions the legality of unclassified images to be retroactively classified.
Remarks on the memo, handwritten apparently by DCI (Director of Central Intelligence)
Colby himself, read:
Secretary of State Rusk did raise it—said State Dept. people felt
strongly. But he was inclined to leave the decision to me (DCI)—I confessed some
question over need to protect since:
USSR has it from there own sats. What really does it
reveal? If exposed, don't we just say classified USAF work is done there?
The declassified documents do not disclose the outcome of discussions regarding the
Skylab imagery. The behind-the-scenes debate proved moot as the photograph
appeared in the Federal Government's Archive of Satellite Imagery along with the
remaining Skylab 4 photographs, with no record of anyone noticing until Day identified it
in 2007.
Its secretive nature and undoubted connection to classified aircraft research, together with reports of unusual phenomena, have led Area 51 to become a focus of modern UFO and conspiracy theories. Some of the activities mentioned in such theories at Area 51 include:
The storage, examination, and reverse engineering of crashed alien spacecraft (including material supposedly recovered at Roswell), the study of their occupants (living and dead), and the manufacture of aircraft based on alien technology.
Meetings or joint undertakings with extraterrestrials.
The development of exotic energy weapons for the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) or other weapons
programs.
The development of means of weather control.
The development of time travel and teleportation technology.
The development of unusual and exotic propulsion systems related to the Aurora Program.
Activities related to a supposed shadowy one world government or the Majestic 12 organisation.
ALIEN WITH ADOLF HITLER?
In the mid-1950s, civilian aircraft flew under 20,000 feet while military aircraft flew under 40,000 feet. Once the U-2 began flying at above 60,000 feet, an unexpected side effect was an increasing number of UFO sighting reports. Sightings occurred most often during early evenings hours, when airline pilots flying west saw the U-2's silver wings reflect the setting sun, giving the aircraft a "fiery" appearance. Many sighting reports came to the Air Force's Project Blue Book, which investigated UFO sightings, through air-traffic controllers and letters to the government. The project checked U-2 and later OXCART flight records to eliminate the majority of UFO reports it received during the late 1950s and 1960s, although it could not reveal to the letter writers the truth behind what they saw .:72–73 Similarly, veterans of experimental projects such as OXCART and NERVA at Area 51 agree that their work (including 2,850 OXCART test flights alone) inadvertently prompted many of the UFO sightings and other rumours:
"the shape of OXCART was unprecedented, with its wide, disk-like fuselage designed to carry vast quantities of fuel. Commercial pilots cruising over Nevada at dusk would look up and see the bottom of OXCART whiz by at 2,000-plus mph. The aircraft's titanium body, moving as fast as a bullet, would reflect the sun's rays in a way that could make anyone think, UFO.”
They believe that the rumours helped maintain secrecy over Area 51's actual operations. While the veterans deny the existence of a vast underground railroad system, many of Area 51's operations did (and presumably still do) occur
underground. Several people have claimed knowledge of events supporting Area 51 conspiracy theories. These have included BobLazar , who claimed in1989 that he had worked at Area 51's "Sector Four (S4)", said to be located
underground inside the Papoose Range near Papoose Lake. Lazar has stated he was contracted to work with alien spacecraft that the U.S. government had in its possession. Similarly, the 1996 documentary Dreamland directed by Bruce Burgess included an interview with a 71 -year-old mechanical engineer who claimed to be a former employee at Area 51 during the 1950s. His claims included that he had worked on a " flying disc
simulator " which had been based on a disc originating from a crashed
extraterrestrial craft and was used to train US Pilots. He also claimed to have
worked with an extraterrestrial being named "J-Rod" and described as a
"telepathic translator".
In 2004, Dan Burisch (pseudonym of Dan Crain) claimed to have worked on
cloning alien viruses at Area 51, also alongside the alien named " J-Rod ".
Burisch's scholarly credentials are the subject of much debate, as he was
apparently working as a Las Vegas parole officer in 1989 while also earning a
PhD at State University of New York (SUNY).
Novels, films, television programs, and other fictional portrayals of Area 51
describe it—or a fictional counterpart—as a haven for extraterrestrials, time
travel, and sinister conspiracies, often linking it with the Roswell UFO incident.
In the 1996 action film Independence Day, the United States military uses alien technology captured at Roswell to attack the invading alien fleet from Area 51. The
" Hangar 51 " government warehouse of the Indiana Jones films stores, among other exotic items, the Ark of the Covenant and an alien corpse from Roswell.
In the television series Stargate SG-1, Area 51 serves as a storage, research and development, building, and testing facility for advanced weapon systems and aircraft, spacecraft designed using alien technology discovered after the Stargate was activated. The laboratories were
also engaged in advanced medical research. The series states that, prior to the Stargate's activation, rumours of alien technology or individuals existing at Area 51 were unfounded.
The television series Seven Days takes place inside Area 51, with the base containing a covert NSA time travel operation using alien technology recovered from Roswell. The 2005 video game Area 51 is set in the base, and mentions the Roswell and moon landing hoax conspiracy theories.
AREA 51 HANGER WITH UFO
Robert Doherty's Area 51 novel series is set on the base, and Operation High jump is said to have been a cover for an expedition to excavate flying saucers buried under Antarctica's ice shelf by long-ago extra-terrestrial visitors. The final mission of the 2000 video game Deus Ex is set in Area 51. In the game's story, powerful surveillance systems that monitor global communication networks are hosted at Area 51, and the player's actions there dictate the course of the future. The player can choose to merge their own cybernetic systems with the intelligent surveillance system there to become a benevolent dictator of the world, overthrow the present ruler of Area 51 and use its technologies to rule the world indirectly with an invisible hand, or destroy the entire facility, which would destroy the global network, and would also prevent anyone from controlling the world.
The Las Vegas 51s are a AAA minor league professional baseball team.
State Route 375 (SR 375) is a state highway in south-central Nevada in the United States. The highway stretches 98 miles (158 km) from State Route 318 at Crystal Springs northwest to U.S. Route 6 (US 6) at Warm Springs. The route travels through mostly unoccupied desert terrain, with much of its alignment paralleling the northern edges of the Nellis Air Force Range . The road originally traversed through what is now the northern reaches of the air force range in the 1930s, when it was previously designated State Route 25A and later part of State Route 25.
The top-secret Area 51 government base is near SR 375 and many travellers have reported UFO observations and other strange alien activity along this road. Such stories prompted the state to officially designate the route as the Extraterrestrial Highway in 1996. The small town of Rachel, located near the centre of the highway, caters to tourists and UFO seekers with alien-themed businesses. Although the area receives some tourism due to alleged extra-terrestrials activity, SR 375 remains a lightly travelled route.
An unidentified flying object , or UFO, in its most general definition, is any apparent anomaly in the sky that is not identifiable as a known object or phenomenon. Culturally, UFOs are associated with claims of visitation by extra-terrestrials life or government-related conspiracy theories, and have become popular subjects in fiction. While UFOs are often later identified, sometimes identification may not be possible owing to the usually low quality of evidence related to UFO sightings (generally anecdotal evidence and eyewitness accounts).
Stories of fantastical celestial apparitions have been told since antiquity, but the
term "UFO" (or "UFOB") was officially created in 1953 by the United States Air
Force (USAF) to serve as a catch-all for all such reports. In its initial definition,
the USAF stated that a " UFOB " was "any airborne object which by performance,
aerodynamic characteristics, or unusual features, does not conform to any
presently known aircraft or missile type, or which cannot be positively identified
as a familiar object." Accordingly, the term was initially restricted to that fraction
of cases which remained unidentified after investigation, as the USAF was
interested in potential national security reasons and/or "technical aspects".
During the late 1940s and through the 1950s, UFOs were often referred to
popularly as " flying saucers " or "flying discs". The term UFO became more
widespread during the 1950s, at first in technical literature, but later in popular
use. UFOs garne red considerable interest during the Cold War, an era
associated with a heightened concern for national security. Various studies have
concluded that the phenomenon does not represent a threat to national security
nor does it contain anything worthy of scientific pursuit (e.g., 1951 Flying Saucer
Working Party, 1953 CIA Robertson Panel, USAF Project Blue Book, Condon
Committee). The Oxford English Dictionary defines a UFO as "An unidentified
flying object; a 'flying saucer'." The first published book to use the word was
authored by Donald E. Keyhoe.
The acronym "UFO" was coined by Captain Edward J. Ruppelt , who headed
Project Blue Book, then the USAF's official investigation of UFOs. He wrote,
"Obviously the term 'flying saucer' is misleading when applied to objects of every
conceivable shape and performance. For this reason the military prefers the more general, if less colourful,
name:
unidentified flying objects. UFO (pronounced Yoo-foe) for short. Other phrases that were used officially and that
predate the UFO acronym include "flying flapjack", "flying disc", "unexplained flying discs", "unidentifiable object", and "flying saucer". The phrase "flying saucer" had gained widespread attention after the summer of 1947. On June 24, a civilian pilot named Kenneth Arnold reported seeing nine objects flying in formation near Mount Rainier. Arnold timed the sighting and estimated the speed of discs to be over 1,200 mph (1,931 km/h). At the time, he described the objects' shape as being somewhat disc-like or saucer-like, leading to newspaper accounts of "flying saucers" and "flying discs".
In popular usage the term UFO came to be used to refer to claims of alien spacecraft. And because of the public and media ridicule associated with the topic, some investigators prefer to use such terms as unidentified aerial phenomenon (or UAP)
or anomalous phenomena, as in the title of the National Aviation Reporting Center on Anomalous Phenomena ( NARCAP ).
“Let me get this straight." He struggled to form the words. "You're telling me all the conspiracy nuts are right? The Freemasons, the Illuminati, Area 51- all that shit's real?”
― Laura Oliva, A World Apart
The material on this site does not necessarily reflect the views of What If? Tees.
The Images and Text are not meant to offend but to Promote Positive Open Debate and Free Speech.
The material on this site does not reflect the views of What If? Tees.
The Images and Text are not meant to offend but to Promote Positive Open Debate and Free Speech.