Area 51: Testing facility or nucleus of alien research?
It’s shown up in movies, television shows, comics, novels, video games, and more. This week, we go in depth exploring the one, the only Area 51. If you want more conspiratorial weirdness, check out our previous looks at the Hall of Records, Stonehenge, and the Voynich Manuscript.
Area 51
About 80 miles northwest of Las Vegas, on the shore of a salt flat known as Groom Lake, lies Homey Airport, a United States Air Force facility that is much more commonly known as Area 51. Though not its official name, the name given to the facility in Vietnam-era CIA documents has stuck, due largely to its ominous sound and its prevalence in other media.
There’s a lot that we don’t know about Area 51 — in fact, we know shockingly little about the facility with any certainty — as even its primary reason for existing is kept under lock and key. While it’s not technically a “secret base,” that’s largely a semantic distinction, as it is surrounded by special-use airspace and everything that goes on inside of it is regarded as Top Secret.
In fact, even though the site had been a fixture in pop culture for years at that point, the CIA didn’t even publicly acknowledge that the base existed until 2013, and only then as a response to a Freedom of Information Act request from back in 2005. Unfortunately, while those documents did shed some light on how the base had been historically used, pointing toward it being a site meant for the development and testing of new aircraft and weapons, they still leave a lot of questions unanswered, and leave conspiracy theorists, naturally, unsatisfied.
First up? The name. “Area 51” was used by the CIA during the Vietnam war, but it’s still unclear where the name actually came from. The more mundane guesses have to do with the grid developed by the Atomic Energy Commission. But the problem with that answer is that there is no Area 51. This has been explained as being kind of the point, as the name was perhaps chosen because it wouldn’t ever be confused with a AEC number, but that explanation is somewhat lacking. As you might imagine, there are countless theories — most wholly unsubstantiated — as to the real meaning behind the site’s name.
What we do know is this: The test facility was first set up by the CIA back in 1955 as part of the development of the Lockheed U-2 spy plane. Given the fact that we were hip deep in the Cold War at that point, secrecy was of the utmost importance, which is why such a remote location was chosen (along with the ease of testing aircraft over such flat areas of land). The area was euphemistically christened “Paradise Ranch,” which was originally an attempt to lure workers to the area, but has since become just another source of conspiracy theories.
Groundbreaking and high-tech (but for this column’s purposes, not really all that interesting) aerodynamic tests and development continued to take place at the facility through the 1960s. By the end of the decade, though, the site began to serve another purpose, testing rival fighter aircraft, most notably the Soviet MiGs, and even pitting them against domestic planes. Many Area 51 conspiracy theories deal with aircraft tests, though they are typically not just from outside the country, but outside of our galaxy.
Outside of this rather mundane test and development history, Area 51 remains inscrutable even to military pilots, who can be subject to severe disciplinary action if they go to parts of the facility for which they are not cleared. The Air Force itself, however, almost became subject to disciplinary action back in 1994, when a lawsuit was brought against the USAF and the Environmental Protection Agency for the burning of dangerous chemicals in open pits. Conspiracy theories were fueled not just by the suit itself, but by the government’s response, which included President Bill Clinton exempting Area 51 from environmental disclosure laws meant to protect the public. Since then, the President of the United States has extended the Area 51 exception each year, which is some of the rare acknowledgement that there is indeed something unusual or special about the site.
However, that’s not the only measure that the government has taken to continually shroud Area 51 in mystery. In 1974, astronauts on Skylab 4 had taken pictures of the site, which led to a series of CIA memos about whether the photos should be destroyed or not, though they did eventually see print. Plus, there’s the simple fact that the area is continually guarded by closed circuit camera, motion censors, and signs that prohibit photography and announce to passersby that the “use of deadly force is authorized.”
Like many popular sources of conspiracy theories, there are countless explanations for what’s really going on in Area 51, with all of the usual suspects represented: Weather manipulation, time travel, extraplanar entities, the New World Order, the Illuminati, and, most notably, aliens.
This should come as no surprise, given the site’s proximity to Nevada State Route 375, better known as the Extraterrestrial Highway due to repeated claims of UFO sighting and other alien activity. Area 51 is also said to be where the government conducts studies of captured alien technology, as well as of aliens itself, including samples that were said to have been found at Roswell. Despite their link in the public consciousness, however, Area 51 is not near Roswell — it’s in a completely different state and more than 900 miles away.
While Area 51 is extremely well-known, reputable information on it is exceedingly hard to come by. There have been examples of individuals who have claimed to have worked on any number of projects at the site, including underground railroads and flying discs recovered from alien spacecraft, as well as experiments into telepathy. But these claims raise a very important question: If their tales of a top secret alien laboratory are true, why would the CIA allow them to talk about it in public?
Of course, it’s easy to fall down the “Well, maybe that’s what they want you to think!” rabbit hole, but at best, all that line of thinking does is prove that there’s not definitely nothing happening at Area 51, which, double negatives aside, is pretty much meaningless. Still, this supreme secrecy, combined with a high concentration of UFO sightings in the area, has led to countless conspiracy theorists subscribing to any number of wild ideas about the purpose of Area 51 and what goes on behind its doors, and beneath its floors. Of course, skeptics readily discount those UFO sightings as a result of the government’s aircraft testing and people seeing what they want to see.
What do you think? Is Area 51 exactly what the government says it is? An Air Force research base kept under wraps in the name of national security? Or is there something, stranger, weirder, and perhaps more nefarious going on inside of it? Tell us below in the comments!
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