U-2 operations halted in the late s, but other top secret military aircrafts continued tests at Area You got folks claiming it's extraterrestrial when it's really good old American know-how. And it's still going on today The flights are ongoing. In September , an Air Force Lt. It seems he was most likely flying a foreign jet obtained by the United States. Even so, the alien conspiracies gained ground in when Bob Lazar claimed in an interview on Las Vegas local news that he'd seen aliens and had helped to reverse-engineer alien spacecrafts while working at the base.
Many have disregarded this as fiction and are even offended at the notion, including Merlin, who has spent years talking with former Area 51 engineers and employees angered by all the fuss about E. Today, Area 51 is still very much in use. According to Google Earth , new construction and expansions are continuously happening. On most early mornings, eagle-eyed visitors can spot strange lights in the sky moving up and down. No, it's not a UFO. It's actually the semi-secret contract commuter airline using the call-sign "Janet" that transports workers from Las Vegas's McCarran Airport to the base.
As for what's happening these days in America's most secretive military base, few know for sure. Merlin has some educated guesses, including improved stealth technology, advanced weapons, electronic warfare systems and, in particular, unmanned aerial vehicles. Chris Pocock, noted U-2 historian and author of several books about the matter , told Popular Mechanics he thinks classified aircraft, more exotic forms of radio communication, directed energy weapons, and lasers are currently under development at the base.
While the lore around Area 51 may be nothing more than imaginative fiction, that won't stop people from gawking just beyond those chain link fences. Fact or fiction, aliens are a big tourism draw. In , the state of Nevada renamed Route as the "Extraterrestrial Highway," and destinations such as the Alien Research Center and the Little A'Le'Inn in the town of Rachel with a population around 54 dot the road.
To Area 51's west, there's the Alien Cathouse which is advertised as the only alien-themed brothel in the world. Geocaching also attracts visitors here since the highway is considered a "mega-trial" with over 2, geocaches hidden in the area.
Then there's the actual base. The Sheahans' homestead was about as isolated as it gets; Las Vegas wasn't even founded as a city until and was inaccessible by railroad until But the family's quiet lifestyle abruptly changed in , when the government sent agents to scout the area for use as a training site for bomber planes.
In March , President Dwight D. Eisenhower was worried that America's lack of knowledge of Russia's military developments might leave America vulnerable to attack. So Eisenhower recruited a panel of experts to figure out how the United States could use science to thwart a potential Russian attack. One thing was clear: The U. And once America had a blueprint in the works for a cutting-edge surveillance plane, a secure location would be required to assemble and test it.
A scouting group flew over Groom Lake. From above, they could see it was remote, unassuming, and it already had an airstrip. It was perfect. That's how Area 51 was born. This was Johnson's way of making the arid patch sound more appealing to potential staff. Despite the lack of cultural attractions, nightlife or vegetation, workers embraced the moniker and began referring to themselves as "ranch hands.
Area 51 quickly became a favorite location for the CIA's classified airborne espionage ops. But as projects became more technologically complex, the bare-bones facility needed major upgrades. By , Area 51 was transformed into a fully functional spy-plane factory. Contractors poured a new asphalt runway to accommodate faster planes, replacing the old, 5,foot one with one that stretched 8, feet. Workers delivered disassembled Naval housing units and plane hangars to Groom Lake.
Construction crews dug a new water well and erected recreational facilities. They added all the necessary warehousing, shop space and fuel storage.
In a interview with the Seattle Times , former Area 51 contractor James Noce recalled that the food was particularly good in the '60s. The CIA also encouraged the myth that UFOs were flying around Area 51 because it helped obfuscate what was really going on: the testing of odd-looking, high-flying, lightning-fast, never-before-seen aircraft.
The secrecy continues to this day, and what goes on there is jealously guarded. But some activities that happen there are known. Jacobsen told Vox that the US military will train foreign fighters there sometimes, allowing the troops to practice on rough, remote terrain well out of sight of the public.
She also believes Area 51 remains a place for American armed forces to develop and test the next generation of aircraft and weapons of war. What kinds of things commonly get mistaken for UFOs? Stealth bombers and drones , military decoy flares , weapons tests , military training exercises , and weird classified air stuff. What does Area 51 have a lot of? All of the above. But Lazar believed that the foreign air technology belonged to aliens and that Area 51 was entirely designed to capture, reverse-engineer, and study alien aircraft and aliens themselves.
In , the government ultimately revealed the object to have been a nuclear surveillance balloon. Conspiracists like John Lear, a pilot and heir to the Learjet fortune, spun macabre and bizarre stories about aliens being held and studied in such underground camps, where the government fed them abducted children and mutilated cattle.
In , Lear described Groom Lake, Nevada — a. Lazar is believed to have fabricated his educational background , making up degrees from MIT and Cal Tech, institutes he seems to have never attended. He also claimed to have worked for the Los Alamos particle laboratory during years when bankruptcy filings instead listed him as a photo and film processor. Nonetheless, when he appeared on KLAS he was calm and articulate as he spoke of dismantling and test-flying flying saucers at Area As late as , new claims and conspiracies about Area 51 were still finding their way into the mainstream.
The source told her that a Nazi doctor surgically enlarged the heads of abducted teenagers to make them resemble aliens, supposedly on the order of Joseph Stalin, who the source says forced the teenagers to pilot flying saucers over the US as a Cold War scare tactic.
Then, he claims, the remains of the crash were brought back to Area While no evidence of Nazis creating fake UFOs for Stalin — or of federal cooperation with aliens — has ever come to light, the US government does have a long history of investigating reported UFO sightings.
The authors of the CIA history, Gregory Pedlow and Donald Welzenbach, said the site was nicknamed "Paradise Ranch," or simply the Ranch, to make it sound more attractive to the test project's workers.
The first U-2 test flight took place at Area 51 on Aug. Later on, Area 51 served as a test site for the F stealth fighter. To this day, the area surrounding the facility has been closely guarded, and the airspace is off-limits to civilian air traffic. Such high levels of secrecy, combined with the occasional sightings of strange aircraft, have fueled UFO tales for decades. For example, in a book titled "Area 51," investigative journalist Annie Jacobsen quoted her sources as saying that wreckage from the Roswell UFO incident ended up at Area 51 for study.
As one would expect, the CIA book makes no mention of Roswell or alien spacecraft. Update for 8 p. ET Aug. Thus, air traffic controllers began receiving flurries of UFO reports from pilots who saw the planes above them.
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