It’s been a perennial American obsession for more than 50 years. It’s provided a shadowy backdrop for shows like “The X-Files” and movies like the 1996 summer blockbuster “Independence Day.” And in 2019, this well-known but little-understood location took over social media when one jokester inspired millions of people to RSVP “yes” to trespassing.
The place: Area 51, a remote patch of desert some 83 miles north-northwest of Las Vegas, next to a salt flat at the foot of a mountain. This military outpost — and what’s happened inside it — is so top-secret that its very existence was disputed until 2013.
In short, Area 51 was created during the Cold War to help America peek in on the Soviet Union. But, because of its clandestine beginnings and cutting-edge tech, many Americans came to associate the base with extraterrestrial ships and little green men.
So, what is Area 51 really? What do we know for sure? How did a Cold War espionage operation become associated with theories of deep-state cover-ups of crash-landed aliens? And why did dozens of people put their lives on hold in September 2019 to drive into the Nevada desert to stand outside of it?
Here’s what we know for sure… and what secrets are yet to be revealed.
Spy games and unmarked planes
Here’s what we do know about Area 51: Today, the U.S. Air Force uses the 38,400-acre patch of desert as a training site. Sometimes called the Nevada Test and Training Range, the base is located next to a salt flat called Groom Lake and is home to some of the longest runways in the world.
The closest town is Rachel, Nevada, population 54. The airspace above the base is extremely off-limits. And the land around it is peppered with warning signs to would-be trespassers.
We also know that workers aren’t commuting there by car. Air traffic control audio out of a private terminal at Las Vegas’ McCarran International Airport suggests that government-owned passenger jets flying under the name “Janet Airlines” make daily flights to and from… somewhere in the Nevada desert.
If you ask air traffic control, that “somewhere” is Homey Airport (KXTA), otherwise known as Area 51. Through the years, the base has also been called Dreamland, Watertown, Yuletide and Paradise Ranch.
A war wakes up the desert
Not much was happening on this swath of land before World War II. In 1864, prospectors discovered silver and lead around Groom Lake salt flat. A man named Patrick Sheahan built a humble homestead and founded Groom Mine in 1889. The Sheahans’ homestead was about as isolated as it gets; Las Vegas wasn’t even founded as a city until 1905 and was inaccessible by railroad until 1906.
But the family’s quiet lifestyle abruptly changed in 1941, when the government sent agents to scout the area for use as a training site for bomber planes. An airstrip, called Indian Springs Auxiliary Field №1, was constructed where Area 51 sits today, six miles from the homestead. In 1951, the United States Department of Energy began nuclear detonation tests at the Nevada Test Site, 20 miles from the Sheahans’ homestead.
After WWII, the military training airstrip fell quiet, but not for long.
Keeping our eyes on the skies
That’s about all we know about Area 51. As for UFOs, there’s a bit more: The government’s investigation of unidentified phenomena did not end with Operation Blue Book.
In August 2020, the Pentagon announced the formation of a new task force to better understand the nature and origin of such reports. (In 2017, the Pentagon admitted that it had been running a secret multi-million dollar program to investigate UFOs for years. It is unclear if the new task force is an expansion of or replacement for the old program.) Government officials said that the new task force would protect national security interests.
Earlier in 2020, the Pentagon officially released three previously leaked videos taken by Navy pilots that show interactions between military planes and large, fast-flying objects. Officials provided no explanation for the objects seen in the videos.
Most Americans don’t expect the government to declassify the details of supposed alien sightings any time soon. In fact, a poll from June 2020 showed that more than half of Americans think if the U.S. government had evidence of UFOs, they would hide it from the public. Only 22% said they think the information would be made public.
The Senate Intelligence Committee is holding out hope for more military transparency. Members want the information from the Pentagon’s task force to be available to the public. But when it comes to intel on hostile invaders, most officials would rather focus on the threats here on Earth than on tales from outer space.
AS ALWAYS SHEEEESH !!
STAY SAFE
