Where is Area 51? What's going on there?
Read this post to discover the secrets of Area 51's restricted zones.
Area 51 is a highly classified United States Air Force facility located in the Nevada desert. It has been the subject of much speculation and conspiracy theories over the years, due to the secrecy surrounding its activities. The true purpose of the facility has never been officially revealed, though it is widely believed to have been used for the development and testing of experimental aircraft and other technologies.
The creation of Area 51 began in April of 1955 when a Lockheed test pilot, Tony LeVier, began searching for a remote location to test fly the U-2 spy plane. The site was chosen because of its isolated location and the presence of a nearby dry lake bed, which provided an ideal runway for testing aircraft.
Over the years, Area 51 has been associated with a number of other secret programs, including the development of stealth technology and rumored research into extraterrestrial technology and UFOs. However, the government has consistently denied any such activities taking place at the facility.
Are there aliens and flying saucers at Area 51?
The secrecy surrounding Area 51 has helped fuel many conspiracy theories.
Most famous is the claim that the site hosts an alien spacecraft and the bodies of its pilots, after they crashed at Roswell, New Mexico, in 1947. The US government says there were no aliens and the crashed craft was a weather balloon.
Others claim to have seen UFOs above or near the site, while some say they have been abducted by aliens, and even experimented on, before being returned to Earth.
And, in 1989, a man named Robert Lazar claimed he had worked on alien technology inside Area 51. He claimed to have seen medical photographs of aliens and that the government used the facility to examine UFOs.
Area 51's association with aliens may have served as a useful distraction for the intelligence agencies.
"As early as 1950 the CIA developed a UFO office to deal with the sightings of unidentified flying objects over Nevada. When people first saw the U-2 spy plane flying, no one knew what they were seeing," says Ms Jacobsen.
"The CIA used that disinformation to their benefit by fostering an alien mythology."
In recent years, the US government has acknowledged the existence of Area 51, though details about its activities continue to be classified. As such, the true purpose and nature of the facility remains a mystery to the general public.
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