While New Mexico has Roswell, Nevada has Area 51. The story goes a bit like this: In 1947, a UFO crashed in Roswell, New Mexico. The U.S. Air Force arrived and whisked the flying saucer and even alien bodies away to an undisclosed location. The secret undisclosed location turned out to be Area 51, a secret military installation. As rumor has it, this is where the U.S. government has bee at work for over 60 years reverse engineering the alien spacecraft and perhaps doing some extraterrestrial outreach.

Area 51 is really a part of the Nevada Test Site. Until 1997, its very existence was officially denied by the U.S. Government, even though Russian satellite images and other non-official sources of information were readily available over the internet.

U.S. official maps would not even contain a reference to the terrain of Area 51, as if it just were not there. It does not appear on FAA aviation charts, the USGS topographical maps, or even on satellite images from space! The airspace over Area 51 has always been restricted, and for public purposes it is just referred to as a part of the Nellis Air Force Base space. Area 51 is administered by the U.S. Air Force Flight Test Center.

All the secrecy surrounding Area 51 was responsible for the resurgence of many conspiracy theories about what the government was secretly doing there.

In the 1980’s the government even closed down access to any terrain that might offer a view into Area 51, and the Air Force sent camouflaged patrols out around the perimeter. After that time, Bob Lazar, claiming to have been a physicist hired to work just south of Area 51, said that Area 51 was the location of flight tests for very sophisticated aircraft (probably true) and even flying saucers acquired by the government through trades with aliens (perhaps not). Nocturnal illumination in the sky over Area 51 has given credence to the allegations about UFO’s. Other conspiracy theories include the idea that the moon landings during the 1960’s were staged in Area 51, on terrain that just looks like the moon.

In 1997, the government broke down and admitted that Area 51 does exist. But access is still highly restricted, that is to say, denied to anyone except those who are on official business. Roads connect Groom Lake to the town of Mercury towards the east and to Yucca Flats to the west.

Groom Lake is the central topographical feature of Area 51. A Landsat photo discloses a six-mile runway system can be seen off to one side of it. The famous ultra-altitude U-2 spy plane was tested here in the 1960´s. Drone aircraft were tested at the facility, and the arrival of the SR-71 Blackbird reconnaissance aircraft from Lockheed caused expansion of the air facilities there (with much more expansion to come later). Enemy aircraft were said to have been analyzed at this location for tactical training purposes. More recently, the F-117A has been tested at Area 51 as well as other stealth and vertical take-off military aircraft. It is now estimated that 1000 people live at the site and another 1000 commute daily by air from Las Vegas.