Thanks to the internet, the concept of a government secret base has been rendered little more than a quaint James Bond plot. For example, in decades past, the public only had conjecture and hearsay to feed its curiosity about the inner workings of the US government’s shadowy military base on the southern shore of Nevada’s Groom Lake, a site better known as “Area 51.”
But today, thanks to the technology of Google Maps, we can all achieve a clear birds-eye-view of the secret facility conveniently linked with user-submitted telephoto images supplying a ground level perspective. Now anyone with a smart phone can be treated to an unobstructed view into the secret military installation that for a long time, officially didn’t even exist.
Though the government could no longer deny the existence of Area 51, finally admitting to it in a newly declassified CIA history of its U-2 spy plane program, it is still denying the existence of little green men and alien spaceships.
After decades of extreme secrecy surrounding Area 51, stoking conspiracy theories about UFOs and experiments on alien spacecraft, the CIA supposedly lifted its veil on Area 51, a remote installation about 80 miles northwest of Las Vegas, in response to a public records request from George Washington University scholars in Washington, D.C.
The university’s National Security Archive publicly released online recently, the 400-page CIA history contains the first deliberate official references to Area 51, also known as Groom Lake, as a site developed by the intelligence agency in the 1950s to test fly experimental planes, particularly the high-altitude U-2 reconnaissance plane.
Later other top-secret aircraft were tested there, such as the supersonic reconnaissance A-12 aircraft, code-named OXCART, and the F-117 stealth ground-attack jet, said the school spokesman, Jeffrey Richelson, who asked for the CIA’s U-2 history in 2005. “It’s the first time that there must have been a senior-level decision to acknowledge the term ‘Area 51′ and its specific location” he told Reuters.
Lockheed A-12 was one of the planes tested at Area 51
Photos of the site and a newly declassified map outlining and labeling the location were also included in the document.
“What readers of the CIA study will find is that CIA tests its U-2 and A-12 reconnaissance aircraft at the site in Nevada sometimes referred to as ‘Area 51,’” CIA spokesman Edward Price said. “What readers won’t find are any references to aliens or other conspiracy theories best left to the realm of science fiction”
Many believe to this day that Area 51 houses the remains of a flying saucer that supposedly crashed near Roswell, New Mexico, in 1947, as well as the site used for reverse engineering experiments that attempted to replicate the extraterrestrial spacecraft.
Richelson said the CIA document makes no mention of any such theories. But he pointed to one passage that discusses the relationship between U-2s and unidentified flying objects “in the sense that people sighted U-2s in a time that they were very secretive and at very high altitude and didn’t know what they were, and in that sense they were UFOs”
In the 1950s, commercial planes flew at between 10,000 and 20,000 feet and warplanes such as B-47 reached altitudes of less than 40,000 feet. The U2 planes flew above 60,000 feet, and naturally reports of unidentified flying objects in the Nevada desert started to roll in, the report said. “High altitude testing of the U2 soon led to an unexpected side effect – a tremendous increase in reports of unidentified flying objects (UFOs),” it said.
However, regardless of the mistaken experimental aircraft reported as UFO’s, this would also make a great cover for real sightings. What better way to hide actual UFO’s than between strange-looking experimental aircraft?
If you want to dig deeper into the Area 51 phenomenon, you could start by Googling its location. Area 51 may be one of the easiest nonexistent military bases to find. Simply type “Area 51″ as a location search on Google Maps. Make sure you click on satellite view and there it is.
The satellite image doesn’t reveal anything sinister looking at first glance. Area 51 seems nothing but a huge dessert complex with various runways. There’s a network of large generic looking buildings (possibly hangars) littering the area along with a few planes sitting outside and several cars parked about and there are a few roads leading in and out of the Nevada badlands.
The only strange feature I can see, arises as you search to the south of the main complex, where you will find this character etched into the desert floor out of roads and buildings at aerial view +37° 12′ 48.15″, -115° 48′ 41.79″ of some strange assortment of mounds and paths. The shape somewhat resembles a holding area inside a geometrical prison. Strangely enough, you can only see this very definitive figure from the air. Could this be where they are holding the real secrets? Where they have ET’s and UFO’s under lock and key?
More than 60 declassified documents on the base were released, but how about the ones that were NOT released? Of course we all know that our government is only going to let us know what they want us to know, so the official disclosure may well just be another of smokescreen, so we will most likely never find out the truth about Area 51.
By Tom Retterbush
SOURCES
Area 51 ‘Uncensored’: Was It UFOs Or The USSR?
U.S. Gov’t officially acknowledges existence of Area 51 for first time
A very compelling but little heard about Area 51 whistleblower – Edgar Fouche
Top Secret Tombs: The Classified Stealth Aircraft Burial Grounds of Area 51
How to peek into Area 51 using Google Maps Are 51 Facts & Secrets
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