THE MYSTERY OF AREA 51

 

Saying the name is enough to conjure up secrets, suspicious aircraft and hidden alien corpses. Of all the mysterious places, Area 51 is perhaps the one most loved by conspiracy theorists, who have set there phantom finds of extraterrestrials and even the "footage" of the moon landing.

But how did this portion of the desert about 100 miles from Las Vegas manage to feed so many hoaxes over time? What good has it really been, and why is it kept so hidden? Well, today thanks to this article you will discover something that you may not have known before.

DOES IT REALLY EXIST?

The existence of Area 51 was officially recognized in 2013, when a document drawn up by two CIA historians in 1992 was declassified. The document is the first to explicitly name the area (whose name was previously always hidden in black ink) and to indicate it on a map. It confirms that various programs to test secret military aircraft were carried out here, including the spy aircraft that flew over the Soviet Union during the Cold War.

 

HOW WAS IT DISCOVERED?

In 1955, CIA officials looking for a place to experiment on a new type of radar-invisible military aircraft flew over what looked like an old abandoned airstrip near Groom Lake, the dried-up bed of an ancient salt lake. The area, an old firing range used for training during World War II, was 160 km from Las Vegas and bordered the Nevada Test Site, a site where more than 700 of the Authority's atomic tests were conducted. 'US Nuclear Energy. It was so dangerous and isolated that no one would go that far - perfect for testing secret military technologies and training pilots.

 

WHY THIS  NAME?

  The origins of the name of this land belonging to Nellis Air Force Base (a US military base that controls an area of 1.2 million hectares and 12,959 square km of restricted airspace) are not very clear. It is thought to derive from the grid numbering system used by the Nuclear Energy Authority, which already owned a large area of the Nevada Desert where nuclear tests were performed in the early 1950s.

WHY DID IT BECOME A FAVOURITE PLACE FOR CONSPIRACTIONISTS?

As if nuclear tests and spy plane tests weren't scary enough, Area 51 went down in history as the symbol of the United States military's willingness to keep the truth about extraterrestrials hidden from the world. In July 1947, the front page of the Roswell Daily Record reported an alleged flying saucer captured over a ranch in the Roswell region, and taken to Area 51 for close study. The US military said the mysterious object was actually a weather balloon. In September 1994, however, an official report revealed the true story: it was not a simple weather balloon, but a top-secret high-altitude balloon system to detect sound waves caused by Soviet nuclear tests. This place's true association with aliens exploded, however, in the 1980s when a man named Robert Lazar told a Las Vegas broadcaster that he worked in an area called S-4 near Area 51. , in which the technology of fallen flying saucers was studied. His claims caused a stir, but nevertheless turned out to be false.

 

IS IT STILL IN USE?

The area is still used today to train pilots in combat scenarios, to develop new area technologies and reconnaissance drones. Google Earth images show well-maintained runways and some new clusters of buildings built over the past decade.

 

 SILENCES AND POISONS

 Area 51 is on the maps, but even getting close is a challenge.  Precisely for the tests of spy aircraft, its perimeter is closely guarded by armed guards in camouflage clothing, who are also among the first victims of such secrecy. In recent years, the militaries have fought for compensation for respiratory problems caused by the toxic coatings used to shield fighters from radar.

 

TRAP FOR TOURISTS 

Anyone attempting to cross the fences in Area 51 would risk a $ 1,000 (€ 850) fine or six months in prison (or both, as some menacing signs around the base make clear). The nearby inhabited centres have invested in UFO tourism by changing the names of the clubs and streets, to remember beings with antennas and conspiracy theories. The Extraterrestrial Highway has even existed since 1996: it is a low-traffic state road that runs along Area 51 and was previously only called Nevada State Route 375.

 

 

Cristiano P., 3sc