Area 51 has been cloaked in mystery for decades, so it seems to reason that the claimed extraterrestrial secrets kept within the distant desert location would be revived in the era of social media.
About Area 51
The common name for a US Air Force base, Area 51, alludes to a place on a map. It is located 85 miles (135 km) north of Las Vegas at Groom Lake, a dry lake bed in the Nevada Desert.
What happens inside is very private. Armed guards, technological surveillance, and warning signs all serve to keep the general population away.
Despite the fact that Area 51 can now be seen on satellite pictures, it is also forbidden to fly over the facility. The base has runways that are up to 12,000 feet length (2.3 miles/3.7 kilometres).
What is Area 51?
Dr. Jeffrey T. Richelson, a senior fellow at the George Washington University National Security Archive, filed a Freedom of Information Act request in 2005 regarding the CIA’s Lockheed U-2 plane special operations programme, which involved the secret development and testing of spy planes used to gather intelligence. The general public didn’t aware that Area 51 had genuinely existed until August 2013.
The request compelled the CIA to release information about the U-2 and A-12 OXCART programmes’ pasts as well as Area 51, the military installation where the planes were built and tested.
The New York Times quoted Richelson in 2013 as saying, “There certainly was — as you would anticipate — no discussion of little green men here.” Richelson passed away in 2017. The U-2’s history is presented here.
The debate of U-2 flights and UFO sightings is the sole area where the two topics cross, with some sightings being caused by the presence of these high-flying aircraft.
According to Malcolm Byrne, the National Security Archive’s deputy director and director of research, Richelson effectively indirectly answered the mystery surrounding Area 51. I don’t believe Richelson was deliberately targeting Area 51; rather, as is sometimes the case in these situations, information is disclosed that may be of interest to others.
Why Area 51 was Build?
Area 51 was built as a testing and development centre for aircraft, including the U-2 and SR-71 Blackbird reconnaissance planes, during the Cold War between the US and the Soviet Union.
Although it first opened in 1955, the CIA didn’t formally recognise it until August 2013.
President Obama was the first US president to reference Area 51 in public, four months after the CIA made its revelation.
Is Area 51 has aliens and flying saucers?
The secrecy surrounding Area 51 has fueled several conspiracy theories.
The most prominent story is that the location houses an extraterrestrial spacecraft and the corpses of its pilots after they crashed near Roswell, New Mexico, in 1947. According to the US government, there were no aliens aboard, and the fallen device was a weather balloon.
Others claim to have observed UFOs over or around the location, and others claim to have been taken, experimented on, and then returned to Earth by aliens.
In 1989, a guy called Robert Lazar claimed to have worked on extraterrestrial technology in Area 51. He claimed to have seen medical photos of aliens and that the facility was utilised by the government to investigate UFOs.
The link of Area 51 with aliens may have functioned as a good diversion for intelligence services.
Why have so many conspiracy theories centred on Area 51?
When Sgt. Anderson notified the Reno Evening Gazette (now the Reno Gazette-Journal) about seeing a U.F.O. in 1959, the source also reported that the Nellis Air Force Base, roughly 130 miles south of Area 51, had received two earlier claims of U.F.O. sightings in the previous three weeks.
Those allegations came just a few years after suspicions of a UFO crash in Roswell, New Mexico in 1947, which the Roswell Army Air Field subsequently said was a weather balloon. In 1947, the Air Force began examining allegations of UFO encounters, which became known as Project Blue Book in 1952.The Air Force had investigated over 12,000 accusations by the time Project Blue Book concluded in 1969.
Meanwhile, residents in southern Nevada continued to report U.F.O. sightings, which were most likely sightings of the top-secret spy planes being built. Even yet, people’s imaginations have been running wild ever since.
Area 51 themes have also crept into popular culture, including in films such as Independence Day and Paul.
This has inspired episodes of The Twilight Zone and The X-Files, and the less well-known straight-to-video film Scooby-Doo and the Alien Invaders.
