To say access to the base is limited is an understatement. So likely, what you see is what you get.īut nobody in the public really knows for sure, because the government goes to great lengths to conceal what it is doing at Area 51. Skeptics are quick to point out that such a massive construction project would require an enormous labor force the removal of tons of earth that would have to go somewhere and there would be a need for a huge amount of concrete and other construction material. Others claim the underground facility has up to 40 levels and that it is attached via underground railways to other sites in Los Alamos, White Sands and Los Angeles. They believe that the surface buildings rest on top of a labyrinthine underground base. Some allege that what you can see on the surface is only a tiny part of the actual facility. The shelters are "scoot and hide" buildings, designed so aircraft can quickly move under cover when satellites pass overhead. It consists of a hangar, a guard shack, a few radar antennas, some housing facilities, a mess hall, offices, runways and shelters. The base itself occupies only a fraction of the more than 90,000 acres (36,000 hectares) it sits on. The closest town is Rachel, Nev., which is 25 miles (40 kilometers) north of the base. To the west is the Nevada Test Site (NTS). Since then - and especially since the advent of Google Earth - the proverbial cat is pretty much out of the bag.Ī dry lake bed called Groom Lake borders the base. The collection of photos on the FAS Web site show the facility's growth from the late 1960s, including the construction of new buildings and a new runway. īut in 2000, photographs taken by a Soviet orbital probe were obtained and published by the Federation of American Scientists (FAS). They even included a map that confirmed its exact location. Air Force and defense contractor Lockheed because of its remote location. The documents made repeated references to Area 51 and detailed how it was selected as a testing area by the CIA, the U.S. Richelson, a researcher at the Washington, D.C.-based National Security Archive, a nonprofit think tank, obtained declassified documents about the development and use of the U-2 and OXCART surveillance aircraft in the 1950s and 1960s. government long refused even to acknowledge.īut in August 2013, the shroud over Area 51 finally lifted, at least a bit. Area 51, as it's commonly known to UFO conspiracy theorists and aviation buffs who piece together the details of classified military spy plane prototypes, is a place whose existence the U.S. military installation located roughly 100 miles (161 kilometers) north of Las Vegas had been one of the worst-kept secrets on the planet. iStockphoto/Thinkstockįor decades, a U.S.
Area 51 is surrounded by warning signs like this one.
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