For decades, UFO buffs and believers in alien landings have bemoaned the fact that an area in remote, uninhabited Groom Lake in Nevada, named Area 51 was officially denied to even really exist. Locals knew it did.
According to a recent story by the Associated Press, the CIA has made the clearest acknowledgement to date for the existence of the top-secret Cold War test site.
However, in documents recently declassified by the CIA, there is still no mention of UFO crashes, staged moon landings, or black-eye extraterrestrials, either dead or alive.
Audrey Hewins, of Oxford, Maine, who believes she was once contacted by aliens, is quoted in the AP story as saying she thinks the CIA is moving ever closer to admitting there are space aliens on Earth.
“I’m thinking that they are probably testing the waters now to see how mad people get about the big lie and cover-up.”
The CIA history, which came out earlier this month, not only refers to Area 51 by name, but even gives details of some of the aviation activities that took place there. Details about some of the very modern advances in aircraft, but none were saucer-shaped anti-gravity machines.
The U-2 spy plane program was operated for a time at Area 51.
The AP story said George Washington University’s National Security Archive obtained the CIA history by using a public information request regarding the top-secret Cold War U-2 project.
Jeffery Richelson, National Security Archive senior fellow, said he reviewed the history in 2002, and noted that any reference to Area 51 had been removed. He reviewed the same history again in 2005, and found that those references had been restored.
The 407-page document still has many sections that are redacted, which may include references to space aliens, if there were any, so declassifying the documents is not likely to stop the conspiracy theories.
Richelson, and others, are looking at the release of the report as a loosing of the secrecy about the government’s activities in the wide open spaces of the Nevada desert, and the super-secret 8,000 square mile installation.
Originally listed as Area 51 on older Nevada Test Site maps, the CIA history reveals the name was changed to “Paradise Ranch,” a name that sounded more inviting to prospective skilled workers.
Unmarked planes still fly workers to and from the site, and charter buses run up and down U.S. 93 from Las Vegas, taking workers who stay on site all week, then returning for them at the end of the work week for a few days off.
The AP report explained that beginning in the 1950s, the U-2 spy planes, and a host of other top-secret aircraft, including the SR-71 Blackbird, F-117A stealth fighter and B-2 stealth bomber were all developed there.
The CIA history notes that nearly half of the UFO reports in the 1950s and ‘60s may be attributed to the sightings of these ultra-high flying spy planes.
Some people believe some of the large hangars at the base contain alien vehicles, evidence from the “Roswell Incident,” the alleged 1947 crash of an alien spacecraft near Roswell, N.M., and subsequent alien corpses from the crash.
And some will always believe. Stanton Friedman, a self-described UFO expert from Canada said the notion that spy planes account for UFO sightings is “utter rot and baloney.”
He questioned, “Can the U-2 sit still in the sky? Make right-angle turns in the middle of the sky? Take off from nothing? The U-2 can’t do any of those things.”
Humans being what they are, the release of the declassified CIA history, is not going to affect the Lil’A’le Inn on Highway 375 in Rachel, not stop people from all around the world wanting to get as safely close as they can to the boundary of Area 51, or stop some from selling souvenir T-shirts or other items along the highway.
As to Area 51, there is much truth in the old saying, “Hope burns eternal in the human heart.” So does curiosity.
