Area 51

Background Information

The Groom Lake Base is this top-secret military base located 90 miles north of Las Vegas (which is in Nevada). It's in grid number 51 of the Nevada Test Site, so it's called Area 51. The United States Air Force Flight Test Center controls the base. It's best known for testing exotic aircraft and weapons. The base was created in 1954 as a place to test the secret U-2 spyplane that was used to fly missions over the Soviet Union. Then it started to house the SR-71, A-12 and D-21 drone. The F-117A was tested there, also. In the 1980's the base increased in size, along with the runway (which increased to the present 6 miles). Then, mysterious lights began to appear, and armed guards known as the cammo dudes started patrolling the border. The government closed many viewpoints from which the Area 51 base could be seen. In 1989, a "physicist" named Bob Lazar claimed that he worked at a base south of Area 51 and also claimed that Area 51 was testing extremely advanced aircraft and UFO's they got by trading with the aliens. Since then, Area 51 has been thought to be the test center of captured UFOs because of the lights in the night sky.


Area 51 is a military base, and a remote detachment of Edwards Air Force Base.
It is located in the southern portion of Nevada in the western United States, 83 miles (133 km) north-northwest of downtown Las Vegas.
Situated at its center, on the southern shore of Groom Lake, is a large military airfield.
The base's primary purpose is to support development and testing of experimental aircraft and weapons systems.
The base lies within the United States Air Force's vast Nevada Test and Training Range (NTTR), formerly called the Nellis Air Force Range (NAFR).
Although the facilities at the range are managed by the 99th Air Base Wing at Nellis Air Force Base, the Groom facility appears to be run as an adjunct
of the Air Force Flight Test Center (AFFTC) at Edwards Air Force Base in the Mojave Desert, around 186 miles (300 km) southwest of Groom,
and as such the base is known as Air Force Flight Test Center (Detachment 3).
Though the name Area 51 is used in official CIA documentation, other names used for the facility include Dreamland, Paradise Ranch,
Home Base, Watertown Strip, Groom Lake, and most recently Homey Airport.The area is part of the Nellis Military Operations Area, and
the restricted airspace around the field is referred to as (R-4808N),known by the military pilots in the area as "The Box" or "the Container".
The intense secrecy surrounding the base, the very existence of which the U.S. government barely acknowledges,
has made it the frequent subject of conspiracy theories and a central component to unidentified flying object (UFO) folklore.