Welcome to our fortress tall, I’ll take
some time to show you around. Impossible to break these walls, for, you
see, the steel is much too strong. Computer banks to rule the world. Instruments to sight the stars. An inventory of foreign life forms in a suspended
state of cryogenics. Is this what is hidden inside what is possibly
the most secretive facility of the US Armed Forces? I am talking of course about Area 51, and
yes, I have just quoted the Megadeth masterpiece Hangar 18, inspired by the alleged mysteries
within the base. In today’s Geographics we are going to explore
the military base in the Nevada Desert identified as Groom Lake but better known as Area 51. Conspiracy theorists and popular culture have
built upon the classified nature of this location for years, attributing all sorts of dark events
going on within its heavily guarded perimeter. At the time of researching this episode, a Facebook event
started as a prank, has rallied more than one million people to storm the base on the
20th of September 2019. The objective is to gain access to the facility
and finally find out if it actually hides alien technology, or even extra-terrestrial
life forms. We wish these guys the best of luck, probably
the most shocking discovery they will come across is the number of zeros in the fines
they will be served. But if they do confirm just one of the many
conspiracy theories – well, I will be happy to swallow by British sarcasm. For the moment, join me in a visit to the
Nevada Desert and let’s find out what the fuss is all about. Where exactly is Area 51 and how it looks
like? What are the speculations flourished around
its existence? And finally: what classified activities have
actually been happening, as recently acknowledged by the US Government? A trip to Groom Lake
The facility known as Area 51, Groom Lake or even Paradise Ranch was publicly acknowledged
by the US Government only in 2013, via the release of declassified documents on the CIA
FOIA website. Area 51 is located in the desert of the state
of Nevada, roughly 100 miles (161 Km) north of Las Vegas, very close to a salt flat known
as ‘Groom Lake’. The exact coordinates are 37 degrees 14 minutes
north latitude, 115 degrees 48 minutes west longitude. Or, you can just type ‘Area 51, NV, USA’
into Google maps and ask for directions. The base was established in the mid-1950s,
expanding on a previous training facility for bomber pilots, founded during WWII. For decades, the existence of this base was
hidden in all records, with the government even deleting satellite imagery. Only in 2000, photos taken by a former Soviet
satellite were published by the Federation of American Scientists. This publication finally confirmed the existence
of this secret testing facility to the general public, even though rumours and witness reports
had been circulating for years prior. The military base in itself is relatively
small and consists of a main hangar, a guard house, radar antennas, housing and office
facilities. As this is an Air Force base, there are also
plenty of runways and shelters to protect military aircraft from prying eyes and cameras. The military classifies Area 51 as a Military
Operating Area (MOA). And despite the classified nature of its operations,
the outer borders are not fenced, simply marked with warning signs. These signs warn visitors that photography
is not allowed, and that trespassers may face a fine or even deadly force, if they insist. The perimeter is patrolled by the so called
‘cammo dudes’, pairs of men who appear to be private security contractors, rather
than military. They seldom engage with trespassers, preferring
to rely on support from the local Sheriff department. On rare occasions, helicopters have been dispatched
from the base to warn off the more stubborn visitors. Other security measures include motion sensors
planted around the base and CCTV cameras. All in all, these security measures sound
pretty standard for any US military facility, although surely, they have been effective
in keeping unauthorised citizens at bay. Why then, has Area 51 attracted so much attention,
and why do many of the theories on its operations are related to aliens? The first rumours came with the numerous sightings
of strange lights flying at night over Groom Lake, and even UFOs soaring at impossibly
high altitudes. These sightings were reported by numerous
and credible sources, including airline pilots. Some of these pilots witnessed strange looking
objects flying at an altitude of 60,000 feet, in a period in which passenger planes could
reach a maximum of 20,000, while military planes flew at 40,000. The Air Force and the Government always remained
silent, as did the personnel of Area 51. But then, this all changed with a man called
Robert Lazar. Alien Engineering
On the 11th and 13th of 1989, reporter George Knapp from KLAS-TV in Las Vegas presented
a shocking story. A scientist named Robert Scott Lazar had revealed
that the US Government was in possession of nine aircraft of extra-terrestrial origins,
stored in a hangar at Area 51. Lazar claimed he had read documents about
research on an ‘anti-gravity reactor’. He had also been shown nine flying discs of
extra-terrestrial origin, stored at the base. The advanced propulsion system of these discs
was based on an unknown substance, ‘element 115’, impossible to synthesize on Earth. Air Force researchers had collected 500 pounds
of the element, to experiment on developing an ‘anti-gravity reactor’ similar to that
of the Aliens. Lazar claimed to have been hired by Defense
contractor Edgerton, Germeshausen, and Grier, EG&G for short. EG&G had hired him to reverse engineer the
alien technology to the benefit of the US military. Understandably, many theories flourished implicating
Area 51 in everything that was UFO and alien related. One of these is that much of our current technology
is the result of using reverse engineering on alien spacecraft. Every recent technology from radios to superconductors
would fall into this category. Basically, according to this theory, humankind
are the dumb kids in the class room of the Universe and we are stuck with copying from
the nerdy aliens sitting next to us. According to other theories, the intelligent
kids’ homework that the USAF stole and stored in Area 51 comes from the famous Roswell crash. In July 1947, an airborne object crashed on
a ranch near the Roswell Army Air Field. A spokesman from the base, General William
"Butch" Blanchard, stated that the US Military had recovered the remains of an unidentified
flying object – UFO – of extra-terrestrial origin. The Army immediately retracted the statement,
saying it was not a flying disc at all but a weather balloon – which sounded even more
incredible and just fed further conspiracy theories. In 1995 Air Force declassified documents revealed
that the object was a balloon created for a top secret surveillance program, called
Project Mogul. Those were the early years of the Cold War,
and Project Mogul was tasked with devising unmanned methods to spy on the Soviets. The weather balloon version was un understandable
cover for a classified espionage operation. However, it is still unclear why General Blanchard
made the UFO statement. Statements from Lazar and investigations from
UFOlogist William Moore have sparked another theory around the real purpose of Area 51:
the existence of a secret organisation called Majestic 12. Majestic 12
The Majestic 12 were originally founded during President Truman’s administration with the
original goal of overseeing experiments on the remains of alien crashes, safely kept
in Area 51. These remains included also corpses of alien
beings, not just their technology. According to the more sinister versions of
this speculation, the ultimate goal of the Majestic 12 is to exploit alien technology
– or even an alliance with the aliens – to achieve World Domination. Rumours about their existence were substantiated
in December 1984, when Los Angeles TV producer Jaime Shandera received an anonymous package
containing a dossier, dated the 18th of November 1952. Its author was Vice Admiral Hillenkoetter,
its purpose was to inform President Eisenhower of the recovery of the remains of two crashed
spaceships. In the first of these crashes, in July 1947,
authorities had recovered the bodies of four humanoid beings. According to the dossier, President Truman
had authorized the creation of a top secret group, the Majestic 12, to study the remains. Shandera and UFOlogist William Moore found
a July 1954 memo in the National Archives, sent from General Cutler to Eisenhower, referring
to an ‘MJ-12 Special Studies Project’. Shandera and Moore claimed that they found
the memo following a tip from an unnamed Air Force Intelligence informant. The memo seemed to substantiate the existence
of the Majestic 12 group. In 1987 an unknown individual leaked the Majestic
12 document to British writer Timothy Good. This rushed Moore and Shandera into publishing
their own findings, which sparked massive media coverage and an FBI investigation. The Majestic 12 dossier can be retrieved from
the vault of de-classified FBI documents. The FBI’s opinion of the authenticity of
the dossier is made clear by the word ‘Bogus’ scrawled in giant letters over every page. And who are we to disagree? But here is a small mystery to reflect on. According to the document, the head of the
Majestic 12 was Truman’s secretary of Defence, James Forrestal. In the early hours of the 22nd of May 1949,
Forrestal plunged to his death from the 16th floor of the Bethesda Naval Hospital. The official cause of death was suicide. But another FBI dossier reveals that the Secretary
of Defense had reason to suspect that his phone had been wiretapped in the months leading
to his death. An unidentified FBI informant also claimed
in March 1952 that Forrestal was being regularly poisoned with opium and other narcotics, in
order to drive him insane. Forrestal’s mental deterioration was well
documented, and he was known to have an active interest in the possible extra-terrestrial
origin of the numerous UFO sighting of 1947, as was President Truman. All these elements, combined with inconsistencies
around the circumstances of his suicide, have led conspiracy theorists to believe that Forrestal
may have been silenced. The reason was his inclination to reveal to
the public the extent of Government’s involvement with alien research. This implies that the Majestic 12 was a real
organisation, despite the FBI bogus claims. Speaking of bogus-ness, let’s go back to
Robert Lazar, the Area 51 whistle blower. Sceptics of his claims investigated many of
Lazar's statements, and most appeared to be false. For example, Lazar said he held master's degrees
from CalTech and MIT, but there's no evidence he ever attended those universities. Also, the Air Force denied he had ever worked
for them. In 2013, a writer tried to contact him to
discuss his allegations. But apparently Lazar was not interested in
discussing Area 51 anymore. The writer was told: "Mr. Lazar no longer
involves himself in matters related to the topic of UFOs". Kubrick in Nevada
Not all speculations around Area 51 revolve on Aliens. According to technical writer Bill Kaysing,
the Nevada base was used as a sound stage to film the fake moon landing in the summer
of 1969. In his writings Kaysing argued that NASA lacked
the technology in 1969 to land humans safely on the moon. In addition to that, astronauts would have
not been able to survive the Van Allen radiation belt. His theory was that NASA sent the Apollo 11
astronauts up in a rocket until it was out of sight, then transferred the lunar capsule
and its three passengers to a military cargo plane. The plane then dropped the capsule eight days
later in the Pacific, where it was recovered. In the meantime, NASA officials filmed the
"moon landing" at Area 51and brainwashed the astronauts to ensure their cooperation. Believers of Kaysing build on this idea by
suggesting that the fake landing was filmed by none other than Stanley Kubrick. He had been selected due to the critical success
of ‘2011: A Space Odyssey’ and the impressive portrayal of a moon landing also in that movie. The purpose of the whole hoax? Fooling the general public and the Soviets
into believing that the US had won the space race, which so far saw Moscow in the lead. Kaysing’s theories were popularised by a
2001 Fox TV documentary, which highlighted some inconsistencies in the footage of the
landing. For example: why was there no blast craters
underneath the landing modules? Why did shadows intersect, instead of running
parallel? Was there a second light source, such as stage
lighting? And how about that American flag, rippling
in an environment with no wind? NASA rebutted these theories by issuing a
press release, which debunked the conspiracy point by point. The module's landing engines weren't powerful
enough to leave a blast crater. The shadows in photos only appear to intersect,
distorted by wide-angle lenses and the sloping lunar. The flag planted by the Apollo astronauts
had horizontal support bars, that made the flag swing. And finally, the Apollo mission travelled
through the Van Allen belts too quickly, to be exposed to dangerous levels of radiation. The controversy between believers and non-believers
of Kaysing’s allegations reached a climax in 2002. An admirer of Kaysing, filmmaker Sibrel confronted
astronaut Buzz Aldrin calling him ‘a coward, a liar and a th--’
The last word should have been ‘thief’, but the 72-year-old Aldrin punched him in
the face before he could finish. We at Geographics do not endorse punching
on the face annoying film makers, especially because bones lose density with age and Buzz
could have seriously harmed his hand. Masters of the Weather
And now for something completely different … an Area 51 conspiracy theory that may
take us back to the realm of science and possibility. This theory asserts that the Air Force is
using Area 51 to experiment on weather control for military purposes. This assertion is even backed up by The Las
Vegas Tourism Bureau, and there may be a kernel of truth. According to a National Science Foundation
report, the U.S. military engaged in Project Cirrus: a research effort in the late 1940s
and early 1950s to modify clouds and use rain, and the lack of it, as a weapon. And between 1962 and 1983, the National Oceanic
and Atmospheric Administration ran a project called Project STORMFURY, in which scientists
tried to use cloud seeding to slow hurricane winds, though without much success. The idea was to tame the destructive power
of hurricanes, by seeding silver iodide to stimulate convection outside the eyewall of
hurricanes. This would result in decreasing the speed
of hurricane winds, a 10% reduction being sufficient in reducing the destructive power
of such storms. This project was focused on protecting civilians
against freak storms, rather than in harming enemies through weather control, and was ultimately
unsuccessful. Both Cirrus and Stormfury, though, prove that
the US Government was at least interested at some point in controlling the weather,
but there is no evidence that such experiments took place at Area 51. So far we have discussed a bunch of activities
that we can assume did not happen in the Air Force base at Groom Lake. But something must be happening there. What about the strange lights? What about the strange objects flying at incredibly
high altitudes? The answer can be traced back to the early
years of the Cold War. Aircraft testing and the cold war
When the Soviet Union and China backed North Korea's invasion of South Korea in June 1950,
it became clear in the West that the Kremlin was intent on expanding its influence. How could the US keep tabs on Stalin’s schemes? In the early 1950s, U.S. Navy and Air Force
sent low-flying aircraft on reconnaissance missions over the USSR, but these were too
vulnerable to anti-aircraft guns and interception. In November 1954, President Eisenhower approved
the secret development of a high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft called the U-2 programme. This programme required a remote, covert location
for training and testing. Groom Lake, which had been a training ground
for WWII pilots, fitted the bill perfectly. With the designation of Area 51, this site
became a new top-secret military base. Kelly Johnson, one of the leading engineers
of the U-2 project, re-christened it ‘Paradise Ranch’ to entice recruitment of new technicians. The first U-2 aircraft prototypes began their
test flights in July 1955, and immediately reports came flooding in about UFO sightings. Many of these sightings were observed by commercial
airline pilots who had never seen an aircraft fly at such high altitudes as the U-2, soaring
40,000 feet higher than the normal flying routes. It is understandable if these planes looked
completely alien! Air Force officials knew exactly the nature
of the UFO sightings but could not reveal classified information to the public. So they either remained silent, or explained
them as natural phenomena or weather research balloons – an explanation that had been
used already at Roswell. In the late 1950s U-2 operations were replaced
by other military aircrafts, such as the A-12 Oxcart, the Bird of Prey, F-117A, and TACIT
BLUE. These were and are models used to collect
intelligence, or equipped with stealth technology, which again accounts for the extreme secrecy. Extensive testing and training was required,
and accidents did occur. A CIA declassified document reports the wreckage
of an Oxcart being transported back in secrecy to the base, in January 1967. The grounds of Area 51 were also used to train
pilots in vital skills, should they have to parachute in enemy territory, or be captured
by the Soviets. In August 1963 new mandatory training courses
for pilots were created, including resistance to interrogation, escape and evasion, and
survival. More declassified documents reveal Area 51's
role in Project ‘Have Doughnut’: this was about studying Soviet MIG fighter jets,
obtained covertly in the 1970s. According to aerospace historian Peter Merlin
this is a frequent occurrence in the skies above Area 51: simulated dog fights where
USAF jets were pitted against Soviet fighter planes to develop counter-tactics. The practice continues today, now it’s new
Russian models, MIG-29s and SU-27s, that are being studied. So, all in all, the secrecy around Area 51
may not hide sinister truths about Alien tech, weather control or moon hoaxes. But it is completely justified, in the sense
that it is meant to protect top-secret military development programmes, as well as the training
of pilots involved in espionage activities. According to Merlin and colleague Chris Pocock,
military research continues to this day, focused on stealth technology, electronic weapons
systems, unmanned aircraft or even directed energy weapons – or lasers if you like. Now that the Government has formally acknowledged
the base and its programmes, there is no reason to talk about cover-ups, right? Not exactly …
Wasteland Conspiracy theories aside, there is at least
one documented instance of a Government cover up related to the Groom Lake facility, as
exposed by Prof Jonathan Turley, from George Washington University, and lead counsel in
what is known as the ‘Area 51 litigation’. During the 1990s, Prof Turley represented
Area 51 workers in two lawsuits. These suits forced the first official recognition
of the base, although at the time it was simply mentioned as a non-specified ’black facility’,
one whose very existence is denied by the Government. Over the course of the lawsuit Turley was
threatened with arrest, his clients and their families were threatened with prosecution
and he had to go to Moscow to find images to prove the existence of the base. But what was the lawsuit about? According to Turley’s clients, Area 51 was
a hazardous waste site, at which classified equipment and materials were disposed of in
an illegal and extremely dangerous manner: the hazardous waste was dumped in long, open
trenches, doused with jet fuel and set on fire. This practice generated highly toxic smoke,
known as “London fog” by workers at the base. Many came down with severe skin and respiratory
illnesses associated with exposure to burning hazardous waste. One of the aims of the lawsuits was to discover
exactly what the workers had been exposed to, so that they could get appropriate medical
care. Turley’s first hurdle was to get the Government
to acknowledge the existence of the facility. This he achieved thanks to the Russian satellite
pictures I mentioned at the beginning of this video. Then, Turley claimed that he struggled to
even meet his clients. During the lawsuit his office had been barred
entrance to anyone but himself, meaning he had to arrange covert meetings in motels and
garages, as his clients feared arrest. In the end, Turley prevailed in demonstrating
that the Government had acted in violation of federal law. But the Government refused to reveal what
toxic waste had been burned in the trenches, which meant that Area 51 workers and their
doctors didn’t know what they had been exposed to. The Government also refused to acknowledge
the name of the base. In the end the Government, or the military,
or both, had escaped responsibility by hiding behind secrecy. After the death of one of Turley’s clients,
an analysis of tissue samples from his body found unidentifiable substances that even
one of the nation’s top scientists could not recognize. In a 2013 article in the Los Angeles Times,
Prof Turley lamented the fact that the documents declassified back then didn’t clear up the
nature of the waste material. In any case, they were released after the
statute of limitations has passed for the related crimes, meaning a further trial is
not likely to occur – and Area 51 is off the hook. A place of the imagination? Based on what we have learned today, there
are plenty of motives why the Government and the Military don’t want you to access Area
51. Testing new prototypes of spy planes, training
pilots in espionage techniques or even disposing of hazardous waste … these are all perfectly
satisfactory reasons to justify the secrecy and seclusion of the facility. A related consideration is: how many more
military research bases are there, around the US and the world, that are carrying out
similar programmes? Or have caused harm to their personnel due
to their negligence and unwillingness to cooperate? How many more secret facilities could be hiding
sinister experiments or extra-terrestrial technology? And yet Area 51 seems to be always at the
centre of attention, speculation, and many conspiracy theories. Over time, since the first sightings in the
mid-1950s, Area 51 has become a sort of lightning rod – or scape goat – for every unexplained
event linking aliens, secret societies and the US Government. In that respect, Area 51 has grown in the
collective imagination as an abstract place, a repository for all our fears, or hopes that
another level of reality is out there, hidden from our eyes by a select group of sinister
conspirators. I have resisted so far from saying this, but
yes, the truth is out there. But it doesn't necessarily have to be hidden
in Area 51, and there hasn’t necessarily to be only one truth. I hoped you enjoyed today’s Geographics,
if you did please hit the thumbs up below and the notification bell to subscribe. Before you go let us know in the comments:
is there any base or location in your country that could match Area 51 in terms of secrecy
and conspiracy theories?
