Aviation Secrets at Area 51

     Aliens, UFO’s, government cover-ups: all of these are commonly associated with the top-secret testing facility known as Area 51. Located in the Mojave Desert northwest of Las Vegas, Nevada (Pedlow, 71), Area 51 has fascinated alien enthusiasts for decades due to the shroud of secrecy around the base. In 2013, the CIA officially acknowledged the existence of Area 51 and released documents detailing some of the projects conducted there. The existence of aliens or flying saucers is still up for debate; however, the government was indeed developing and testing aircraft at Area 51 which were unlike anything this world has ever seen.

     The world which emerged at the end of World War II was entirely different from the world which had entered the war. Many of the European countries were in shambles, and the United States and the Soviet Union had gained superpower status. In addition, nuclear warfare had entered the stage. With tensions still high from World War II and the threat of nuclear war on the horizon, the era known as the Cold War began. The United States sought to gather as much information as possible on the U.S.S.R. and their allies; however, since they could not send in ground forces without sparking a war, they used more covert tactics, including spies and reconnaissance aircraft. In order to be effective, reconnaissance planes had to avoid enemy fire and appear invisible on radar, and the military believed that high-altitude technology was the key to success (Pedlow 20). The search for an aircraft design began. Clarence L. (Kelly) Johnson of Lockheed Aircraft Corporation designed a plane known as the CL-282 which would be capable of reaching an altitude of 70,000 feet. He utilized many design techniques of gliders in his model, such as removable wings and tail and the absence of landing gear (Pedlow 24). The Air Force rejected Johnson’s design because it did not meet military standards. [General Curtis E. Lemay, the commander of the Strategic Air Command, was noted to have said that “he was not interested in a plane that had no wheels or guns” (Pedlow 25)]. Despite the rejection by the military, the CIA saw promise in Lockheed’s design. The CL-282 was officially authorized as a CIA project in 1954 (Pedlow 49) and became known as the U-2 project, one of the most famous spy plane projects in U.S. history.


U-2 Spy Plane (Richelson)

     The development and testing of the U-2 was completed under strictest secrecy, for in order to obtain an advantage over the Soviets, the new technology had to remain highly classified and out of enemy hands. Groom Lake, Nevada was chosen as a base to test the U-2’s and train pilots; the site had been previously used by the Army Air Corps to train pilots in aerial gunnery during World War II (Pedlow 69). The CIA negotiated with the Atomic Energy Commission, who owned a large area of land adjacent to the Groom Lake base, to purchase Groom Lake as well as a portion of land known as Area 51 (Pedlow 69). The site provided exactly what the CIA had been hoping for: plenty of space to conduct test flights and seclusion from prying eyes. Area 51 went by numerous names, including Paradise Ranch, a name coined by Johnson to increase the appeal of the site (Pedlow 70). Operations at the base began in the summer of 1955 (Pedlow 70).

     Top-secret work at Area 51 continued for decades. The base tested numerous other classified aircraft, including the A-12 OXCART, another high-altitude photoreconnaissance plane which was the successor to the U-2. These aircraft proved to be invaluable assets to U.S. intelligence operations. Both the U-2 and the A-12 were used to photograph enemy territory in search of missile launch sites and other sites which were of importance. The photography equipment as well as the aircraft designs for these two planes were revolutionary in the field of aviation. The OXCART, for example, was capable reaching a speed of Mach-3—three times the speed of sound! (Jacobsen). The secrecy of and tight security around Area 51 sparked the public’s interest, and sightings of alien aircraft began to spread like wildfire. The public’s imaginations went wild, creating an entire culture around the base which continues to this day. Some of the UFO sightings may have been top-secret aircraft. As described in the LA Times article, the OXCART had a radically designed fuselage which resembled the disk shape of flying saucers; this, combined with the aircraft’s high speed, would have appeared to the casual observer as a plane from another world (Jacobsen) because very few people knew that that level of technology even existed, let alone was fully operational. No one can say for sure whether visitors will have extraterrestrial encounters at Area 51, but it is now certain that the aviation history of the site and the advancements made there are truly extraordinary.

Works Cited

Jacobsen, Annie. “The Road to Area 51.” Entertainment. Los Angeles Times, 2016. Web. 16 April 2016. http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/la-mag-april052009-backstory-story.html

Pedlow, Gregory W., and Donald E. Welzenbach. Central Intelligence Agency. The Central Intelligence Agency and Overhead Reconnaissance: The U-2 and OXCART Programs, 1954-1974. Washington, DC: History Staff, 1992. Approved for Release: 25 June 2013. Web. 16 April 2016. http://www.foia.cia.gov/sites/default/files/document_conversions/2/DOC_0000190094.pdf

Richelson, Jeffrey T., ed. "The U-2, OXCART, and the SR-71." U.S. Arial Espionage in the Cold
War and Beyond. National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 74, 16 October 2002.
Web. 16 April 2016. http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB74/