The Proving Ground for Secret Aircraft
Area 51 is the facility's designation on older Atomic Energy Commission maps, but its official name is Homey Airport (KXTA), located at Groom Lake within the vast Nevada Test and Training Range. The CIA established the site in April 1955 for Project AQUATONE, the development of the Lockheed U-2 high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft. The remote, dry lakebed provided a secret location to test an aircraft designed to fly at 70,000 feet, far above Soviet air defenses. The first U-2 arrived from Burbank, California, on July 24, 1955.
Following the U-2, the base was the development site for other advanced, top-secret aircraft. Project OXCART, which began in 1959, developed the Lockheed A-12, a spy plane capable of flying at speeds exceeding Mach 3.3. This project led to the creation of the SR-71 Blackbird. To accommodate these advanced programs, the base's infrastructure was significantly expanded. A new runway, 14R/32L, was constructed that today measures nearly 12,000 feet (3,657 meters) long. In the 1970s and 1980s, Area 51 was central to the development of stealth technology. The Have Blue prototype demonstrator was tested here, leading directly to the F-117 Nighthawk stealth attack aircraft, which had its first flight at Groom Lake in June 1981. The facility hosted secretly obtained Soviet MiG fighters for analysis and combat training during the Cold War.
A Culture of Secrecy
The extreme secrecy required for these Cold War projects directly fueled the facility's connection to UFO folklore. The sight of unconventional aircraft flying at unprecedented altitudes and speeds led to numerous public UFO reports. Declassified documents show that U-2 and OXCART test flights accounted for more than half of all UFO reports in the late 1950s and 1960s. The government did not officially acknowledge the existence of Area 51 until June 2013, following a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request.
The physical security around the base is intense. The facility is inside a 575-square-mile restricted "box" of airspace known as R-4808N. The perimeter is monitored by motion sensors, cameras, and patrolled by armed guards, with warning signs authorizing the use of deadly force against trespassers. The base's workforce is primarily transported from a private terminal at Harry Reid International Airport in Las Vegas via a fleet of unmarked Boeing 737s, unofficially known as "Janet Airlines." The callsign "Janet" is rumored to stand for "Just Another Non-Existent Terminal." The UFO mythology grew in 1989 when a man named Bob Lazar claimed he had worked at a facility called S-4 near Papoose Lake, south of the main base, reverse-engineering alien spacecraft.