Posted on 08/15/2013 4:31:39 PM PDT by nickcarraway
Area 51 is a touchstone of America's cultural mythology. It rose to notoriety in 1989, when a Las Vegas man claimed he had worked at the secret facility to discover the secrets of crashed alien hardware, spawning two decades of conspiracy theories and speculation about little green men. But the facility's history -- and the history of the strange, secret aircraft that were developed there -- extends back to 1955. Since its inception, the government has obliquely acknowledged its existence only a handful of times, and even the CIA's 1996 declassified history of the OXCART program -- the development of the SR-71 Blackbird at the secret site -- refers only to tests conducted in "the Nevada desert." The government has never publicly discussed the specific facility ... until now.
On Thursday, the National Security Archive reported that it had gotten its hands on a newly declassified CIA history of the development of the U-2 spy plane. The report, obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, contains the CIA's secret record of how Area 51 came to be.
In 1955, CIA Special Assistant for Planning and Coordination Richard Bissell, Col. Osmund Ritland, an Air Force officer working on the U-2 project, and Lockheed aircraft designer Kelly Johnson began looking for a location in California or Nevada to test the U-2 prototype. The location had to be remote -- far from the view of the public (or potential Soviet spies). On April 12, 1955, they were scouting locations from the air with the help of Lockheed test pilot Tony LeVier. While flying over the Groom Lake salt flat, they noticed an airstrip that had been abandoned after being used by the Army Air Corps during World War II. The CIA history describes their first encounter with the site:
(Excerpt) Read more at blog.foreignpolicy.com ...
When has the government ever done something right the first time?
While working for a defense contractor in Dallas in the early ‘60s, I distinctly recall the words “Groom Lake” being spoken by another employee. I had no idea what he was working on, but many years later the name began to leak out.
However, there does appear to be some sort of large crater in one of the desert areas near the West Coast that does not appear in Aerial photos available in public libraries going back to before around 1956... not that I would know anything about that, of course
SHHHH. No one mention Area 50. That’s where they make the secret ingredient.
>>SHHHH. No one mention Area 50. That’s where they make the secret ingredient.<<
It is where we keep the weather machine...
I think that is the site of one of Darksheare’s coffee experiments.
I guess you guys have never been down in my basement. Makes Area 51 look like “Wonderland”. Mine is more like “District 9” and “The Battle for L.A.” combined.
It is no wonder that that snake died. What goes in, never comes out, alive.
I do believe that Judge Crater and Jimmy Hoffa are both down there, somewhere, perhaps behind the life-sized poster of Captain Kirk(i.e. in his green commander’s suit).
Speaking about William Shatner, I met him a couple weeks ago. He’s put on some weight but has nice hair (whose, I don’t know). Not very talkative outside of an auditorium (but did get his autograph on a 1979 Star Trek Ships foldout poster from what was probably a children’s book about “Star Trek The Movie”).
Eat your hearts out, you Klingon-Romulan vermin!
Now DATA (aka Brent Spinner), was. A very pleasant person.
here is the link to the pdf of the 355 page report—
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB434/docs/U2%20%20history%20complete.pdf
“Makes Area 51 look like ‘Wonderland.’”
Interesting, since the nickname for Area 51 is “Dreamland.”
Speaking of actor Brent Spiner, he did a good job playing the zany Area 51 scientist in the 1996 flick “Independence Day.”
Dragon Lady: The History of the U-2 Spyplane
And Bill Sweetman of Aviation Week has been all over the U-2/SR-71 stories for over 20 years now.
Dr. Okun was a good bit of comedy relief in that McDonnell Douglas commercial that was packaged as a movie. Despite the problems, I liked ID4.
What about area 57?
“”Interesting, since the nickname for Area 51 is “Dreamland””
A lot of Dale Brown books have centered around Area 51 and goings on at “Dreamland.” Great reading.
Mac Donalds “special sauce”, Col Sanders recipe, Coca Cola
secret formula.......
Thanks for the ping. Area 51 wouldn’t be a good place to reverse-engineer anything. Wright-Pat would be much better.
So where is the alien space craft being kept? And the alien bodies?
Where’s that dude with the wild hair, you know the guy always talking about UFOs and aliens? He can clear things up about ‘’Area 51’’.
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