Like the Bermuda Triangle, Area 51 is one of those enduring mysteries that technically was solved, but some people still believe it isn’t fully solved, if that makes sense. As in, the official explanation isn’t cutting the mustard. Not for everyone, anyway. And, to be fair, there are things that happen at Area 51 that the government is not willing to tell us about. It is a secret research facility, after all. It’s not like they tell you what’s going on in the Pentagon all the time, either.

The very idea of Area 51 has fascinated people for decades now. It’s become a major staple of pop culture, appearing in shows like The X-Files and Roswell and featuring in many movies as well. In 2019, there was even an organized attempt to gather people to storm Area 51 so they could find out for themselves what was really going on there. It started as a joke on Facebook, quickly went viral, and two million people RSVP’d that they were going to show up. In reality, 6,000 people showed up, which is actually pretty impressive for a joke meme about storming the secure government facility where you could be shot for trying.

None of the people who showed up in 2019 found any aliens. No one, in fact, has found any aliens. But the facility is still locked down, and it still fascinates people. With that in mind, why don’t we take a journey into the Nevada desert and see what the official word and the unofficial word is on just what’s going on in Area 51?

Area 51 History

Officially known as the Nevada Test and Training Range, as well as Groom Lake and Homey Airport, Paradise Ranch, the Ranch, Watertown, and Dreamland, Area 51 is located in the Nevada desert just over 120 miles from Las Vegas. The facility was built back in 1955 to test the Lockheed U-2 spy plane, and it is still a highly classified facility. 

It has been acknowledged as a test flight location by the US government and, over the years, has also been used to test aircraft like the Archangel-12, the SR-71 Blackbird, and the F-117 Nighthawk stealth fighter. The existence of the site was only officially acknowledged by the CIA in 2013.

The name Area 51 is attributed to old Atomic Energy Commission maps. The AEC used to number grids, and Area 51 would have been the designation of that grid. That said, it has been pointed out since this theory was devised there that 51 was not a number in the AEC grid maps. Other theories are that they called it that because they would not need it for the grid system since it was a secret test facility. No one has ever confirmed one way or the other. 

Currently, the facility is administered by Edwards Air Force Base and, as ever, it is not open to the public. Armed guards patrol the exterior, and even entering airspace above it is forbidden without permission. Cameras and motion sensors are monitoring the perimeter as well. Signs warn that drones, photography, and firearms are prohibited in the area. They also warn that deadly force is authorized, so those armed guards aren’t there just for show. 

Area 51 Conspiracies

Conspiracy theories have surrounded Area 51 for almost as long as it has been in existence. Much of this is thanks to a man named Robert Lazar, who we’ll look into more later on. Lazar was the first person to publicly come out in the 1980s and say aliens and UFOs were being studied in Area 51. He claimed to have worked there and had firsthand knowledge. 

Lazar said he worked there, on alien spacecraft and technology, in 1989, and that set the conspiracy world aflame. The most enduring of these conspiracy theories is that Area 51 is used to test and house alien aircraft. The most notable one? The alleged craft that crashed in Roswell, New Mexico. The official word from the US government is that there was no alien craft that landed in Roswell; it was just a weather balloon.

The statements made by Lazar, combined with the fact that the government wouldn’t even acknowledge that Area 51 existed at the time, was more than enough fuel for the conspiracy-minded. There was an insider supposedly blowing the whistle and a completely non-responsive government. By denying the existence of the entire facility for 58 years, which people could literally go to and look at with their own eyes, they were essentially opening the floodgates for anyone to believe anything.

Keep in mind that this is actually a good strategy for the government. Let people believe whatever they want, and even if they stumble upon the truth, it will just get mixed up in all the conspiracies that sound crazy, and no one will believe any of it.

The other thing that helped fuel these conspiracy theories was the fact that, for 58 years, this facility was used as a testing ground for top secret aircraft. Meaning aircraft that didn’t look like anything anyone had ever seen before, had not been officially acknowledged, and were typically faster than anything else in the sky. In a very real way these were unidentified flying objects; they just weren’t extraterrestrial.

There are conspiracies that alien autopsies have been conducted at Area 51, complete with low-budget videos disguised as documentaries on the subject. Lazar said he was reverse engineering alien aircraft there, and of course there are conspiracies that aliens that crashed in Roswell are still held there, which was a major plot point of the Independence Day franchise. 

Other Conspiracies

Aliens are far from the only conspiracy that surrounds Area 51. Some think there is weather-controlling technology hidden there, likely born from the real-life Project Cirrus, an experiment in the 40s and 50s to use weather and rain as a weapon. 

Arguably, the biggest conspiracy theory related to Area 51 that doesn’t involve aliens still involves outer space. Some people believe, to this day, that the moon landing was faked. The idea is that it was done just as a propaganda measure to sort of pull one over on the Soviets and make America look better in the eyes of the world and at home. So, instead of actually getting to the Moon, which was not a possibility at the time, the US government just faked it by filming a moon landing in a secret studio at Area 51.

There’s never really been a specific reason why Area 51 would be the place to film it, other than it’s a secret facility. Some people concede it could have been done in a Hollywood studio. Of course, much of this conspiracy rests on the fact that the flag moves when Buzz Aldrin places it into the lunar surface which leads people to believe that there was a wind present and one has to wonder why they would have wind in a studio, either.

Robert Lazar

We can lay almost all the conspiracy theories at the feet of Robert Lazar. In 1989, Lazar gave an interview with a Las Vegas journalist about how he had worked in Area 51 on top secret projects to reverse engineer alien aircraft. He claimed to have seen the alien aircraft first hand and had also seen photos of autopsies. He claimed that Area 51 held nine crashed vehicles of extraterrestrial origin. 

Lazar sounded like the real deal. A nuclear physicist who had been working at Los Alamos. This was a man with credentials, respectability, and every reason you could think of to be sincere and trustworthy. He had been educated at MIT and CalTech and was a leading mind in nuclear physics. At least until someone looked into it.

Neither MIT nor CalTech has any record of Robert Lazar. He says the government erased his history. But others have looked into his education before he would have been at MIT and discovered he only took one science class in high school and barely passed. He never had the grades to have been accepted to MIT. Instead, records show that Lazar went to Pierce Junior College outside of Los Angeles at the same time he was supposed to be enrolled in MIT on the other side of the country. That school does have records of him being there.

Lazar has been arrested for involvement in a prostitution ring, and his employment at Nellis Air Force Base was apparently made up as much as his education was. Nevertheless, he still has staunch believers who feel they have evidence that he’s been on the level, including confirmation of things he’s said by other officials and apparently passing a lie detector test (though the results were later stolen).

When it came to working for the lab at Los Alamos, research into that claim found that Lazar had been there but not working for the lab. He was an employee of a subcontractor that had been hired to do work there. 

The most noticeable and easily disproved claim from Lazar was that he had been working on alien engine technology with element 115, which, to most people’s minds, didn’t exist at the time. Years later, it was created in a lab. Rather than proving Lazar’s claim, it served to show he didn’t know what he was talking about. Element 115, of which four atoms were made in a particle accelerator that had a half-life of milliseconds, could never have existed in the amounts Lazar claimed to be using to reverse engineer alien ship technology. 

What is Really There?

 So if it was a test facility in the ’50s, and there are no aliens there, why is it still top secret? What’s going on at Area 51 today? There are two ways you can go about dealing with that question. You can either listen to what the government says or you can not. After all, if there was something to hide there, would they actually put it on the CIA website? Probably not.

Area 51 is still, to this day, used by the US Air Force as a test facility. The secrecy around the facility when it was first constructed had nothing to do with aliens; it had to do with the Soviet Union. They were building spy planes for use in the Cold War, and they didn’t want the Russians to know about them. As time went on, they kept building secret aircraft there and didn’t want enemies to know about them, so everything stayed hush-hush.

Ironically, Area 51 is used to reverse technology. However, it’s all of a terrestrial origin. If the US military can capture enemy aircraft, it will be taken to Area 51 to be studied and, if it’s worth the effort, reverse-engineered so that the same technology can be applied to American weapons. Or, at the very least, it will give you insight into how to detect and overcome that technology. 

That information comes from a journalist who has researched and written a book about Area 51. If you ask the US Air Force what goes on at Area 51, and even specifically if they reverse engineer enemy aircraft there, you will get a boilerplate answer that they can’t discuss what happens at a secure facility like that.

Much of the American military’s surveillance and reconnaissance technology likely came from work done at Area 51. Meaning this is the hub of spy technology at its best. This is where the stealth bomber came from. This is where they make the impossible possible, so if you can imagine what they do there, you’re probably wrong. They’re working on stuff that you can’t imagine, and that’s the point. You can’t imagine it, our enemies can’t imagine it, it’s fringe stuff that takes the world by surprise when it finally does come to light.

Does any of it come from aliens? We’ll probably never know. But if people keep wasting time debating it, odds are the people who are working there don’t mind if everyone else stays distracted.

Area 51 is probably one of the most mysterious man-made places in the world. Depending on which part of the Internet you’re in, conspiracies around the highly secretive military base can range from ‘they conduct human experiments there’ to ‘we’re living in a simulation run out of Area 51`. There’s no dearth of information (or what conspiracy theorists believe is ‘information’) available on the region, though because of its popularity and conspiracy value, most of it is sensationalized and probably not accurate.

SEE ALSO: 10 Secret Cities Kept Hidden From The Public

That’s, of course, if you dig in a bit deeper and realize that there are many relatively-unknown facts around Area 51 that have been hidden in the back pages of search results. If we take our eyes off all the aliens and weather modification stuff for a minute, we’d realize that those facts are every bit as interesting as the most far-fetched conspiracy theories around it.

10 It’s Still Growing

It’s been a long time since the general public got to know about Area 51, even if the C.I.A. didn’t acknowledge its existence till 2013. What was originally an unspectacular military base to deal with the Cold War turned into the biggest military mystery in America, largely due to highly-publicized claims by former employees.

Since then, public interest in the base has only grown, and so has the base itself. Most of us assume that it’s just one cordoned-off place that has stayed the same since it was built. In reality, though, Area 51 is still expanding, along with – assumingly – the scope of whatever research is going on in there. The expansion has garnered quite a bit of controversy, too, as a significant part of the land that now makes Area 51 was forcefully taken by its owners without an adequate explanation. Now we’re not saying that it definitely means that they’ve found more aliens to experiment on in the years since the base was built. All we’re saying is that it’s a possibility.^[1]

9 No One Knows Why It’s Called Area 51

Most of us don’t realize that the name of the base wasn’t always Area 51, even if the government has used ‘Area 51’ to refer to it multiple times in the recent past. It’s also not its original name, as the base is called Homey Airport or Groom Lake in Cold War era documents. Regardless, the base is now referred to as Area 51 for all intents and purposes, even in modern official records.

It certainly begs the question; why that name? Area 51 implies the existence of areas 1 – 50, though if they exist, no one has ever been able to find them. The answer? We simply have no idea. We know that government diagrams from the 60s called it that, and that the CIA officially confirmed it in 2013. Though beyond that, we just don’t know.

Some people say that it’s simply because of the grid naming system by the Atomic Energy Commission that did the planning for that region. Others claim that Areas 1 – 50 were originally built but eventually destroyed due to things getting out of hands with those pesky aliens. As far as we know, any of the explanations could be true.^[2]

8 When The Navy Confirmed UFO Videos Are Real

While there are definitely a lot of conspiracy theories around Area 51 (and we do mean ‘a lot’; just search online), almost all of them could be discredited by reason and logic. We’re sure that some of them have a shred of truth to them – as the military does need bases to test out secretive technology for national security – though some of the theories are too far-fetched to be true.

That is, of course, until you consider that the U.S. Navy has gone on record confirming the presence of one of the UFOs captured on video in the region. The video shows navy aircraft engaging with some weird flying objects, and was considered to be doctored until then. While that doesn’t mean that the navy confirmed the presence of aliens, they did admit that some unexplained flying phenomenon has been happening in and around Area 51.^[3]

7 One Of Those UFOs Matches Lazar’s Description

While many people from the general populace may have forgotten how Area 51 gained its popularity, the conspiracy theorist community remembers that it was thanks to Bob Lazar. Originally an employee at Area 51, Lazar was the first person to claim that he had seen the government conducting alien experiments there.

If you don’t believe in conspiracies, you’d think that none of his predictions could be true, and may dismiss him as someone just out for fame. That would be our assumption, too, at least until his description of one of the alien UFOs matched one of the three whose presence was confirmed by the navy. He claimed that he worked on a spacecraft that flies with its bottom in the front and described its shape in detail. If you look at the above-mentioned video, you’d see that one of those objects perfectly coincides with his claims.^[4]

6 The Original Purpose Of Area 51

Among all the chatter around aliens and conspiracy theories, it’s difficult to find the actual purpose of Area 51. Many theorists believe that to be undeniable proof of the accuracy of their theories, as if it wasn’t built for any other purpose, it must have been to house captured aliens. While that may as well be true – as a lot of people unrelated to each other have claimed to see weird things around the base – Area 51 had a legit reason to exist.

You see, when the Cold War started, the entire Eastern Block was suddenly covered in what we know as the Iron Curtain. Because of that, USA had to come up with an effective way to gather intelligence. Area 51 was originally meant to carry out research on America’s secret, high-altitude U – 2 recon planes. The secrecy around the base could also explained by the simple fact that the U.S. military didn’t want Soviet Russia to know about it, as that would defeat the whole point.^[5]

5 There’s No Actual Fence Around Area 51

For a facility so heavily guarded by the U.S. military, you’d think that Area 51 would have some kind of physical boundary to keep the citizens out. After all, if you can just breach its guarded perimeter by the simple act of walking, it’s not a very safe military facility, is it?

Actually, that’s exactly how it is. Area 51 doesn’t have a fence at all, and we do mean ‘at all’. While some of its inner installations are guarded by perimeters, the whole base has no physical boundary. That doesn’t mean it’s advisable to just walk into it—as it does have magnetic sensors at many places, along with guard towers who would definitely shoot at you if you try to do that.^[6]

4 The Secret Daily Commute To Work

Many of you may have wondered about the work life of the people working inside Area 51. It’s not like they’d build residential facilities for all the employees, as that would literally be the best military job in the world. Who wouldn’t want to work for the biggest army in the world with free accommodation and zero risk of combat?

While we’d guess that some of the personnel working in Area 51 have their own quarters (as we don’t know any better), the majority of them don’t. They make their way to office in possibly one of the most peculiar and secretive daily commutes to work in the world – by air. There’s a whole hangar dedicated to employees of Area 51 inside the facility, with a restricted terminal on the other side at the McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas. More interestingly, the planes use a secret call sign called Janet, which may as well be the most secretive airline in the world. It’s not really a company registered by that name, either, but just a name given to those flights when they’re in civilian airspace.^[7]

3 You Can See It On Google Maps

Even if the general public may not have any idea about what’s inside Area 51, one company knows the entire layout of it, at least from satellite distance. Google Maps is possibly one of the few private companies to be allowed to map the facility, and you could even see it in high resolution right now. It even released a high-res time-lapse of the growth of the facility over the years, something we’re quite surprised the government even allowed it to do.

Google also has an Easter egg for Area 51 if you type in its coordinates in Maps. Just go to 37.24804, -115.800155, and you’d find that the little Google Street pointer guy has turned into a tiny spaceship.^[8]

2 U.S. Military’s Most Heavily-Guarded Secret

Other than conspiracy theorists and people dedicated to dismiss conspiracies, you’d think that Area 51 would just be another secretive U.S. military facility. After all, conspiracy theories exist around all sizeable secret military bases in the world. All the conspiracies around Area 51 seem to branch out of that initial claim by Bob Lazar, and it’s safe to assume that it would just be another military facility if that wouldn’t have happened.

In reality, though, it’s not just conspiracy theorists who find Area 51 to be of interest. When some astronauts at the Skylab space facility accidentally photographed the facility, CIA sent them a special memorandum stating that it was the only coordinate on the planet with explicit instructions to not do that. In other words, the government also recognizes Area 51 as the single most-heavily-guarded secret of the U.S. military. What does that mean? Well, your guess is as good at ours.^[9]

1 The Real Conspiracy At Area 51

We’ve been exposed to so many conspiracy theories surrounding Area 51 that we inadvertently ignore real controversies happening in there. It’s pretty hard to keep up with, say, cases of sexual harassment at the workplace inside Area 51 when we’re consistently told about things like exoskeletons made out of alien skin.

As is the case with most governments, the real conspiracies around Area 51 have more to do with corporate misconduct (Lockheed Martin built the U-2 plane) and employer neglect of working conditions than aliens. There have been quite a few lawsuits alleging that Area 51 employees were exposed to hazardous chemicals that weren’t dumped properly, and at least two people may have died because of it. Complicating matters even further is the government’s refusal to disclose exactly what they were exposed to, as everything inside the facility is a heavily-guarded government secret.^[10]

About The Author: You can check out Himanshu’s stuff at Cracked (www.cracked.com/members/RudeRidingRomeo/) and Screen Rant (https://screenrant.com/author/hshar/), or get in touch with him for writing gigs ([email protected]).

The ‘Storm Area 51, They Can’t Stop All Of Us’ call to action that was issued in September, 2019, fizzled out.^[1] So what happens in Area 51 stays in Area 51. But the government-labeled tin-foil hat brigade, which claims that aliens and their spaceships are hidden there, doesn’t seem so crazy anymore. About a week before the call to action, the United States Navy finally acknowledged that UFOs exist. After decades of denial, the Navy publicly stated that there are, indeed, ‘Unidentified Aerial Phenomena.’^[2] Regardless of what they are called, the strange flying objects that Americans spot in the skies aren’t weather balloons and secret military aircraft, as they have been told.

Top 10 UFO Encounters That You’ve Never Heard About

It took the government almost as long to admit that there actually is a place called ‘Area 51.’ A Freedom of Information Act Request revealed its existence to the public in 2013. Officially, planes are tested and constructed at Area 51.^[3] The facility is actually called the Nevada Test and Training Range at Groom Lake, one of two military training areas at the Nellis Air Force Base Complex in Nevada.^[4] The remote desert site, about a two-hour drive from Las Vegas, is close to the UFO-themed tourist towns of Rachel and Hiko. Whistleblowers and witnesses continue to come forward about what is really going on at Area 51 and other military installations.

10 Malmstrom Air Force Base

Malmstrom Air Force Base, which deploys Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missiles, (ICBMs) is adjacent to Great Falls, Montana. In 1967, the Missile Combat Crew received reports from security patrols and maintenance crew that a UFO was hovering over one of the missile silos. Shortly thereafter, each of the ten missiles shut down, one at a time.^[5] While declassified documents prove that the nuclear weapons did, indeed, become inoperable, there is scant evidence of the UFO claim.^[6][7] However, evidence was gathered at an earlier UFO sighting. The Mariana UFO Incident took place in Great Falls in 1950. Nick Mariana, manager of a minor league baseball team, may be the first person to intentionally capture footage of UFOs. A bright flash caught Mariana’s attention as he was inspecting a baseball field. He ran to get a 16mm camera when he saw two silver disks flying at lightening speed over the city. He was able to get 16 seconds of color video footage. However, he later claimed that 35 complete frames were missing after the Air Force examined the film and returned it to him. These frames showed that the mystery objects in the sky were discs that were rotating.^[8]

9 Carswell Air Force Base

The 1947 Roswell Incident in New Mexico is perhaps the most famous UFO encounter. The first press release stated that a flying saucer had been found. The second press release claimed the object was a weather balloon.^[9] Operations officer Robert Shirkey saw an aluminum-like material with characters written on it being loaded for a flight to Carswell Air Force Base in Fort Worth, Texas.^[10] Flight crewman Robert Porter reported that the boxes holding the ‘pieces of flying saucer’ were as light as empty boxes.^[11] In later years, UFOs were seen around the base. In 1954, a T-shaped aircraft was spotted and picked up on radar. The blue, green, and white UFO hovered at 4000 feet over the nearby airport.^[12] Another sighting was recorded by the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) witness reporting database. In 1965, a witness saw a triangular UFO with three lights.^[13]

8 Wright-Patterson Air Force Base

Captain Oliver W. “Pappy” Henderson, a senior pilot at Roswell AFB during the Roswell Incident, flew a plane to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio shortly after the incident. He did not discuss the flight for more than thirty years because of his security clearance. But in 1977, he told his business partner about his assignment. He said he transported spacecraft wreckage and small alien bodies. He showed his partner a piece of metal from the wreckage. It resembled aluminum but was lighter and much stiffer. In 1982, Henderson told the same story to several of his Roswell pals while attending a reunion.^[14] Other military men confirm Henderson’s story. One of these men is Marine Lieutenant Colonel Marion M. “Black Mac” Magruder. On his deathbed, Magruder remembered that the alien he saw was ‘squiggly.’^[15]

7 Fort Dix

Major George Filer recounts six decades of investigating aliens and UFOs in John Guerra’s Strange Craft: The True Story of An Air Force Intelligence Officer’s Life with UFOs. Most notably, Filer recalls the shooting of an alien at Fort Dix in New Jersey.^[16] In 1978, a military policeman was following a low flying aircraft through the wilderness of the army base during the wee hours of a frigid January morning. A 4-foot tall, grayish-brown creature with long arms, a slender body, and fat head appeared in front of the MP’s truck and was then shot. The remains gave off an ammonia-like stench.^[17] Filer is a member of the Disclosure Project, which champions the release of all UFO information. In 2017, the Pentagon released footage of an extraterrestrial vehicle outdoing U.S. Navy fighters, confirming some of Filer’s descriptions.

6 29 Palms

29 Palms in the Mojave Desert in California was the site of a massive multi-regimental live-maneuver exercise in October, 2019.^[18] Military training is just one of the interesting activities at the Marine base, which is listed in Project Redbook. This database contains information about subsurface alien activity sites. It was compiled for those who want to explore the sites, with no claims of authenticity for any particular site.^[19] According to researcher Val Valerian, recovered alien technology is examined in underground facilities at the base.^[20] In addition, there have been many UFO sightings in the area since the 1950s.^[21] In May, 2019, a worm-like UFO was spotted over the town of 29 Palms.

Top 10 UFO Encounters That Involve Alien Humanoid Entities

5 Fort Meade

In his book, Above Black: Project Preserve Destiny, Dan Sherman writes that he was sent to Fort Meade in Maryland to train for his role in an above Top Secret-level Air Force program called ‘Greys.’ In 1992, he was recruited to speak to Grey Aliens, first encountered at the Roswell Incident. His mother was visited by aliens and was the subject of genetic manipulation. Therefore, Sherman could fulfill his duties as ‘Intuitive Communicator,’ and receive messages from the Greys. First, Sherman sat in a communications van in an unknown location to receive the messages from the designated alien. After some time, he began to receive what he calls ‘abduction data.’^[22] The National Security Agency, (NSA) headquartered at Fort Meade, declassified many documents in more recent years. Some of these reports note attempts to decode a ‘radio message’ received from outer space.^[23]

4 Edwards Air Force Base

Skeptics wonder why aliens speak to the ‘common man’ rather than leaders. In fact, one of our greatest leaders, Dwight Eisenhower, may have communicated with them. Depending on whose story you believe, the president either took a secret evening trip to Edwards Air Force Base while on a golf vacation or he went to the dentist for repair of a chipped tooth. Ike’s dentist insisted he saw the president on February 20, 1954. But Dr. Michael Salla believes that Ike met two blue-eyed aliens, who had colorless lips and white hair, at the base.^[24] Dr. Salla is a leader in the field of exopolitics, defined as ‘the political study of the key actors, institutions, and processes associated with extraterrestrial life.’^[25] Interestingly, the Associated Press reported that Ike died on February 20, 1954, but retracted the story two minutes later. Laura Magdalene Eisenhower, Ike’s great-granddaughter, has publicly stated that she believes that Ike met with extraterrestrials.^[26]

3 Kirtland Air Force Base

A declassified government report revealed that guards at Kirtland Air Force Base in New Mexico saw UFOs in the Coyote Canyon area in 1980. During the same period of time, radar was jammed by an unknown source for six hours in the same area.^[27] Paul Bennewitz, a physicist, inventor, and UFO researcher, had begun to see odd lights in the sky a year earlier. These lights, which flew towards Coyote Canyon and the base, could be seen nearly every evening. Bennewitz filmed the lights as well as objects he saw on the ground and in the air. Over time, he collected more than 2600 feet of film. Bennewitz also taped low-frequency radio transmissions that he said were transmitted by the aliens, and he created a computer program to translate these transmissions.^[28] In addition, he claimed to have evidence that aliens were controlling people through electromagnetic devices.^[29]

2 Holloman Air Force Base

Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico is at the center of several UFO encounters. Project 1947, an ongoing gathering of articles and documents about UFOs seen between 1900 and 1965, presents one of these incidents.^[30] In 1950, electronics engineer Cliff Booth reported that he and another man had used an Askania theodolite to get photographs of a cigar-shaped UFO. While both men were convinced they had seen a ‘vehicle from outer space,’ photographs were blurry.^[31] Years later, filmmaker Robert Emenegger was prompted by the US Air Force to produce a UFO documentary. In 1974, UFOs: Past, Present and Future was released without its most sensational story. The Air Force reneged on its promise to give Emenegger footage of a UFO landing at Holloman Air Force Base in 1971.^[32] The footage showed three UFOs. One UFO landed and three aliens emerged.^[33]

1 Dobbins Air Force Base

‘Georgia’s Aerial Phenomenon 1947-1987,’ written by Roswell, Georgia, police officer Michael Hitt, presents 234 UFO sightings in the state. Many reports come from civilian and military pilots like the airmen from Dobbins Air Force Base who told their story in 1952. They saw an object streak overhead before it disappeared. This same object was seen on radar scopes as it traveled at 1,200 miles an hour, twice the speed of an airplane.^[34] Control tower operator Bruce Beach relates that there were so many UFO sightings at Dobbins Air Force Base in the 1950s that the tower had a 3D camera, which was unusual at that time.^[35] Sightings continued throughout the years. Recently, a square, black UFO the size of a Boeing 727 was spotted near the base and reported to MUFON in January, 2019.^[36]

The spaceship-shaped McDonald’s in Roswell, New Mexico, reminds residents and tourists that we may not be alone in the universe. Right now, the majority of the evidence comes in the form of stories told by military men, pilots, law enforcement officers, and others. The government has finally admitted that UFOs are a real phenomenon. Who knows what secrets may be revealed in the future.

10 Times We Thought We Had Found Proof Of Aliens

We’ve all heard of Area 51 but what about its equivalents around the world? Here are ten of the most intriguing, all but three of which are still in operation.

10. Station 13, South Africa (Closed)

In the grasslands outside Johannesburg, near the not-quite-rural Bapsfontein, Station 13 was—allegedly—operational from the 1960s to the mid-1980s. But there’s not a lot of info to go on. In fact, it all seems to come from one man: Greg Roberts.

In 1966, he says, he stumbled upon the base while looking for the Baker-Nunn satellite tracking station, where he was due for a job interview. Finding himself on a dirt road to a gate with a STRICTLY NO ADMITTANCE sign, a 4-meter-high trailer, and, 6-8 km away, a huge radio dish tucked out of view in a dip, he realized he’d found the Bapsfontein tracking station, or Station 13—about which he’d only heard rumors. Not being the sort to follow orders from signs, he let himself in and entered the trailer. There he was met by “a young man in US military uniform,” who, after Roberts explained, let him use the phone to call the staff at Baker-Nunn. Other uniformed men were there too, along with “racks of electronic equipment” for radio satellite tracking. It was clear from documents lying around that the station belonged to the United States Air Force, and was run by Pan American Airways as part of the Eastern Missile Test Range. It was also clear what satellites they were tracking—though, of course, when Roberts asked, the officer would neither confirm nor deny. Phone call made, he was on his way, with orders not to venture further down the road.

And that was that—until 1982. Eager to distance itself from apartheid, the US shut down its South African bases and sold off a load of equipment. Roberts himself missed the auction, what he heard from friends left him wondering what went on at Station 13. For one thing, there was equipment covering a frequency only ever (officially) used for the 1961-65 RANGER craft, which NASA crashed into the moon. Also, the dish he’d seen the top of was 26 meters across—like the one at Hartebeesthoek used for deep space tracking. “What was such a big dish used for, apart from lunar missions?” Roberts wonders, “Was it used for deep space missions?” Answers have not been forthcoming.

9. QinetiQ, United Kingdom

The Hampshire headquarters of defense contractor QinetiQ are, according to the British Earth and Aerial Mysteries Society (BEAMS), built on top of a UFO base. In the levels below it, they say, researchers are working on intergalactic defense and futuristic flight development. In their 109-page report, they call these hidden levels “deep underground military bases”, or D.U.M.B.

Unfortunately, there’s not much concrete evidence—but some of it does involve concrete. Calling to mind the Nazca Lines, the layout of the roads leading up to the entrance resembles a Grey with arms outstretched. BEAMS calls it a Grey/Reptilian Hybrid and identifies it with Australian cave paintings. Furthermore, part of the building looks just like a flying saucer.

Other evidence includes the tight security on site, reports from alleged personnel, witnesses, and remote viewings, as well as QinetiQ’s involvement in mining coupled with the strange rumbling noises heard in Farnborough over the past 15 years. When approached for comment by The Daily Express, a QinetiQ spokesman said they were looking through the “very detailed dossier and working on a response”. But that was eight years ago, and they’re still keeping schtum—as is the Ministry of Defence, which said they “do not comment on UFO matters”.

8. Site 7, USSR/Kazakhstan (Closed)

The Soviet Union’s Sary Shagan facility was, according to the CIA, a testing range for experimental weapons. Specifically, it was focused on missiles, such as warheads containing metal balls. But rumors also suggest it was developing weaponized lasers… which might explain the UFO sighting at the base’s Site 7—but that would be a stretch.

In 1973, again according to the CIA, a member of Site 7 personnel saw “an unidentified sharp (bright) green circular object or mass in the sky.” It was hovering just above cloud level, they said, or where the clouds would have been if the sky wasn’t clear. “Within 10 to 15 seconds …, the green circle widened and … several green concentric circles formed around [it].” There was no sound. And minutes later it was gone.

Site 7 was, officially, Sary Shagan’s “warhead checkout unit”, so UFO interest may not be that surprising—assuming it wasn’t a laser. Still, the combination of experimental weapons and unexplained lights bears striking resemblance to Area 51. Even the location and climate are similar, being right by a lake in a desert, with clear skies most of the year.

 7. Port Wakefield Proof and Experimental Establishment, Australia

Port Wakefield is one of several large military facilities in Australia, a country heavily involved in nuclear testing. And while it’s not the largest (56 square kilometers compared to the Woomera Range’s 120,000), it is the most interesting. As the name suggests, it conducts experimental weapons testing and munitions proofing at the coast—specifically, “off a remote highway” near the northernmost tip of Gulf St Vincent, South Australia.

Officially, Port Wakefield serves the army, air force, and navy. But they’re testing some pretty weird weapons. Locals and passersby have reported strange bursts of light, flashing balls, and radio interference. One delivery driver said he loses contact with other drivers whenever approaching the site, adding: “There’s a lot that I don’t think people know about it.”

He may have been alluding to the Port Wakefield hitchhiker. Witnessed by numerous drivers, this spectral figure in air force clothes is said to haunt the highway to Adelaide. Sometimes he stands by the side of the road, other times right in the middle, forcing drivers to slam on the brakes. Whether or not he’s given a lift, though, he vanishes into thin air. One local businessman even claims to have followed him into the toilet at a gas station only to see him dissolve.

6. Diego Garcia, British Indian Ocean Territory

Diego Garcia lies just south of the equator, more than 2,000 kilometers from Sri Lanka. It has a long history of exploitation by Europeans, including as a French leper colony and, as recently as the 60s under the British Queen’s ownership, as a plantation forcing children to work. Nowadays, though, with the natives removed, it’s a joint UK/US military base complete with a deep water port and a runway the space shuttle could land on.

Naturally, its isolation gives rise to rumors. Perhaps the most outlandish, purporting to be from a whistleblower, is that it sits atop a D.U.M.B., a deep underground military base, for “Black Navy” projects like the disappearance of Malaysian Airlines Flight 370. Also human cloning. The alleged whistleblower claims to have been cloned twice in the 1980s, and that his “alters” as he calls them were “infused with his soul extracts”. One of them was sent to Mars while the other stayed on Earth, running assassination and abduction missions for its masters.

Well, anything’s possible. More credible, though, is the report from Stephen Walker, a USAF pilot stationed there at the height of the “War on Terror”. One week in 2005, he said, personnel were told to stay away from the “large, red, dilapidated hangar at the northern end of the airfield,” because the Navy was “conducting sensitive operations”. But it seemed to be empty throughout. At one point, they were even told to stay inside and away from the windows. The flightline was cleared and the base locked down to “protect an incoming classified aircraft”. Everyone complied and listened for a landing—“tires touching pavement, … disc brake rotors, or … brakes being applied”—but there was nothing, no sound whatsoever. As Walker put it, “there’s no quiet like the silence of a shutdown airfield on an atoll more than 2,000 miles away from the nearest sign of civilization.” He never found out what it was.

5. Orford Ness, United Kingdom (Closed)

Orford Ness on the coast of Suffolk, 160 km north-east of London, was once a major nuclear weapons lab. Nowadays, it’s a National Trust nature reserve—a protected marshland ecosystem amid the ruins of the base, giving a glimpse of Area 51’s ultimate future. When it was in operation, Orford Ness was home to a massive centrifuge for testing warhead casings, a hangar for captured Axis planes, and the enormous Cobra Mist over-the-horizon radar system. Although it’s not well known, it was just as important in WWII as the code-breaking Bletchley Park.

It was set up in 1913, ten years after the first manned flight, to research aircraft for warfare—all in top secret. And it stayed in operation for the next six decades, opening the Atomic Weapons Laboratory during the Cold War. Interestingly, given the other UK entry on this list, Orford Ness was part of a network that included a site in Farnborough. It’s also a short walk from Rendlesham Forest, the site of Britain’s most infamous UFO sightings. 

As in comparable facilities nowadays, research was compartmentalized. Scientists worked on one small piece of a larger weapon without knowing about all the others or even if the finished thing worked. Among the technologies they developed are night-flying instruments, means for taking off and landing on ships, the 5,400 kg ‘earthquake bomb’ (nicknamed “Tallboy”), and Britain’s first nuke, “Blue Danube”. But much remains secret today, and access to the site is still limited.

4. Znamensk, Russia

Better known by its original name Kasputin Yar, Znamensk was established in 1946 (just after the Second World War) and may be the longest running experimental weapons site on the planet. Like Area 51 and several others on this list, it’s situated in the desert—specifically, east of Volgograd (formerly Stalingrad) in southern Russia.

Technologies developed here include ballistic missiles, orbital rockets, sounding rockets, and nukes. This is also where Laika the dog was launched into space from. Today, in addition to weapons testing and aerospace research, it’s the largest military training center in Russia. So it’s not quite as secretive as its equivalent in Nevada. But, like the United States, Russia rounded up all the Nazi scientists they could—and it was at Kasputin Yar they were put to work.

In 1953, the British photographed the base from a modified Canberra bomber, managing to land in Iran despite drawing fire from the Soviets. But the photos were blurry and useless. Later, with the help of Turkish radar engineers along the Black Sea border with Russia, the US constructed a massive antenna—as long as a football field—to observe the skies above the base. And what they saw was the development and testing of intercontinental ballistic missiles with a range of up to 2,500 nautical miles. 

3. Mount Yamantau, Russia

Known as “Russia’s Mount Everest”, Mount Yamantau in the Ural Mountains is said to host an underground base. And the government doesn’t deny it. In fact, the peak is officially designated a strategic site and, from what Putin has said in recent years about protecting nuclear command and control infrastructure from any threat, it seems an obvious location for the underground base he alludes to.

But it’s bigger than you’re probably thinking—at least according to rumor. Entombed under 3,000 feet of quartz, it’s said to be “as big as the Washington area inside the Beltway”, more than 1,000 square kilometers. That the quartz interferes with radio signals may be part of the point. Also for this reason, the complex is thought to be a bunker to keep top brass alive in the event of a nuclear war—similar to the United States’ Raven Rock Mountain Complex.

But its true purpose is shrouded in secrecy. Some say the nearby town of Mezhgorye, with its population of 17,000, is inhabited solely by Yamantau scientists all working on top-secret projects.

2. Lop Nur, China

In China it’s easy to keep things secret, at least from the people. Deep in the desert, hundreds of miles from any city in one of the most barren places in the entire country—the Uyghur Autonomous Region of Xinjiang—lies the site of Lop Nur. And not only is it still operational but, as recently as 2021, it appeared to be undergoing expansion. Satellite imagery from the time showed that around 12 new concrete buildings had sprung up around the isolated, three-mile runway.

Given the size of the landing strip, which only appeared in 2016, Lop Nur is assumed to be involved in testing the classified “space plane” and other off-world technologies. The construction of new buildings there may suggest a more permanent military presence, or it could just be housing for scientists. Either way, though, Lop Nur appears to be gearing up for more highly classified testing. In fact, the already massive runway may be expanding too—into an equilateral triangle allowing take-offs and landings in three directions.

There’s not much else to say about this one, but it’s location, activities, and secrecy (with diplomats refusing to comment on it) make Lop Nur a direct Chinese equivalent to Area 51.

1. Kongka La, India

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14PTajp9r00

Kongka La, or Kongka Pass, is a high mountain pass in the Himalayas near Ladakh. And it’s “a hotbed for unusual activities”: unexplained lights, equipment failures, flying saucers, etc. It’s also disputed territory, with the Chinese and Indian governments both insisting it’s theirs—sometimes violently, as in the 1950s and 60s. Civilians aren’t allowed there at all.

The case for there being an Area 51 in the region comes from Google Earth imagery, which, allegedly, once showed military buildings. If there is a base, though, it’s thought to be deep underground, taking advantage of Kongka La’s unique geology—the Earth’s crust here being deeper than anywhere else. Hence other pictures from Google purport to show “unidentified caves” that disappear and reappear sporadically.

Other reports come from ground level. For instance, there’s the team of geologists, who in 2004 saw “a robot-like creature, 4 feet tall and strolling on the mountain crest,” before it fled in response to their approach. The Indian military has also, apparently, seen strange goings-on—including, in 2012, a ribbon- or cloth-like object drifting in the sky” that couldn’t be detected on radar.