Uncovering the secrets of area 51 1

Secrets of the Desert: Uncovering Area 51

ZayShawn O Diggs

University of Toledo

ENGL-1110

Mrs. Schauwecker

12/15/2023

Abstract
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This Casual Analysis shows the interest in Area 51 and how that led to people wanting to

know more about the military base, which created conspiracies surrounding the facility. Also, we

look at the UFO craze in the 1960s, which is when everyone in America believed they happened

to have a chance encounter with a UFO. Now, onto Examining the Moon Landing. During this

event, people could not believe the moon landing happened, so they led with the idea that it was

all fake. The Moon landing conspiracy is one of the three big conspiracies that surround Area 51.

Next, the Roswell incident is one of the few conspiracies that the government reported on

themselves to prove that it was only a crash site of a weather balloon. Finally, we talk about the

government attempting to conceal information from the people and failing; in return, conspiracy

theorists create more theories.

Keywords: Area 51, UFO, Roswell, and Conspiracies

Secrets of the Desert: Uncovering Area 51

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Step into secrecy and conspiracy theory, which the government calls Area 51. What adds

to the mysterious nature of Area 51 is that it cannot be found on any map or GPS. Although Area

51 is still around, most people must remember how it was established. The Facility was created

during the Cold War in the 1950s. Intended for military aircraft use during the war; after the war

concluded, the government found it too valuable to abandon the facility since the location was

ideal, and they could perform nuclear weapons tests without caring for the harmed civilians.

In addition, it took the government almost half a century to acknowledge the facility. The

intrigue surrounding Area 51 can be attributed to the mysteries the military tries to conceal from

the public. However, the harder the government attempts to hide Area 51, the people’s thirst for

knowledge never stops, so in return, the public creates narratives centered around

extraterrestrials, illicit experiments, and covert planes/drones.

Fig.1 UFO Link: Although the long-range bomber was never an actual “black aircraft,”

since it was displayed to the public approximately eight months before its first flight, an

airborne B-2 is a UFO report waiting to happen. It looks like an alien craft from any angle

and precisely like a flying saucer when viewed head-on or in profile.

U-2's or UFO

Many conspiracies began with government testing vehicles such as the U-2, also known

as spy planes. According to Annie Jacobsen in the book Area 51: An Uncensored History of

America’s Top Secret Military Base, published in 2011, “As soon as the U-2s started flying out

of Area 51, reports of UFO sightings by commercial airline pilots and air traffic controllers

began to inundate CIA headquarters”. For further clarification, since the U-2s were in testing and

the public was not informed about these aircraft being tested, which led them to conclude it

could only be a UFO due to the silver color and the odd way they would fly, images of the plane

can be seen in (Fig .1).

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Now, when it came to the purpose and discovery of Area 51, It all began with President

Eisenhower believing the Soviets would use their newly deployed technology against the

American people, as stated by Carpenter, B., & Zimmerman, D. J. (2016). [Review of Area 51:

The Graphic History of America’s Most Secret Military Installation]. Air Power History, 63(1),

55–56. The discovery of Area 51 was accidental. It all began with Kelly Johnson, head of

Lockheed, developing the U-2 aircraft. When it needed to be tested, they relocated the vehicle to

a remote location in the Nevada desert. After all tests were completed, they believed the landing

ground and the location were ideal (Buz,2016). We now know it as Area 51, which is how the

legend was born.

However, even though the facility is in a hidden location, when vehicles leave Area 51,

they can be spotted easily, such as how the U-2 was mistaken for a UFO by the government

(Buz, 2014). Nevertheless, the government did not want to make the same mistake, so they

decided to go for an even slicker design for the new vehicle, the A-12, which was the best spy

plane they could acquire at the time and could reach Mach-3 (Buz, 2014). Since the vehicle

travels at such high speeds, it leaves a trail behind it as a result, “The mysterious Aurora program

continues to fascinate conspiracy believers.” Buz, C. (2014) Area 51 Black Jets: History of the

Aircraft Developed at Groom Lake, America’s Secret Aviation Base Yenne Bill. All in all, no

matter what actions Area 51 takes to conceal the truth from the American people, they cannot

hide what can be seen by the naked eye.

Examining Moon landing theories: Fact or Fiction

However, the conspiracy theories did not stop there. During the moon landing of 1969,

many theorists in America were trying to disprove the authenticity of Neil Armstrong on the
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moon. However, specifically, “In 1974, a man named William Kaysing self-published a book

called We Never Went to the Moon: America’s Thirty-Billion Dollar Swindle”. With these three

questions, Kaysing became known as the father of the lunar landing conspiracy Jacobsen, A.

(2011) Area 51 an Uncensored History of America’s Top Secret Military Base Little, Brown and

Company. The concept behind the book Kaysing self-published is that he proposed three

questions that have shaped the conspiracy around the Moon Landing to this day. The public

belief in this conspiracy slowly faded, and most believed we went to the moon. However, a

handful of people still believe in the conspiracy and are creating increasingly outlandish

conspiracies on the subject.

Just as the moon landing has many theories behind it, there are two more dominant

conspiracies involving Area 51, the capture of aliens and underground tunnels underneath the

facility, according to the findings (2011). Nevertheless, “Each conspiracy theory contains

elements of fact, and each is perceived differently by the three government agencies they target:

NASA, the CIA, and the Department of Defense.” Jacobsen, A. (2011) Area 51: An Uncensored

History of America’s Top Secret Military Base Little, Brown and Company.

In brief, the theories that the theorists are producing are correct. However, government

agencies are still determining how to act on the information they are presented with because

there are actual underground tunnels drilled next door to Area 51, as observed (2011). The

underground tunnels theory shows that the more theories are created, the closer the people inch

toward uncovering the mysteries of Area 51.

The Roswell Incident

Finally, one of the oldest and most known conspiracy theories, the Roswell incident, was

a craze between the 1950s and 1960s (Buz, 2016). Many theories believe the Roswell incident
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was a UFO cover. However, the real secret behind it was that it was just debris clean, as stated

here: “Additionally, several surviving personnel were located and interviewed, as was the only

surviving person who recovered debris from the original Roswell Site in 1947 and the former

officer who initially identified the wreckage as a balloon.” Buz, C. (2016) Area 51: The Graphic

History of America’s Most Secret Military Installation Zimmerman Dwight Jon Air Power

History. In short, the Roswell incident was just one big misunderstanding between the

government and the people, leading to the oldest conspiracy theories.

However, it did not stop there. Even though the government cleaned up the debris, the

public speculation would take longer to conclude. During this time of speculation, the conspiracy

theorists were running ramped according to Weaver, R. and McAndrew, J. in The Roswell

Report Fact Versus Fiction in the New Mexico Desert published in (1995), “After the purported

crash of the spacecraft, the bodies of the extraterrestrial visitors were said by a local undertaker

and other conspiracy theorists to have been autopsied and secretly flown to an Air Force base in

Ohio.” As a result of this story being passed around, the interest in the Roswell incident that was

put to bed by the government was given a new life with the conspiracy of extraterrestrials.

Dispelling the Conspiracy Craze

The theorists above believe they are always correct, no matter how outlandish their tales

are. Nevertheless, throughout each conspiracy, the government continued to stop them in their

tracks, but that does not mean the theorists will admit defeat. For example, in the Roswell

incident, the conspiracy continued even after it was stated in The Roswell Report Fact Versus

Fiction in the New Mexico Desert by Weaver, R. and McAndrew, J. (1995). “Even though the

“Roswell Incident” has been repeatedly dismissed by the Defense Department as nothing more

than UFO fantasizing triggered by the discovery of a downed weather balloon, the GAO has
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begun searching for documents to prove the allegation that the Air Force “suppressed”

information sought by Schiff” In brief, the Department of Defense can attempt to disprove this

conspiracy but, in the end, the theorists will always find a new story to tell.

Now, onto Examining Moon Landing Conspiracies: Fact or Fiction; when it came to the

first moon landing, theorists were all over that, trying to prove that it was fake in any way they

could. However, according to Annie Jacobsen in the book Area 51: An Uncensored History of

America’s Top Secret Military Base, published in 2011, “The second man on the moon punched

the lunar-landing conspiracy theorist squarely in the jaw, cameras catching it all on tape” Yet the

government’s efforts fell in vain even though this was their time to show the world that we

landed on the moon many millions of people agreed with the conspiracy theories who stated the

landing was a hoax by (Jacobsen, 2011, pp. 136-140). Due to the conspiracy theories, the lunar

landing remains one of the three primary conspiracies at Area 51.

The final question that needs to be asked is: U-2s or UFOs? During the mid-1950s, the

UFO Panameno was taking place, which left people believing they saw a flying saucer, but they

were not too far off. Instead, they have seen a U-2 test flying around the Nevada area due to the

vehicle’s oddly shaped wings, narrow body, and silver color. When flying 10-20 thousand feet

(about 6.1 km) in the air, the aircraft was mistaken for a UFO, as stated (Jacobsen, 2011).).This

led the government to change the color of the vehicle to match the sky and start a campaign

known as Project Grudge that was supposed to “persuade the public that UFOs constituted

nothing unusual or extraordinary,” In the words of Annie Jacobsen, author of Area 51: an

Uncensored History of America’s Top Secret Military Base. After all, the government can never

put a conspiracy to bed no matter how hard they try, and it will still stand.
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Finally, the mystery surrounding Area 51 continues to show how intense the human

fascination with secrecy and the unknown can be. Despite Area 51’s Cold War origins, even

after the war was over, the government’s continued silence over the facility led to the formation

of conspiracy theories. Also, when it came to Area 51 being deliberately off all maps and GPS

systems, this only added to the layer of intrigue over the facility, which only breeds more

theories and speculation. Extraterrestrials, illicit experiments, and covert aircraft development

become the main ideas of these tales, which only show how the human imagination can run wild

without concrete evidence. Area 51 is not only a physical location in the Nevada desert but also a

symbol of what the human imagination can think about.

References

Carpenter, B., & Yenne, B. (2014). [Review of Area 51 Black Jets: A History of the Aircraft

Developed at Groom Lake, America’s Secret Aviation Base]. Air Power History, 61(4),

56–56. http://www.jstor.org/stable/26276549

Carpenter, B., & Zimmerman, D. J. (2016). [Review of Area 51: The Graphic History of

America’s Most Secret Military Installation]. Air Power History, 63(1), 55–56.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/26276726

Jacobsen, A. (2011) Area 51: an Uncensored History of America's Top Secret Military Base
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Little, Brown and Company

Patton, P. Coburn, D. Maccarthy, E. Pappalardo, J. & Sofge, E. (2009) 6 Top-Secret Aircraft that

are Mistaken for UFOs

Hearst Magazine Media

Weaver, R., L. McAndrew, J. (1995) The Roswell Report Fact Versus Fiction in the New Mexico

Desert
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