posted on Jun, 15 2004 @ 06:16 AM
AREA 51 INSTALLATION
GROOM LAKE, NEVADA
Every
weekday morning, at least 500 people arrive at the guarded terminal
owned by EG&G on the northwest side of McCarran Airport in Las
Vegas, Nevada. Here they board one of a small fleet of unmarked
Boeing 737-200s. Using three digit numbers prefixed by the word
"Janet" as their callsigns, the 737s fly off North every half
hour.
Their destination is Groom Lake, also known as Area 51, an installation
so secret, its existence is denied by the government agencies
and contractors that have connections there. By late 1955, the
facility had been completed for flight testing of Lockheed's
U-2 spyplane. Since that time, Groom Lake has undergone vast
expansion, catering to the needs of testing the most advanced
aircraft projects in the world. Forty-four years after it was
created, Groom Lake has hosted flight testing of the aforementioned
Lockheed U-2, the SR-71 Blackbird, the F-117 stealth fighter,
Northrop's B-2 stealth bomber, the mysterious Aurora Project,
and possibly even alien spacecraft.
Tony LeVier, Lockheed's test pilot assigned to test-fly the
U-2 spyplane, claims the credit for recognizing Groom Dry Lake
as a suitable test site. The CIA gave U-2 designer Kelly Johnson
the task of choosing and building a secure test site. In March
1955, Johnson sent LeVier and Skunk Works foreman Dorsey Kammerer
to visit potential test sites in the deserts of southern California,
Nevada, and Arizona. After two weeks, LeVier presented Johnson
with his impressions, and Johnson chose Groom Lake.
The Groom Lake facility has been known by many names since its
construction. Kelly Johnson named the place "Paradise Ranch".
When his flight test team arrived in July 1955, they simply
called it "The Ranch". In fact, the secret base was formally
named Watertown Strip, after the town in upstate New York where
CIA director Allen Dulles was born. In June 1958, it was officially
designated Area 51 by the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC). The
adjacent AEC proving grounds became known as the Nevada Test
Site and divided into such numbered areas. The base is now known
worldwide as "Area 51" (thanks to numerous mentions in Hollywood
shows and movies), though officially this designation was dropped
in the 1970s.
By 1970, the USAF Systems Command took over the operation of
Groom Lake. At this time, the U-2 and A-12/SR-71 spyplanes had
both been tested and in service on reconnaissance missions.
Unmanned high-speed drones were also being tested, including
the Model 147 Lightning Bug, Model 154 Firefly, and D-21 Tagboard.
In 1967, the United States acquired its first Soviet MiG-21
and the US efforts to acquire Soviet weapons technology expanded.
In 1975, the Red Flag series of realistic air warfare exercises
started at Nellis AFB, using large portions of the ranges surrounding
Groom Lake. The box of airspace surrounding Groom Lake was strictly
off-limits to Red Flag aircrews. It became known as "Red Square"
at this time, but later acquired the semi-official title of
"Dreamland" as a series of new exotic aerospace projects evolved
in the late 1970s. These included the Have Blue and Tacit Blue
stealth technology demonstrators. The testing of these aircraft
brought extreme security measures at Groom Lake.
The Groom Lake base was considerably expanded in the 1980s.
The main runway (14/32) was extended to the south, and then
a huge northernly extension built out onto Groom Dry Lake, today
having a length of 27,000 feet. A smaller parallel runway was
built in the early 1990s. Semi-recessed "scoot and hide" shelters
were built on the main taxiway so that secret aircraft could
be more easily hidden from spying satellites overhead. New radars,
satellite telemetry and other communications facilities were
installed, and extra warehouse and assembly areas constructed.
The base housing area was completely rebuilt, accomodating up
to 2,000 people, and an extensive recreational facility provided.
Today, Groom Lake seems to be administered by Detachment 3 of
the Air Force Flight Test Center at Edwards AFB.
[lrec]
Perimeter securtiy was also increased. Until 1984, it was easy
to view the base from Bald Mountain and other hills in the Groom
Range to the north of the lakebed. The USAF then extended the
Nellis range military reservation to cut off the view...or so
they thought! Two hillsides to the south of the Groom Range
still offered a view of the base from 12 miles away. White Sides
Peak and Freedom Ridge, these points were annexed by authorities
in 1995.
Clearly marked but not actually fenced, the entire boundary
of the base is patrolled by an anonymous security force equipped
with high-tech surveillance gear. Remote electronic sensors
detect movement along known dirt tracks and roads leading towards
the installation. It has been thought for quite a while now
that the surveillance equipment is so advanced that certain
sensory equipment has the ability to smell a person coming near
the boundary, and distinguish him/her from other animals nearby.
The ground patrols, often called "Cammo Dudes", are assisted
by FLIR-equipped Sikorsky MH-60G Pave Hawk helicopters.
Since the Tacit Blue flights ended in 1985, only two further
black projects which were presumably test-flown from the secret
base, have since been officially acknowledged. These were both
stealth air-launched missiles: the Lockheed Advanced Cruise
Missile (ACM), cancelled in 1992, and the Northrop Tri-Service
Stand-Off Attack Missile, cancelled in 1994. So what activities
are taking place at Groom Lake?
In 1989, a man named Bob Lazar appeared on a Las Vegas television
station and claimed that he had been employed at Area 51 for
the purpose of "reverse engineering" alien flying saucers. He
alledged that nine of these disc-shaped craft were flown from
a highly secure facility named "S-4" at Papoose Lake, 10 miles
southwest of Groom Lake.
Lazar's story has been widely criticized and a more credible
link to disc-shaped objects is that they are testbeds for anti-gravity
propulsion systems, being tested at Groom Lake. Such technology
would represent an unprecedented leap worthy of the most extreme
secrecy. So would an operational hypersonic spyplane with another
new propulsion system, such as Pulse Detonation Wave Engines
or hydrogen-powered scramjets.
There is much circumstantial evidence to link Groom Lake with
(at the very least) experimental high-Mach vehicles. It has
even been claimed that a new mother/daughter combination like
the A-12/D-21 has been flown, known as the Super Valkyrie. Evidence
from base-watchers and elsewhere also suggests other top-secret,
Special Accesss Programs that have been conducted at Groom Lake
in recent years:
High
Altitude Stealth Reconnaissance: Large subsonic long-endurance
vehicle jointly developed by Lockheed and Boeing to replace
the SR-71's ability to overfly denied territory at will.
Based on the Skunk Works failed bid for the Advanced Tactical
Bomber (ATB) - the B-2, it was cancelled in 1992 after at
least $300 million had been spent, and replaced by the Tier
3 Minus UAV (Lockheed's Darkstar).
Covert
Assault Transport: Probably a delta configuration with
advanced V/STOL capabilities but with very low noise as
well as radar signature. Probably cancelled in 1993 in favor
of further Bell/Boeing V-22 Osprey development.
Stealth
Helicopter: Different designs with emphasis on low blade
and transmission noise, also exploring new technology to
reduce blade and efflux signature. (Sikorsky's new attack
helicopter, the successor to the Apache - the Comanche,
incorporates stealth technology, but this is being tested
elsewhere.)
Cloaking
Technology: Cloaking technology in the form of electrochromatic
panels mounted to aircraft has been revealed as being tested
at the Area 51 installation.
Recently,
a new theory which is of a very good basis has risen which
gives an idea as to the glowing objects seen above the Groom
Lake installation. Researcher Tom Mahood has mentioned his
theory that the objects moving at incredible speeds with sudden
directional changes, emitting an unusual glow, could in fact
be the result of experimental proton beam systems.