If you've ever heard of Area 51, it's most likely been in the context of UFO and alien conspiracies, but what actually is it and what really goes on there?
Prosaically, it’s an area in the Nevada desert that sits adjacent to a salt flat (dried-up lake) called Groom Lake.
Our list of things commonly mistaken for UFOs
Somewhat more colourfully, Area 51 also the epicentre of many leading alien conspiracy theories.
There’s a reason for that.
Groom Lake lies within the perimeter of the United States Air Force (USAF)’s Nevada Test and Training Area, and the area around it has long been the USAF’s preferred site for the testing of experimental aircraft.
Some of the planes what have been developed and tested – at least in part – at Area 51 include the Lockheed U-2, A-12 and SR-71 high-altitude reconnaissance planes, and the F-117 Nighthawk stealth fighter.
Area 51 has been used for this purpose since the 1950s – but the US government denied the area’s very existence right up until 2013, when first the CIA and then President Obama finally came clean.
In the meantime, numerous sightings by locals and tourists of strange, otherwordly-looking aircraft – literally unidentifed flying objects – in the skies over the area had begun to fuel rumours of secret US government collusion with invading alien forces, and so on.
Rumours that were only amplified by the success of TV shows like ‘The X Files’ and ‘UFO Hunters’.
Conspiracy theories
Perhaps the best known conspiracy theory regarding Area 51 suggests that it’s where the US government is keeping an alien spacecraft and the bodies of its crew, which were allegedly recovered from a crash site at Roswell in New Mexico.
These rumours flourished after a man called Bob Lazar claimed, in 1989, to have worked at the site, reverse-engineering technologies recovered from the crash.
Lazar’s testimony has, however, since been discredited as far as many people are concerned, both by claims that he apparently holds neither of the two degrees he claimed to have attained from MIT and Caltech, as well as by his arrest for aiding and abetting prostitution (later reduced to 'felony pandering').
Today, Area 51 may be publicly acknowledged at last, but it remains a closely guarded, top secret military installation.
And while UFO-obsessed visitors continue to flock to the region, the closest they’re ever likely to get to Area 51 itself is a visit to the many UFO-themed gift shops in the nearby town of Rachel.
'Storm Area 51, They Can't Stop All of Us'
On 20 September 2019, Facebook user Matty Roberts posted a hoax rallying cry to UFO conspiracy theorists to 'storm Area 51', implying that, should enough people gather and attempt to illegally gain access to the facility, they would be able to find out the 'truth' about the facility its alleged secrets.
Roberts would later tell the BBC that the event was intended as a joke from the start, but that didn't stop the page from going viral.
Over 2 million people responded to the Facebook event saying they were 'going', but in reality only abouut 150 people turned up to the actual event.
