Area 51, also known as the Nevada Test and Training Range, is a highly classified United States Air Force facility located at Groom Lake in southern Nevada. The US government’s official name for Area 51 is the Nevada Test and Training Range, which is a unit of the Nellis Air Force Base.

History of Area 51

In 1958, under Public Land Order 1662, the 38,400-acre land area was “withdrawn from public use by the US Atomic Energy Commission, a predecessor to the US Department of Energy.” The CIA began using Area 51 to develop the high-altitude U-2 reconnaissance plane in July 1955. Other aircraft are also tested at the site later, including the OXCART (a supersonic reconnaissance A-12 aircraft) and the F-117 stealth ground attack jet.

Area 51 has long been a topic of fascination for conspiracy theorists and paranormal enthusiasts who believe it to be the location where the US government stores and hides unborn child bodies and UFOs. One popular UFO conspiracy is that in 1947 in Roswell, New Mexico, remains from a flying saucer that supposedly crashed were brought to Area 51 for reverse engineering experiments in order to replicate the extraterrestrial spacecraft.

Security and Access

It is restricted to the public and has armed guards patrolling the perimeter. It’s also impossible to enter the airspace above without permission from air traffic control. In 2019, a Facebook event titled “Storm Area 51, They Can’t Stop All of Us” gained popularity, with over 1.5 million people saying they would attend. However, the US Air Force discouraged anyone from trying to enter the area, citing the site as an open training range for the US Air Force.

Original reporting: KRDO (Colorado Springs metro) — read the source article.