I searched for a previous thread on this topic but nothing came up.
Area 51 has such an eerie, chilling sound to it. I don’t even know what skullduggery is alleged to be happening there, but it has something to do with UFOs, right? How did it get to be so famous?
The name “Area 51” comes from an obsolete map of the military’s property out in the Nevada desert. The map had the range cut up into numbered “areas”. Why area 51 is the famous one and not area 32 or area 17 or area 60 or area 1, I have no idea.
Area 51 actually doesn’t exist, since that map/numbering system is no longer used. The place commonly called “area 51” is supposedly the home of a secret military research & development site, nicknamed “Dreamland”. Dreamland is supposedly where they test the airframes and interrogate the crews of captured alien spacecraft. More likely, if it exists at all, it’s for testing “real” airplanes like the B-2 stealth bomber and FB-117 stealth fighter before they were made public, and all kinds of other nifty new aircraft you’ll be hearing about 10 years from now.
U-2 and SR-71 “Blackbird” spy planes were flying missions out of the Nellis AFB (real, admitted air force base in Nevada) area long before the public knew they existed.
Nothing is happening there anymore. All the operations from that base have been moved to a new base in Utah. Or so it has been reported.
I have read a lot of allegations about the goings-on at Area 51. The ones that hold the most water are that the F-117 was test-flown from there, and that the wives of men who’d claimed to have worked there tried to sue the government over health problems caused (to their husbands) by mis-handling hazardous waste. I believe I’ve seen satellite photos that were supposed to show evidence of improper waste disposal.
You’d think Uncle Sam would try to avoid making unnecessary messes, even where he does not allow public scruitiny. I suppose it could happen, though.
~~Baloo
P.S.: The above does not necessarily mean I’m not secretly rooting for the “testing captured alien spacecraft” theory.
I’ve been there (well, outside the actual valley, but I’ve looked on the base).
The facts: It’s a portion of the Nellis Range (sometimes referred to as the Nellis Bombing Range) and has long been used by the Air Force for various flight/artillery testing.
At least as of a few years ago (as adam yax says, current rumors indicate that the base’s operations have been moved to somewhere completely unobservable–from the ground–in Utah), the Air Force was still running such test flights and training flights, including flights of the stealth bomber (saw one do a few flybys…boy, they’re big…).
Allegations:
The government has a tough time even acknowledging the base’s existence, but previous aircraft tested there seem to include the U2 and SR71 spyplanes. This is pretty widely accepted.
Much more controversial are the allegations made by Bob Lazar, who claimed to have worked on a base inside the Nellis Range where he was involved with reverse-engineering flying saucers. This is what made Area 51 famous. Lazar claims to have worked in a different area, south of Groom Dry Lake (where Area 51 is located), designated S4. But I believe he said he had to fly between Vegas and Area 51 before being transported by bus to S4.
Area 51 used to be easily viewed from mountainside locations near Rachel, NV, but then the Air Force staged a land grab and blocked access to those viewing points. Now, you can only see the base from Tikaboo Peak, a tough hike that gives a fairly distant view.
Former DOD employees have sued the govt. for allegedly dumping toxic waste in open pits in Area 51 and otherwise failing to observe EPA and OSHA standards, but the lawsuit was not allowed to go forward, thanks to “national security.”
The best source for info. on this subject is from Glenn Campbell and the Area 51 Research Center (a skeptic who does not believe that UFOs are test-flown at Area 51) at
I’m proud/ embarrassed to say that I have been to Rachel, Nevada and climbed Whitesides Mountain to see the base the winter before the land grab when the Air Force took that last good viewing spot.
Back then, you did see lights in the sky, some of which moved like planes and some of which moved like helicopters. Some even moved like a combination of both (perhaps a Harrier jet) I made the mistake of going with some UFO believers and everytime a light showed up, they said “Oh look, there’s a UFO”. I, of course, had to roll my eyes at this and merely suggested they could see a far greater number of “UFOs” outside any major airport.
I’ve periodically posted to UFO-related boards and have read extensively on A51.
The closest thing to an official name that has been published is “the operating facility at Groom Lake”.
The facility was originally built to provide a quiet place for Lockheed’s “Skunk Works” to test the U2. Since then, the SR-71, Have Blue (prototype for the F-117), “Shamu” (a technology demonstrator for the method of stealth used for the B2) and numerous front-line Soviet aircraft (procured by shadowy means during the Cold War) have also used the Groom location.
It is highly probable that some aircraft types that are not yet public knowledge have also flown from Groom. The most likely of these would be a failed, hypersonic, possibly hydrogen or methane-powered replacement for the SR-71. In the early 90’s the main runway of the Groom Lake facility was lengthened to the point where it is now one of the longest in the world. Around the same time residents of the southwest began hearing unusual sonic booms that suggest very high-speed high altitude aircraft was being tested. Some ground to air radio transmissions intercepted by hobbyists, plus a few fleeting glimpses of unusual aircraft shapes in the US and UK, lend support to this notion.
It is generally agreed that the base has been used almost entirely for research and test flying, rather than operational purposes. For example, while the F-117 was tested at Groom, its first operational base was at Tonopah.
While since about '96 there has been much discussion over whether the USAF has moved some of A51’s programs to a more remote location, the fact remains that regular “Janet Airlines” flights (using unmarked 737’s) continue between Groom and MaCarran Airport in Las Vegas, and the frequency of these flights suggest that from 1000-2500 persons may still work at the facility.
The UFOMind site has extensive links that indicate Lazar’s UFO story, for various reasons, is probably bogus, and satellite photos with resolution down to three meters show no particular signs of an operating facility at the claimed “S4” location.
Sorry, second sentence should read:
The closest thing to an official name that has been published by the Air Force itself is “the operating facility at Groom Lake”.
Cecil Adams on Does the U.S. government keep alien spaceships at Area 51?
Actually, it appears that Area 51 is right here on our own SDMB. 
I’ve heard that the White Sands Missle Range has “inherited” some of the programs that used to be at Area 51.