Zone 51

The zone 51 is a geographical surface of the Nevada to the the United States - also called Dreamland , Watertown , The Ranch , Paradise Ranch , The Farm , The Box , Groom Lake , neverland , or The Directorate for Development Plans Area - where is a secret military base testing inter alia experimental apparatuses.

The medium ufologic frequently takes it again on its account to work out various theories conspirationnists suggesting secret relations between the American Armée and of the Extraterrestre S. It is also known under its English name Area 51 .

Geography

Zone 51 is a rectangle of roughly 155 km ² in the county of Lincoln in Nevada, to approximately 130 km in the North-West of Las Vegas. It belongs to vast (12 140 km ²) territory of USAF of Nellis ( Nellis Air Force Arranges or NAFR). Zone 51 is formed mainly of the valley Emigrating Valley , bordered by the assembly lines Groom and Papoose, in north and the south, respectively; and of the hills Jumbled Hills , in the east. Between the two chains the lake Groom is (), a bed of lake drained approximately 5 km in diameter. South-western side of the lake (), there is a military airport with concreted landing strips, including one, closed down, continues on the bed of the lake, and four ground tracks beaten on the lake itself.

Zone 51 has two tracks in operations. The principal one being the 14L/32R, a track with the concrete coating a length of 3 650 m by 60 m of width with an overflow area of 300 m at each end. The second track, 12/30, which is also used as lane is a length of 1 650 m by 45 m of width. The unused track is nearly 10 km length (six miles). Its surface is concreted on close to 3 800 m, asphalted on 3 400 m, and 1 600 m and 800 m of asphalt in sorry state at the ends northern and southern, respectively. One finds at least three groups of distinct indicators there, letting believe that the track forever used over all his length at the same time. At present, only a portion of 2 000 m are identified, forming the track 14R /32L. The ground tracks beaten on the bed of the lake are per pair and have a length reaching 3 400 Mr. They were useful at the time of strong head winds.

In the west of the tracks many hangars are being able to accommodate planes of various sizes, workshops, the terminal of planes JANET, dormitories being able to lodge more 1 000 people, a gymnasium with swimming pool, a cafeteria, various administrative buildings and even a ground of baseball. At the southern end of the base, there is a career making it possible to on the spot manufacture the concrete necessary to the repair of the tracks and the construction of new buildings. More in the south still, bunkers are where the armaments are stored. At the northern end of the base, on banks of the drained lake, are a panoply of antennas radar of various models. A little in the North-West the ground baseball, are the trenches, now embanked, where formerly waste was burned.

Zone 51 divides its western edge with the zone Yucca Flats of the Nevada Test Site (NTS), the place where the Département of the Energy of the United States carried out a good part of its nuclear tests. The deposit of nuclear waste of Yucca Mountain is to approximately 65 km in the south-west of the lake Groom.

The zone is connected to the highway network of the NTS, with roads paved towards the village of Mercury and the Yucca Flats on the north-western side. On north-eastern bank of the lake, the Groom Lake Road , an overland route in good state, curves through the hills Jumbled Hills . Groom Lake Road is the old way which led to the mines in the Groom chain. It was improved since closing of the mines. Its tortuous course passes by a guérite, but the safety zone surrounding the base further extends one km towards the east. After the limit of the restricted perimeter, marked by several panels of warning which indicate that any photography is prohibited and that the use of force which can result in death is allowed , Groom Lake Road goes down towards the Tikaboo valley, while passing in front of the entry of several small ranches before joining road 375, baptized Extraterrestrial Highway (highway of extraterrestrial), in the south of the village of Rachel.

Operations with Groom Lake

The military base of Groom Lake is not a conventional base and escadrilles of first line are usually not deployed there. It rather seems to be used during the development and the tests of new apparatuses. When these apparatuses are accepted by USAF, the exploitation of this type of apparatus is generally transferred to a conventional military base. Groom Lake would be the permanent residence of a small number of apparatuses of Soviet origin obtained by various means which supposément are studied and used for the American pilot training.

Soviet satellites photographed zone 51 during the Cold war, but these images do not allow that modest conclusions in connection with the base. More recent images obtained by commercial satellites show that the base grew bigger, but do not show anything exceptional.

Program Senior Year/U-2

The lake Groom was used for practices of artillery and bombardment during the Second world war and was then abandoned until in 1955, when it was selected by division Skunk Works of the company Lockheed like the ideal place to test its future spy plane U-2. The bed of the drained lake was an ideal track to operate the apparatus at its beginnings and the assembly lines of the valley Emigrating as well as the safety zone surrounding the NTS made it possible to make these tests with the shelter of the curious glances.

Lockheed builds a base with Groom Lake which was hardly more than some shelters and workshops with a constellation of mobile houses to lodge the small team working there. First U-2 flew to the top of Groom Lake in August 1955 and of U-2 under the control of the CIA started to fly over the Soviet territory as of the middle of 1956.

At that time, the nuclear tests of the NTS were still made with the free air. The operations of U-2 were often stopped in 1957 by the series of tests atomic Plumbbob which made jump two dozen bombs on the NTS. The explosion Plumbbob-Hood, the July 5th, spread radioactive remains on Groom Lake and its temporary evacuation forced some.

As the main mission of the U-2 plane was to fly over the the USSR, it operated thereafter mainly starting from bases close to the Soviet border, including Incirlik Air Bases in Turkey and Peshawar with the Pakistan.

Program OXCART/A-12/SR-71/D-21

Before even as the development of U-2 is not finished, engineers de Lockheed started to work on its successor: the project of the CIA, an apparatus of recognition with high-altitude which can slip by at Mach 3 and which will lead to famous SR-71 Blackbird (project). USAF directed in parallel a project which was to develop a hunter (project YF-12A, abandoned) and a bomber (never construct) based on the same prototype. The characteristics of flight and requirements in maintenance for the SR-71 required a massive expansion of the complex of Groom Lake . The prototype of the A-12 made its first official flight the April 30th 1962, after a first semi-official test 4 days earlier. At this time, the principal track had been lengthened to 2600 m, and the personnel of the base counted now more than 1000 people. There were tanks to store the special fuel intended for this plane, a tower of control, and even a ground of baseball. Safety also had been largely improved. The small iron mine in the Groom basin was closed and the territory with the tower of the valley was classified of exclusive military use. Groom Lake saw the first flights of all the major alternatives of the program: the A-12, RS-71 (famous SR-71 by the commander-in-chief of the air force, Curtis LeMay), the prototype of the hunter YF-12A as well as the supersonic project of Drone D-21 Tagboard which was to be launched since the back of modified A-12 or a B-52.

Program Cuts Seed-planting drill/Have Ferry/Have Doughnut (Mig-17F/Mig-21)

At the end of the Guerre of Korea a pilot North-Korean deserted and went to the Americans. Its apparatus, a Mig-15 was studied on the basis of air force of Wright-Patterson in Ohio. Following the success of this company, and making again vis-a-vis these Soviet apparatuses at the time of the War of Vietnam, the United States decided to get specimens of the planes used by the pilots socialist République of Vietnam with an aim of finding their weak points and of perfecting the American pilot training who was to face them.

In 1968, the United States borrowed from Israel a Mig-21 of Iraqi origin, within the framework of the project. In 1969, it was with the turn of two hunters Mig-17F of Syrian origin to be studied. One of them was baptized project, and the other, project. The three apparatuses were studied with Groom Lake and were returned to the Israeli air force at the end of the exercises.

Program Cuts Blue/Senior Trend/F-117

The first prototype of furtive hunter Cuts Blue , a small cousin of the F-117 Nighthawk, flew to Groom Lake at the end of 1977. The tests on this series of top secret prototypes proceeded there until the middle of the year 1981, when the tests left their place to the initial production of F-117 hunters. In addition to the tests of flight, the complex of Groom Lake was used to check the profile radar of the apparatus, the tests of armaments of F-117 as well as the drive of the first group of pilots of F-117 of the American air force. Thereafter, the housekeeping operations of F-117 were moved with the airport of Tonopah Test Arranges in the North-West of the NAFR () and finally with the military base of Holloman, with the New Mexico.

Subsequent programs

Since the startup of F-117, the activities with Groom Lake continued without slackening. The base and the tracks which are attached to it were increased, and the daily flights coming from Las Vegas transporting the civil personnel always take place. Certain analysts affirm that according to the recent satellite photos, the base would have a personnel on the spot living approximately 1000 people with as much who travel from Las Vegas the every day. In 1995, the US government increases the perimeter of exclusion around the base to include adjacent tops which allowed curious to have a sight on the basis. Since, a limited visibility of the complex is not possible that since some tops moved away, particularly the Tikaboo mount (), to approximately 42 km in the east.

Certain rumors suppose that the apparatuses tested with Groom Lake would include certain secret drones, a furtive small apparatus of transport of troops on takeoff and vertical landing, cruise missiles furtive, as well as the hypothetical hypersonic apparatus Aurora. Some also say that the furtive plane of demonstration Tacit Blue initially would also have been tested with Groom Lake .

Employees of zone 51

Company Edgerton, Germeshausen and Grier, Inc., now known under the name of EG&G, operates of a terminal deprived with the International airport McCarran of Las Vegas. A certain number of apparatuses without identification daily make the shuttle between McCarran and various places inside the NAFR. These apparatuses would use the call radio operator JANET (e.g. JANET 6), which would be an acronym for (joint Network of air transport of employees) or, perhaps with the joke (Still another terminal which does not exist!). According to the advertisements that the EG&G places in the newspapers of Las Vegas to recruit airline pilots with experiment, the interested parties must undergo an investigation of safety of the government and if they are chosen, they will be able to always return to sleep in Las Vegas. These planes, painted in white with a red band (colors of late the Western Airlines), include Boeings 737 and several small private jets. According to their number of recording, they belong to various civil companies of hiring of planes. They would make the connection towards, Groom Lake , Tonopah Test Arranges , other places in the NAFR and perhaps towards the bases of Palmdale and China Lake in California. Observers which counted the departures and the cars in the car park of the EG&G with McCarran estimate that more 1 000 people use flights JANET each day.

For the few employees residing in the villages bordering the NAFR, a bus painted in white carries out the way along road 375 and of the Groom Lake Road . Nobody knows if these people are employees of zone 51 or other installations of the NTS. The bus makes stops in the villages of Hook Springs, Ash Springs, and Alamo.

The position of the government on zone 51

The US government recognizes the existence of the complex of Groom Lake , but about only one does not come to a conclusion not made there. Contrary to the remainder of the NAFR, the zone surrounding the lake Groom is out-limit in a permanent way to the civil and military traffic air regular. Even the pilots of the air force who involve themselves in the NAFR are severely reprimands if he venture in “limps” named R4808E surrounding the airspace of Groom Lake .

Safety on the ground of the perimeter is provided by guards in uniforms employed by firm EG&G which patrol in white vans Jeep Cherokee, or vans Ford or Chevrolet color sands. The uniform of the guards their was worth the nickname of (guys in camouflage). Although the guards are armed with rifle of attack M-16 and that they are authorized to use them, no violent incident was reported; the camo dudes are usually satisfied to escort the visitors outside the perimeter and to await the sheriff of the county of Lincoln which will impose a fine of approximately 600 to them; $. Some thereafter received visits of agents of FBI; others were held outside the perimeter to have simply pointed their camera in direction of the base. The guards are helped in their task by detectors of movements, and by helicopters HH-60 Pave Hawk.

The base does not appear on any official chart of the US government; the topological chart of the area mentions only the abandoned mine of the Mounts Groom , and the charts of civil aviation for the state of Nevada show a restricted big space, but include it in the restricted airspace of Nellis. In the same way, the page of the National Atlas showing the federal grounds in Nevada does not make the distinction between the base of Groom Lake and the remainder of the installations of the NAFR. Before being made public, the images taken by the satellite Corona in the years 1960 were faded. Following requests of the public within the framework of the law on the access to information, the government answered that these stereotypes seemed to be destroyed (image taken by Corona). The images taken by the Satellite Terra, which were available to the general public, were withdrawn from the Web servers, including the Terraserver service of Microsoft, in 2004. The images taken by the satellite Landsat 7 are always available and are those which are used by the program Google Maps. Images of origins other than NASA, such as images with high-resolution Russian and commercial system IKONOS are also available.

Certain commercial software making it possible to the pilots to make their flight plans lists the coordinates of the tracks of the base of Groom Lake under the name of Homey, Nevada, without however specifying the content of it.

The government of the state of Nevada, recognizing the tourist potential, has famous the section of road 375 close to the village of Rachel (the highway of extraterrestrial).

Although the federal properties inside the base are free from taxes, the installations belonging to the private owners are not it. Researcher has noticed that the base declared only one value of 2 million dollars to the tax collector of taxes of the county of Lincoln, which is unable to make the evaluation of it, not having the accreditations necessary to go on the site. Several residents of the county complained that the base was an unjust burden for the county, taking into account the high costs of the necessary police surveillance and of little employment provided to the residents of the county - majority of the employees of zone 51 coming from Las Vegas.

Environmental continuation

In 1994, the wives of Walter Kasza and Robert Frost, who had been with civil employees of the army, like five other anonymous employees represented by a law professor of the university George Washington, Johnathan Turley, started a continuation against USAF and the Environmental Protection Agency. In their continuation, they pled to have been present when great quantities of chemicals were burned in trenches with open sky on the site of Groom Lake. Pathological analyzes of taking away made on the plaintiffs were carried out by biochemists of the Université Rutgers and dioxane elevated levels, dibenzofurane and trichloroethylene were detected in their body grease. The plaintiffs claimed to have suffered damage with the skin, the liver and the respiratory tracts following their work with Groom Lake and that the latter had contributed to the death of Misters Frost and Kasza. The continuation wished to obtain a compensation for the incurred wounds, applicant whom USAF had illegally handled of the toxic products and whom the EPA had failed in its task to make respect the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (law on the conservation and recovery of the resources - which governs the use of dangerous matters). They also wished to obtain detailed informations on the products to which they had been exposed, thus hoping to be able to obtain more adequate treatments for those which were still alive.

The government asked for to judge Philip Pro Court of Las Vegas an exemption to have to deposit protected documents or to force the witnesses to have to reveal secret information, which could threaten the national security. When Pro judge rejected the argument of the government, the President of the United States Clinton emitted an order in Council exempting (the exploitation site of the air force close to Groom Lake, Nevada) of the clauses of disclosures of the environmental laws. Following that, the judge had to reject the cause for fault of evidence. Professor Turley called this decision of it, applicant whom the government had deceived its capacity to classify the protected material. The secretary with the air force Shiela E. Widnall deposited a pleading document that to reveal the elements contained in the air and water around Groom Lake could reveal the nature and the extent of the protected activities . The Court of Appeal rejected the request of professor Turley. The Supreme court of the United States refused to hear its cause, removing any hope for the victims.

The President continues to renew every year the decree of exemption for Groom Lake . This constitutes the only formal recognition, although indirect, that the installations of Groom Lake do not have the same vocation that the remainder of the installations of the NAFR.

The Skylab incident of 1974

A note written in 1974 by the director of the CIA William Colby to another administrator of the CIA reports that, within the framework of a broader program, the astronauts on board Skylab 4 had photographed by inadvertency a place which they would not have owed (). Although the name of the place in question is darkened in the note, the journalist Dwayne Day published an article in the magazine The Space Review of January 2006 where he affirms that the context of the note carries to believe that it is indeed about Groom Lake .

The note shows the debate between several federal agencies concerning the statute of these photos ; The ministry for defense, on a side, wanting that the photographs are classified signal-secrecy , and NASA and the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, other, not wanting it. The object of the note itself was to know if it were legal to classify images obtained by a program which was not it.

A handwritten remark on the document, probably written by the director Colby itself, is read as follows:

“ It raised it. Saying that the Ministry for Foreign Affairs had an opinion specifies on top, but that it was tempted to let me decide. I wonder whether we must protect them since:

the USSR already has them thanks to their own satellites;
What is it revealed there? Doesn't
If it is revealed, why say one simply that USAF works there? ”

The note does not say what it is occurred of these photographs, but they do not appear, with the other photographs of Skylab 4, in the public records of Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

UFOs and other theories conspirationists on zone 51

The connection of zone 51 with research the secret programmes in aeronautics as certain unusual reports/ratios of phénomèmes brought zone 51 to the center of the modern Folklore on the OVNIs and the theories conspirationists. Some of the alleged activities include:

the storage and the study of extraterrestrial apparatuses (including recovered material of Roswell), the study of their crew (living or died), and the manufacture of apparatuses based on extraterrestrial technology.
the development of armament with energy (for the Initiative of strategic defense or others) or of weather instruments of control.
meetings or collusions with the extraterrestrial ones.
various activities connected to a world Government secret chaired by a certain Peter, old directing of the worldwide economy.

Several of these theories relate to underground installations with Groom Lake or close to Papoose Lake . In 1989, Bob Lazar claimed to have worked with Papoose Lake on the systems of propulsion of a Flying saucer pertaining to the US government in a complex which it named S-4.

Another theory wants that the program Apollo is a trickery and that zone 51 is the place where one would have filmed the “landing on the moon” in 1969. This theory seems based on Russian satellite photos which show that certain portions of zone 51 and the NTS resemble the surface of the Moon. In 2000, American television channel FOX had diffused a report on this subject.

Others still claim that during the years 1990, the most secret work carried out with Groom was moved towards other places including Dugway Proving Ground close to Salt Lake City, Utah or in zone 6113 a military zone which would be located in Alaska and which the secrecy which continues to surround zone 51 would be maintained to only induce in error the curious ones.

See too

Conspiracy

External bonds

Seen satellite of zone 51 with Google Maps
Seen satellite high-resolution of the zone 51
Dreamland: zone 51 on the site '' Luxorion ''
Dreamland Resort
Dossier on RR0
an officer of the French air force confirms the existence of the zone 51

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