Case file · Secret facility (alleged)
Area 51 (Groom Lake)
A real, once-secret USAF flight-test base at the centre of reverse-engineering lore.
1955 CE · 37.24, -115.80 · status: disputed
The account
The facility exists and was finally acknowledged in 2013; it developed aircraft like the U-2 and stealth planes. A Top Secret CIA programme paper on Project AQUILINE, a small unarmed reconnaissance drone (c. late 1968, released 2020), states that 'Area 51 is an ideal facility' for its flight tests. It planned 7 test vehicles and later up to 24 operational missions a year.
The sceptical view
No evidence supports the alien-technology claims; the base's real work is classified aviation.
Connections in the atlas
- Denver International Airport conspiracies
- Avrocar: the USAF's real flying saucer
- The Montauk Project
- Kongka La 'UFO base' rumour
- 'Storm Area 51'
- Project AQUILINE, the CIA's small spy drone
- Lazar, 'Dreamland: An Autobiography'
- Pentagon UFO disinformation revealed
- Phil Schneider and the 'Dulce War'
- The Extraterrestrial Highway
- CIA history ties UFO reports to the U-2
- Eric Weinstein on UFOs and hidden physics