Area 51

Back in August 2019, around two million people had their Facebook status stating that they were ‘going’ to storm Area 51 in September. However, according to CNN, only around 200 people actually showed up. What could of happened if two million people actually showed up? Would the government be able to stop them? What would they have discovered? What is the history behind this mysterious place?

It all began in 1955, when the CIA first purchased the land in southern Nevada and used the area for a top-secret Cold War Programme. That same year, development of the ‘High Altitude U-2 Reconnaissance Plane’ began. The plane was designed to reach an altitude of 70,000 ft, allowing it to fly undetected above the USSR and secretly gather Russian information. Unfortunately, the project was a complete failure. In 1960, three CIA pilots were killed in a flight accident and another plane was shot down over the Russian city of Sverdlovsk, the pilot was also captured.

In 1974, the first photos of Area 51 were accidently taken from space by an American Satellite, which revealed a new radar test centre. The US government immediately had the photos removed from the film and placed in restrictive vaults –suggesting there was something to hide. To add fuel to the fire, Bob Lazar, who worked at Area 51 at the time, claimed on local TV that he had examined an alien aircraft and its fuel, and had read US Government documents describing alien

involvement in human affairs for the past 10,000 years!

Then in 1994, the 1947 Roswell Incident came to light, where the US government covered up the story that there was at least one alien spacecraft crash in Roswell, New Mexico; causing several alien bodies to be brought back to Area 51 for examination. Locals claimed they saw it happen, and there were photos of a small, brown, withered body inside what appeared to be a glass case. The figure apparently had “withered arms, shrivelled legs, a large triangular skull with elongated eye sockets, and a tiny sliver of a mouth.” However, the US government claimed this crash was a ‘weather balloon’, not a UFO as the photos suggested, and the story never developed as a result.

The first time the US government publicly recognised Area 51 was only in 2013 through official documents. Then, President Obama became the first president to openly acknowledge the area in a speech at the 36thAnnual Kennedy Centre Honours the same year.

Area 51 certainly has a mysterious past and no doubt hides many Cold War, and possibly even some extra-terrestrial secrets, but I honestly don’t think the two million people trying to storm Area 51 last September would have found anything interesting at all. They may have found some USAF planes, but not much more beyond that.

Antonia Gathy, L6 th

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