REAL Area 51 Projects and Operations

"Since 1955, the Groom Lake military installation located in the deserts of Southern Nevada and commonly referred to as Area 51 has been the subject of wild conspiracy theories. From supposed alien technology, to time travel machines.

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In other news, the Area 51 raid is supposed to be happening… TODAY.

Stay safe out there, and know its probably best not to naruto rush a US Air Force base.

A couple of facts to get out of the way first,
1.“Area 51”s correct, official, CIA designation is Homey Airport (KXTA) and sometimes Groom Lake. There’s only a few documents dating back to the Vietnam War that refer to this air base as “Area 51”.
2.Before the CIA established the Groom Lake Test facility, the site was known as the Indian Springs Air Force Auxiliary Field. Which was connected to the Creech Air Force Base.
3.Area 51 shares a border with the Yucca Flat region of the Nevada Test Site, the location of 739 of the 928 nuclear tests conducted by the United States Department of Energy
4. In the beginning, Groom Lake was dubbed ""Paradise Ranch"" to encourage employees to go work in the middle of nowhere, later on, it was shortened to ""the Ranch""
5. Whatever happens at Area 51, stays at Area 51. Except the whole Bob Lazar incident, but that's a story for a different day…and it doesn’t end the way most people want it to.

3. Project AQUATONE | CIA, USAF

The Lockheed U-2 aircraft , nicknamed “dragon lady”, is an ultra high altitude reconnaissance aircraft that was designed and engineered during the 1950s.

How high is Ultra High ? We are talking about 70,000 feet (21km). Your average cruising height is around 30,000 ft (9km). U-2 Pilots have to wear special pressurized spacesuits and usually breathe pure oxygen for at least an hour before take off, just so they can deal with the immense atmospheric change.

What does any of this have to do with Area 51 ? Well, think of it as an origin story.
It all began in 1955, when the very nice, totally cool, definitely not up to anything bad, people from the Central Intelligence Agency needed a place to test out the top secret U-2 aircraft.

It only took one flight over Groom Lake for the head honchos at the CIA and Lockheed to decide that it was the perfect location, mainly because of the smoothness of the land, the natural privacy the surrounding mountains provided, and possibly the fact that it was in the middle of fucking nowhere.

One quick phone call to the Atomic Energy Commission and Groom Lake was officially designated. Speaking of the Atomic Energy Commission,do you guys know what year the last Nuclear Test was carried out in Nevada? Let me know in the comments below. Let's see who knows what !

The first Lockheed U-2 was delivered to Area 51 on July 24, 1955. The first test flight was only 6 days later. It was a bit of an… accident. . It was only supposed to be a high speed taxi test, but the aircraft was designed so well that it… just… took off.

Here is a quick rundown of the test flight highlights, looking at these numbers, it's pretty impressive for a month’s work right ?
August 8th - 32,000ft (9.8km)
August 16th - 52,000ft(15.8km)
September 8th - 65,000ft(19.8km)

It wasn’t all fun and games though, in 1956, one U-2 suffered a flameout, meaning the flame in the combustion chamber went out. Luckily, the pilot was able to land safely in New Mexico, simultaneously, freaking out everybody working that night, since no one had ever seen a Lockheed U-2, outside of Area - 51. Unfortunately, other pilots, were not so lucky.

Speaking of pilots, check this out. The CIA was instructed not to hire military personnel for testing. They even went as far as using non-U.S. Citizens. 7 Greeks and 1 Polish guy were thrown into the project, and I don’t think any of them made it past 1955. They didnt die or anything, they just didnt work out.

At that point, the CIA had come up with a process nicknamed “sheepdipping”. USAF pilots would resign, and join the CIA as civilians, with the promise of their previous ranks and jobs back as soon as the testing was done.

By 1957 the Lockheed U-2s involvement with Area 51 was minimal, but no one thought about shutting down paradise ranch. There was much more work to be done here."