Newly released CIA documents have confirmed what just about everyone already knows: there exists a secret military testing ground 125 miles northwest of Las Vegas called Area 51. The information comes from a recently-declassified report on the U-2 spy plane program.
Not surprisingly, the report makes no mention of all the bits that have made Area 51 an inseparable element from the weirder-end of the pop culture pool. No UFOs recovered from Roswell, no Cigarette Smoking Man or black oil, no alien autopsies, no Ark of the Covenant, and certainly no Jeff Goldblum and Will Smith working to save the planet.
Area 51 (formerly officially known as the Groom Lake Complex) served as central testing ground for Cold war-era spy planes, including the high-altitude U-2 that routinely spied on the Soviet Union, Cuba and North Vietnam. The secretive, protective nature of the military complex made it an instant hot bed for conspiracy theorists and UFO enthusiasts.
The confirmation that the site was simply a Cold War-era military secret will surely put an end to the hysteria around Area 51… right?
