The CIA has
officially
acknowledged the
secret US test site
known as Area 51,
in a newly
unclassified
internal history of
the U-2 spy plane
programme.
The document
obtained by a US
university describes
the 1955 acquisition
of the Nevada site
for testing of the
secret spy plane.
It also explains the
site's lingering association with UFOs and aliens.
The remote patch of desert surrounding Groom Lake
was chosen because it was adjacent to a nuclear
testing facility.
"The U-2 was absolutely top secret," Chris Pocock, a
British defence journalist and author of histories of
the programme, told the BBC.
"They had to hide everything about it."
The U-2 plane, developed to spy on the Soviet Union
during the Cold War, is still flown by the US Air Force.
Reports of UFOs
The document, a secret 1992 internal CIA history of
the U-2 programme, was originally declassified in
1998 with heavy redactions.
Many of the blacked-out details were revealed this
month after a public records request by the
National Security Archive at the George
Washington University in Washington DC.
The site was selected for the U-2 programme in 1955
after an aerial survey by CIA and Air Force staff.
According to the history, President Dwight
Eisenhower personally signed off on the acquisition.
Officials from the CIA, Air Force and Lockheed, the
contractor building the U-2, began moving into the
facility in July 1955.
While a lengthy account of the development of the
U-2 spy plane programme, the history also attempts
to shed light on the public's fascination with the Area
51 site and its lingering associations with extra-
terrestrials and UFOs.
It notes that testing of the U-2 plane in the 1950s - at
altitudes much higher than commercial aeroplanes
then flew - provoked "a tremendous increase in
reports of unidentified flying objects (UFOs)".
"At this time, no one believed manned flight was
possible above 60,000 feet, so no one expected to
see an object so high in the sky," note authors
Gregory Pedlow and Donald Welzenbach.
'Inclination towards secrecy'
The original request for the redacted portions of the
history was made in 2005. It was released to the
National Security Archive several weeks ago.
Jeff Richelson, a senior fellow at the National Security
Archive, said the long period of secrecy was notable
because of the extent people across the world were
already aware of Area 51's existence.
Mr Richelson speculates the CIA must have recently
made a conscious, deliberate decision to reveal Area
51's existence and origins.
"There is a general inclination towards secrecy," he
said, and the many US agencies and non-US
governments involved in the U-2 programme would
have had a say in the declassification process.
"As far as I can tell, this is the first time something
must have gone to a high-enough level to discuss"
whether or not to formally acknowledge Area 51's
existence, he said
www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-23731759

hunter2,1:
i think most of what we call ufo and aliens are humans from an alternate universe and not from another planet.

Hezron Lorraine: alternate universe separate from ours.wow.
That's is another interesting piece of arguement.

hunter2,1:
i think most of what we call ufo and aliens are humans from an alternate universe and not from another planet.

Akanniade:
You'be seen too many episodes of Fringe.

Akanniade:
You'be seen too many episodes of Fringe.

hunter2,1:
i think most of what we call ufo and aliens are humans from an alternate universe and not from another planet.