The CIA has confirmed the existence of
Area 51, providing the exact location of the object in the state of
Nevada. Area 51 was created in the 1950s for testing spy plane U-2 under
Dragon Fly Program and reconnaissance aircraft A-12 under Oxcart
program. There were many rumors saying that the area could be the place
where the Americans were hiding alien spaceships that had crashed on the
territory of the United States.
The documents exposed by the National
Security Archive, the CIA for the first time identified the object as an
aviation test ground, located about 130 kilometers north-west of Las
Vegas strip, in southern Nevada. Area 51 is partially dried-up Groom
Lake. The zone is a rectangular area, 23x25 kilometers, the report of
407 pages said.
Archival documents from the CIA said
that the lake was chosen as a test site in April 1955 for testing
experimental aircraft and arms systems. Supposedly, the acquisition of
land in the desert for military test operations was personally endorsed
by U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower.
Most of the published archive is devoted
to U-2 project (names of pilots, funding mechanisms, code-names and
operations, cooperation with foreign countries and its use against the
USSR). However, the documents contain no mention of either UFOs or
secret weapons that, as many believe, is being developed in the zone.
The documents were handed over to
Jeffrey Richelson, a senior researcher at the National University of
George Washington, in response to his request and on the basis of the
Law on Freedom of Information. Previously, the U.S. Air Force has
previously rejected all inquires for identification of Area 51.
The fact that the CIA has finally
responded to the inquiries is surprising indeed, because U.S. President
Bill Clinton classified everything that was connected with the location.
In 2003, another former president, George W. Bush, increased the level
of secrecy to "Top Secret." George Bush excluded Area 51 from the
jurisdiction of the environmental legislation (both federal and of the
State of Nevada), in case something could be found there.
However, the news, in fact, is not news
at all. CIA historians Gregory Pedlow and Donald Welzenbach wrote about
the use of Area 51as a military base for testing the U-2, A-12 and other
aircraft in 1992. Later, in 2002, the CIA published an edited version
of the current "report" on 12 pages.
Vadim Chernobrov, coordinator of the
All-Russian Public Research Association Kosmopoisk, researcher of
anomalous phenomena, futurist and author shared his opinion on the
subject with Pravda.Ru:
"A news peg can be made from scratch.
Nothing has changed after those statements, since the existence of the
military base has never been a secret. Kosmopoisk delegations have been
near the zone several times, and there were multiple warning signs in
the area. Moreover, the area can be found on the road map. The fact that
there were secret aircraft tested there is not news either."
The news is probably about the attempt
to explain reports of UFO sightings. Nobody could imagine that aircraft
could fly at an altitude of 20 kilometers.
High-altitude tests of the U-2 aircraft
soon led to an unexpected side effect. The number of reports about
unidentified flying objects skyrocketed. The report said that "fiery
objects" in the sky were nothing but reflections from aircraft engines.
What about the so-called "Roswell Incident," the alleged crash of an
unidentified flying object near the town of Roswell, New Mexico (USA) in
July 1947? Does it mean that there was no incident at all? The CIA may
have not opened all secrets.
Kosmopoisk receives dozens and even
hundreds of UFO reports from around the world. As many as 99 percent of
them can be explained. One percent remains unexplained, though.
"To say that all of your UFOs are our
reconnaissance planes, is at least incorrect. We are always being told
what we do not know. We know the capabilities of both Russian and
American technologies. I am an expert in aerospace engineering, and I
can say that even most secret developments can be hidden from the public
eye for three to five years, not longer than that. The UFO phenomenon
exists for thousands of years, and it does no matter how many of these
cases can be explained. The so-called opening of the U.S. government
Area 51 - for me this is not a historical moment. Perhaps, someone
played a game of democracy and discovered an open secret."
The U-2 does not explain most of the
observations, Canadian ufologist Stanton Friedman believes. Can the U-2
hover still in the sky or make a sharp right turn and take off from
nothing? The U-2 can not do either of these maneuvers, he said.
Lyuba Lulko
Pravda.Ru
