Area 51 USGS Aerial Imagery
28 August 1968 - USGS Aerial imagery
Protected by almost a thousand square miles of restricted airspace and surrounded by the Nevada Test Site, lies a secret airbase where the government has tested advanced technology aircraft for the past forty years. Known to most people as Area 51, the facility also has been referred to as Groom Lake, The Ranch, Watertown strip, and within the government the Directorate for Development Plans Area. Area 51 is an official government secret, and yet widely known in the popular culture. The enormous steps the government has taken to keep the fact of the existence of this secret test facility out of the public domain is matched only by the public's interest in the site, and the extensive amount of information that is available in the open press. Much of the interest in Area 51 comes from the UFO subculture who are at least suspicious if not convinced that crashed alien spacecraft as well as the bodies of aliens are stored at Area 51.
Groom lake started out as an Army Air Corps Gunnery Range during World War II. In the mid-1950's Lockheed was searching for a remote base to test its new U-2 spy plane. Although the runway on the remote dry lake bed was unusable, the location was deemed to be ideal due to its remoteness and by the summer of 1955 construction of a 5,000 foot runway began, with two hangars and some temporary living quarters. Later surplus Navy military quarters were dismantled, shipped to Groom, and reassembled. The first U-2 arrived on a C-124 later in 1955. The U-2 was reassembled, checked out, and on August 4, 1955 Tony Levier made the first flight test.
With the arrival of the A-12 program the runway was lengthened to 8,500 feet, fuel storage tanks capable of holding up to 1,320,000 gallon of JP-7 were added, as well as three surplus navy hangars and 100 surplus Navy housing buildings. Eight hangars at the south end of the base were build to house the A-12 spy planes.
By the 1980's a weapons storage area south of the main base was added, with five earth-covered igloo's, presumably to support weapons testing for the F-117 program, and possibly the advanced cruise missile program.
Until recently, the facility was supported by one 12,400 long 100 foot wide hard surface runway, which extends onto the dry lake bed North, giving it a total length of 25,300 feet or 4.8 miles. Sometime in the early 1990's this runway was deactivated, and replaced by a new 11,960 foot long 140 foot wide runway.
Several indicators suggest that Groom Lakes' flight test activity did not end with the F-117 Stealth Fighter. First, construction of a new runway which must have started sometime after the F-117 program had been made public. Second the numerous reports by aviation enthusiasts and others of unusual aircraft noise and lights at night in the years since the F-117 became public. Third, the 1995 action by the Department of Interior to withdraw 3,972 acres of Bureau of Land Management land, from public access, creating a security buffer zone to prevent public viewing of military activities at Groom Lake. |
