Area 51 and its purpose declassified: No UFOs, but lots of U-2 spy planes

NBCNews ^ | 8/15/2013 | Alan Boyle

[South40]

A newly declassified CIA history from 20 years ago spills the story about Nevada's Area 51 and its secret mission — which was not to study UFOs, but to test the U-2 and other spy planes.

The CIA's story about the legendary test site is contained in "The Central Intelligence Agency and Overhead Reconnaissance: the U-2 and Oxcart Programs." The document was approved for release in June, with just a few remaining redactions, in response to a Freedom of Information request filed by George Washington University's National Security Archive back in 2005.

[Oatka]

Some years back there was a newspaper article that said the Big Secret of Area 51 the CIA was hiding, was that there were many areas that were so toxic with spilled/dumped exotic fuels, the place could never be decontaminated.

I thought it was just another foil-hat artivcle until I read that doctors in the Las Vegas area were raising hell about some of their patients. They worked at Area 51 and had debilitating and sometimes fatal reactions to unknown substances, and the CIA, or whoever made the decision, wouldn't tell them what the guys were exposed to.

One of many articles

[GraceG]

So if the network that lies in it’s sleep says that Groom was a U2 base, that likely means that U2 is a designation for an alien craft or a refrigerator...but there probably never was a Lockheed U2 within 100 miles of it ;)

Yup, If they say aliens don’t exist, they certainly DO exist!

[ApplegateRanch]

This might be what they're calling a "U-2".

That picture was just recently taken near Clovis, NM, just before it starteded sucking up 2 cows to mutilate, then dump in Colorado.

[Crusher138]

A close friend I have known all my life worked security for Los Alamos and Sandia Labs. Since his retirement, he has shared with us that he also made regular trips to Area 51.

He still won’t talk about any of it. He does have interesting stories about the atomic airplane project in Idaho, since that is now de-classified.

I was pressing him for details about his more recent projects. All he would say was...

“Take what you think we might have and add about 100 years of technological advances. Then you are coming close.”

[hattend]

BTTT

[oxcart]

It is amazing the media can take a piece of useless information and make a huge non-story out of it.

Area 51 (Groom Lake) began as the CIA’s private spy-plane playground. The U2, (Dragon Lady) YF-12 (Oxcart) SR-71 (Blackbird) and later the USAF F-117A (Stealth Fighter) all had their birth there.

The original name for area 51 was “Paradise Ranch” coined by Kelly Johnson (Lockheed’s Chief Engineer) because of its God forsaken living conditions.