H I posted this question here cause I am looking for rational answers

Anyway - obviously the US governement doesn't deny a facility called Area 51 exists, and sure we have all heard the rumours.

But what does the airforce actual say the place is used for - like research and developement - or aircraft repair, or simply the canteen.

I could google the information, but with 30 million plus hits. I dont feel like wading through all the nutter websites to find the answer

MG

this probably deserves to be in the BABBling forum...

while i'm at it, if the government doesn't admit it exists, it would be a logical step to assume the government also doesn't admit what it is used for...

off the record, methinks the phrase "test facility" probably suits.

taks

Wikipedia: Area 51

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The government used to not admit it was there until they got sued by envirmentalists or somebody. That doesn't mean that they will just start blabbing about what goes on out there, just that they have now admitted that it exists. It's not like you couldn't just go out there and see that it does exist. I concidered it pretty silly to deny the existanace of a base that you could go out and see.

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taks

*there is absolutly no glass wall infront of me*
*Smak*

any way...
isn't that place also calle the box?

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it's got a bunch of names... groom lake, china lake, area 51, and a few others i cannot remember.

taks

I'm curious about two thing...

1. How did all the UFO conspiracy theories start up regarding Area 51 (I seems perfectly logical for it to be a test facility, with the dried lake bed and everything)

2. Where did the name Area 51 come from?

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China Lake is a different facility, in California.

I believe the name Area 51 came from an old mapping system where quadrents were given numerical designations, and Groom Lake was in "Area 51."

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Area 51 is a mythical nonexistent place, just like other nonexistent mythical places...and I've been to both of 'em...

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I think that a lot of people don't understand how large organizations (like the military) work. It's difficult to have a policy that says you can talk about these aspects of it, but you cannot talk about these other aspects of it. To make that policy work, you'd have to have a long list of things and everyone in the Air Force who ever gets in front of a camera would have to memorize the list. "uh, let's see, am I allowed to talk about what days the trash is picked up? Am I allowed to talk about where the medical facilities are??" If you do it that way, you're just asking for trouble. It is so much easier to just make a blanket policy - don't say anything about Area 51. Nothing.

It's easy to put that policy in place and it's easy for people in public relations jobs to understand and implement it.


In part, the UFO stories started just because it's a convenient place UFO believers to claim UFOs are stored. We can't take a news crew out there and debunk the UFO believers because nobody is allowed out there.

Additionally, the base is used to test aircraft. And aircraft that nobody has seen obviously can't be identified. They literally are UFOs. So, people see lots of strange shapes and lights out there and their imaginations run wild. A lot of people saw the F-117. Way back in the '80s I had an issue of Popular Science with an artists impression of a boomerang shaped aircraft that people had reported seeing around Area 51. Now we know that it was the F-117 stealth fighter. But at the time, it seemed pretty exotic - dare I say alien.

Military installations are huge, and they are always divided into areas like this. I was actually in the Army, not the AirFarce. In the Army, we called them Training Areas. So you'd say, yeah this weekend we are doing a ruck march out at Training Area 12. I don't have my map of Fort Gordon handy, but there is an old abandoned runway out in one of the training areas. I'll get on google maps and see if I can find it. When I was stationed there, somebody told me what training area it was in and I drove out there in my truck and found it. There was also a mock-up of a Vietnamese village, complete with a tunnel network. A civilian who had been there for years told me what TA it was in and I drove out and found it.

The names are just a matter of convenience. Area 51 was marked off on a map and called Area 51 long before there was an airbase there. When they started test-flying the U-2 spy plane, they needed a really really secret place to fly it. So, the just picked a nice spot in the middle of nowhere and built a runway. It just so happens that they picked Area 51. It probably did have a name (a code name actually) but I guess the public never found out what the name was.

check this out. I found the airstrip that I was talking about:



And here is the map view of the same area :



As you can see. It's not on the map. It's there, but it's not on the map. It's pretty obvious in the sat photo, but if you're driving along on the road, you can't see it because of the trees. It's not a big secret or anything. It's just that nobody uses it so they don't bother to record it's location. There are hundreds of cool little spots like this out in the middle of nowhere.

Area 51 is pretty much a plane research and testing area.

The U2, B1, B2, SR-71, and F-117 all have had testing periods there, and there is reasonable evidence that the US have a number of copies of a number of Soviet MiGs stored and used for testing in the area as well.

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Good old Fort Gordon. Visited there many times. Had a number of close friends assigned to that base. A few of them and a number of professional acquaintances were with the Eisenhower Army Medical Center. Amazing how the closer you got to the base on the Gordon Highway, the more frequent the tattoo parlors were.

I wonder if the Vietnam village was based on the one at Fort Benning that was used in the film The Green Berets? Or vice-versa?

Meanwhile don't forget that classic movie that was filmed at Fort Gordon, Soldier Girls.

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I alway's thought that Area51 was a result of every US state having an "area'' and since this was the secret one they just called it area 51. I wounder if it's in google maps...

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It's one of the place links in Google Earth.

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As said before in other words... the government land was sanctioned off into areas that were roughly square. I've seen a map on some TV show (occasionally you see something interesting on those woo woo shows) It showed the the various areas and relationships.
Also; how are the denials actually worded? I've never seen "doesn't exist" in it's full context. "Not acknowledging it" seems more appropriate.

Not 100% sure where area 51 is, b ut isn't that near vagas?

so is this it then
http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=37.24...;t=k&hl=en

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That's pretty common isn't it? A couple of weeks ago I went to the RAF Waddington Airshow (not for the first time). Around 250,000 people did that weekend. However, if I look at the road map that I keep in my car it's not there; same for all the RAF airfields around where I live (and there are quite a lot). Likewise if you look at Google Maps: you can see Waddington on the sat-view but not on the map-view.

(Goes to grab URLs for linking sat-view and map-view above).

Interesting, just a few weeks ago I'm sure it wasn't marked in the map-view, but now it seems that it is. Oh well, another near me, RAF Cranwell, isn't in the map-view but is (obviously) in the sat-view.

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