Area 51: An Uncensored History of America's Top Secret Military Base

[AL]

Area 51: An Uncensored History of America's Top Secret Military Base by Annie Jacosen
Hardcover: 544 pages
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company (May 17, 2011)


This the book being released in conjunction with the new documentary on National Geographic Channel.

 

[sublight]

Uncensored up to what year exactly?

"provide an unprecedented look into the mysterious activities of a top-secret base, from the Cold War to today."

They couldn't possibly tell all.....

 

[sublight]

"With a jaw-dropping ending, it proves that facts are often more fantastic than fiction, especially when the distinction is almost impossible to make"
Once again with the hint that they are going to reveal something big....

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Area-51-Uncensored-Americas-Military/dp/1409141128/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1300244703&sr=1-2

Since this is a government sanctioned book are they going to finally acknowledge the existence of the base?

 

[firepilot]

They acknowledged a facility there long ago. The idea that the government refuses to admit there is any base there, is more of an urban legend. You can even find the number for the base bowling alley online too with a google search.

 

[sublight]

Ok, well let me rephrase it to, are they going to "broaden" that acknowledgment?

 

[SOC]

So does this mean the TV show airs in May as well?

 

[quellish]

They acknowledged a facility there long ago. The idea that the government refuses to admit there is any base there, is more of an urban legend. You can even find the number for the base bowling alley online too with a google search.

Bowling team, not bowling alley.
The facility itself has never been secret (and has not been called Area 51 while it has been under AF control). Peter Merlin wrote a good article about this subject:
http://dreamlandresort.com/pete/no_secret.html

The facility has changed hands several times over the years. What goes on there is sensitive, the fact that it exists is not. In the last 10 years a number of projects conducted there have been declassified and with that more information about what went on there, with photos taken at the facility.

 

[Mat Parry]

"With a jaw-dropping ending, it proves that facts are often more fantastic than fiction, especially when the distinction is almost impossible to make"

What do we think this will mean?

my guess is an acknowledgement by US government/military/alphabet soups of using UFO cover stories for test articles, probably in the 50's and 60's?

no doubt what ever is revealed it'll be an anti-climax to some.

 

[quellish]

my guess is an acknowledgement by US government/military/alphabet soups of using UFO cover stories for test articles, probably in the 50's and 60's?

no doubt what ever is revealed it'll be an anti-climax to some.

There is a big different between "using UFO cover stories for test articles" and simply NOT saying "oh that? that was our new plan that takes 3 states to turn".
http://www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq29-2.htm

 

[Mat Parry]

True,

"U-2 and later OXCART flights accounted for more than one-half of all UFO reports during the late 1950s and most of the 1960s".

I doubt this fact went unnoticed in counter intelligence fields, "now if we can just get the Warsaw Pact/ China etc, to buy into this UFO culture... who's our contact in Hollywood?"..... "Walt Disney Sir" ;D

As I said, I'm sure the reality will be an anti-climax

 

[sublight]

But the CIA may have taken it a little further and used the urban legend for some psy ops. Grenada is an example of this.

 

[firepilot]

They acknowledged a facility there long ago. The idea that the government refuses to admit there is any base there, is more of an urban legend. You can even find the number for the base bowling alley online too with a google search.

Bowling team, not bowling alley.
The facility itself has never been secret (and has not been called Area 51 while it has been under AF control). Peter Merlin wrote a good article about this subject:
http://dreamlandresort.com/pete/no_secret.html

The facility has changed hands several times over the years. What goes on there is sensitive, the fact that it exists is not. In the last 10 years a number of projects conducted there have been declassified and with that more information about what went on there, with photos taken at the facility.

Are you sure thats not the bowiling facility itself? The usage of the world "lanes" in the name of it, sure sounds like it it is the bowling alley, and its also on a lot of lists of bowling alleys too

 

[Mat Parry]

A taste of Mrs Jacobsen's book perhaps?

http://www.latimesmagazine.com/2009/04/road-to-area-51.html

"Our special-projects group was the most classified team since the Manhattan Project,"..... well I've heard that one before!

 

[quellish]

But the CIA may have taken it a little further and used the urban legend for some psy ops. Grenada is an example of this.

Or not.
Grenada? I don't see how leaflets, radio stations, and loudspeakers are relevant here.

Are you sure thats not the bowiling facility itself? The usage of the world "lanes" in the name of it, sure sounds like it it is the bowling alley, and its also on a lot of lists of bowling alleys too

Very sure.

 

[sublight]

Grenada? I don't see how leaflets, radio stations, and loudspeakers are relevant here.

Whatever the operation was, it was compelling enough to convince the socialist prime minister at the time the island was besieged by "UFO's" and compelling enough that the UN began to launch an investigation. Which would all seem trivial, were it not for the fact that the British MOD then went "all out" with everything they had to get the UN NOT to do an investigation as these recently declassified documents reveal...
http://filestore.nationalarchives.gov.uk/pdfs/defe-24-2032-1-1.pdf

 

[firepilot]

But the CIA may have taken it a little further and used the urban legend for some psy ops. Grenada is an example of this.

Or not.
Grenada? I don't see how leaflets, radio stations, and loudspeakers are relevant here.

Are you sure thats not the bowiling facility itself? The usage of the world "lanes" in the name of it, sure sounds like it it is the bowling alley, and its also on a lot of lists of bowling alleys too

Well I will take your word for it. I intentionally do not post the name openly on the internet just because they would invariably start getting phone calls, but I do know from the discussion on another site that we are talking about the same thing.

Very sure.

 

[bob225]

FYI, Play.com have it for sale in UK for £14.99, which is cheaper that Amazon, have ordered my copy, hope it's worth it!

 

[Bomiwriter]

Greetings: You chaps leaping upon this book, so too will I, may be interested in searching out Dr. Bruce McAbee's book on the UFOs and the FBI connection or similar title. he explains immediate Post WW II work of constructing models of observed UAO (Unidentified Aerial Objects), as I would rather call them, and tested them in the Wright Field wind tunnel...this included as he says, German projects of quite unusual planforms, that were brought over from Germany, and include stateside observed vehicles. I found it quite good.

Also...this is unique as all getout...FBI actually had a file called "Security Matter X," in which UFO reports were investigated by FBI at USAAF's request-at least from 1947 to 1940, before blue-suits took it over. I judge it worth keeping in my expanding collection of aero-stuff. Cheerio.
Bomiwriter

 

[Stargazer]

UFO reports were investigated by FBI at USAAF's request-at least from 1947 to 1940, before blue-suits took it over.

Is this supposed to read "1937 to 1940" or "1947 to 1950"??

 

[edwest4]

Word about the book is starting to come out. It doesn't look good.

http://www.npr.org/2011/05/17/136356848/area-51-uncensored-was-it-ufos-or-the-ussr




Ed

 

[GeorgeA]

Good Lord. The excerpt is appalling.

U-2 declassified in 1998? Groom Lake currently unacknowledged? I'll bet it gets even better than that, but I said the hell with it.

 

[Orionblamblam]

You chaps ... Cheerio.

"Chaps?" "Cheerio???" Has the dark British Reconquest Of America Conspiracy finally taken you?

As for the book: I saw it in a store yesterday. Sizably thick. A fair supply of photos... not a one of 'em which would blow up our skirts herabouts. Only one diagram that I noticed, a crappy scribble of a Horten design.

Meh.

 

[fightingirish]

Hi folks,
I obtained a copy of this book as a PDF-file for my E-Reader this evening. Over the weekend I will start reading it. :

As for the book: I saw it in a store yesterday. Sizably thick. A fair supply of photos... not a one of 'em which would blow up our skirts herabouts. Only one diagram that I noticed, a crappy scribble of a Horten design.

Here a screenshot of that metioned diagram!

 

[edwest4]

Thanks for the image. I wonder how anyone got "saucer" out of that shape. The Counter-Intelligence Corps in Germany did find the Horten brothers shortly after the war, but nothing about them working on a saucer shaped craft. At the time, the suspicion was that the Horten Parabola was developed further into an elliptical or circular design.

 

[Orionblamblam]

That Horten "rocket wing" design was previously discussed and shown here: http://www.secretprojects.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,6730.0/highlight,horten+fantastic.html

It's a "real" design in that the US Army scribbled it based on some description or other, but it's probably a very, very badly mistranslated and mangled description of a *non*stupid Horten design. This design has so much wrong with it (rocket engines on the wingtips [yay, thrust imbalance!], no real rocket propellant storage volume and, worst, *backwards* airfoils) that I cannot seriously believe that the Horten Bros. actually seriously designed something like this. Perhaps they designed it as a joke. Or while drunk.

 

[quellish]

"...in New Mexico and it was transported to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, and then in 1951 it was transferred to Area 51, which is why the base is called Area 51."

Wow.

The more I hear the author talk, the more I am blown away. Apparently to her there is no difference between the Groom Lake facility and NTS or Nellis.

 

[Abraham Gubler]

"...in New Mexico and it was transported to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, and then in 1951 it was transferred to Area 51, which is why the base is called Area 51."

Wow.

The more I hear the author talk, the more I am blown away. Apparently to her there is no difference between the Groom Lake facility and NTS or Nellis.

I always thought the name "Area 51" would come from the same series as USAF Plant 3 (Tulsa), Plant 4 (Forth Worth) and Plant 42 (Palmdale) and so on.

 

[quellish]

I always thought the name "Area 51" would come from the same series as USAF Plant 3 (Tulsa), Plant 4 (Forth Worth) and Plant 42 (Palmdale) and so on.

The "Area 51" name comes from the AEC. Sections of what is now the Nevada Test Site were given numbers, in no consistent order. In 1958 the section that is now the National Classified Test Facility - "The Box" to Red Flag crews - was withdrawn from public use. That appears to have been when the number was assigned by AEC. There are other "areas", such as Area 19 and Area 52. Since "The Box" is no longer managed by DOE, it's not referred to as "Area 51" in official documents. In 1979 control of the base itself was transferred from another government agency to USAF, which has managed it as Detachment 3, Air Force Flight Test Center. The land itself was not under USAF control until 1999, when DOE turned it over as part of a larger realignment of assets within the Test Site. Prior to 1955 it was only an empty lakebed.

 

[circle-5]

... There are other "areas", such as Area 19 and Area 52...

Attached is a DOE satellite photo with area map of the Nevada Test Site. Groom Lake is at top right. Where is Area 52?

 

[Gridlock]

... There are other "areas", such as Area 19 and Area 52...

Attached is a DOE satellite photo with area map of the Nevada Test Site. Groom Lake is at top right. Where is Area 52?

He's on to us!

Try dreamlandresort.com

 

[quellish]

... There are other "areas", such as Area 19 and Area 52...

Attached is a DOE satellite photo with area map of the Nevada Test Site. Groom Lake is at top right. Where is Area 52?

I don't think that map covers all of NTS, but I'm also not up to date on boundary/ownership changes over the last few years.
Area 52 is the TTR area:
http://www.lazygranch.com/ttr.htm#area52_area54
Various DOE documents (environmental impact statements, etc) refer to TTR as Area 52 (or 54).