With the Internet in an uproar and the government on high alert, a Facebook event meant to be a joke, took a serious turn. Matty Roberts created the “Storm Area 51” event, which is set to take place on September 20, 2019. As of now, two million people claim that they are going to storm Area 51. The only motel in the area (A’Le’Inn) is fully booked for the weekend of the event.
Will everyone who responded show up and attempt to storm area 51? Unlikely. The concern is that even if 1% of those 2 million individuals do turn up, that means over twenty thousand people will show up at the gates of a heavily guarded military base. What are the secrets driving so many to even consider attempting this? What is Area 51, and why is it in the middle of nowhere?
The Story They Tell
Let’s begin with the “official” story. At the start of 1950, low flying recon missions were being performed over the USSR. The problem was that these planes were at constant risk of being seen and shot down. Something needed to change, and the President stepped in.
In 1954, President Eisenhower authorized the development of “Project Aquatone.” In 2013, unclassified documents stated that Area 51 was developed to test High-Altitude recon aircraft.
In 1955, 80 miles northwest of Las Vegas, Nevada, the Atomic Energy Commission named Area 51, when they divided the Nevada nuclear test site into numbered areas. It went from a World War II aerial gunnery range to a restricted military industrial-intelligence complex. It became the most strategic test site of the United States Air Force to date and is heavily guarded by snipers easily seen from outside the front gates. Numerous signs warn interested tourists that trespassing means immediate arrest and a fine of up to 1,000 dollars. Some question why there are signs warning of arrest, and snippers positioned around the base. Could it be that the snipers aren’t there to keep people out, but to keep in other lifeforms, ones not from Earth?
The First Sightings
Unbeknownst to the public at the time, the military began testing U-2 aircrafts. These aircrafts could fly twice as high as the average airliner. Pilots flying other planes would report sightings of these aircrafts, not knowing what was in the sky with them. Because the government wanted to keep the truth from the public, they dismissed the sightings as weather balloons, and “natural phenomena.”
The tests on the U-2 aircraft ended in the late 1950s, but the utilization of Area 51 continues as a testing ground for government aircrafts. Conspiracy theorists believe that the planes are kept top-secret because they are constructed using technology taken from alien aircrafts. Though proof is lacking, the declassified files of 2013 revealed that during the Cold War, Soviet MiG fighters were covertly obtained and tested in Area 51. These documents also named several other aircrafts that were tested at the facility, including the Nighthawk F-117. This aircraft was kept a secret from the public until 1988, even though testing began in 1981. So, does this information explain away all extraterrestrial phenomenon? Of course not.
Flying Saucers
A newspaper coined the term “flying saucers” in 1947. A man named Kenneth Arnold reported the first well-known UFO sighting. He claimed that he saw several fast-flying objects that looked like “saucers skipping on water.” When the local newspaper printed the story, they accidentally called the unknown object, “saucer-shaped.” And the term “flying saucer” was born.
The Roswell Incident
Around the same time, an unidentified flying object crashed, in what was then, the Roswell army field in New Mexico. Panic and Interest spread after the press quoted Public Relationships Officer, Lt. Walter Haut. “We have a flying saucer in our possession.” The military quickly backtracked, dismissing it as a weather balloon. When Haut passed away in 2005, he left behind an affidavit. He instructed not to open it until he had passed away. The contents of the affidavit have since been released. The text reveals that the government used the weather balloon story as a cover-up. Haut said that an alien spacecraft was in the hanger. Allegedly, he saw the craft and the bodies of extraterrestrials.
Haut wasn’t alone in his claims. Glenn Dennis, a local undertaker, said that he was called to bring child-sized coffins to the scene of the crash. A former Pentagon official, Colonel Philip J. Corso, stated that his task was providing companies in America with the alien technology recovered from the crash. He also said that technologies such as night-vision goggles, stealth technology, and lasers all came from extraterrestrial technology found at the Roswell crash. Corso passed away from a heart attack soon after he had made these claims.
Of course, Area 51 most recently made it back into that public eye thanks to infamous pyrotechnician, Bob Lazar’s appearance on the Joe Rogan Experience Podcast. Lazar claims he was hired in the late 1980s to reverse engineer purported extraterrestrial technology at a secret site called S-4, located several kilometres south of the Area 51 United States Air Force (USAF) facility.
The Mystery Remains
What’s fact and what’s fiction remains to be seen. It is certain however that the government doesn’t want to reveal what is happening in Area 51. Very little has been disclosed about it, and it continues to be an obsession amongst alien hunters and conspiracy theorists.
So, are there Aliens among us? Many people believe so. After all, the Universe is a vast place. Can we assume that we are the only intelligent lifeforms, let alone the most intelligent lifeforms that exist?
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Contributor | Sarah Marlow, editing by Maria Mocerino
