Area 51 / Groom Lake

37°14′N, 115°48′W — Lincoln County, southern Nevada — detachment of Edwards AFB on the Nevada Test and Training Range

What's documented

Area 51 is the common name for a U.S. Air Force facility at Groom Lake, a dry lakebed in the Nevada desert. The site has been used since 1955 for the flight-testing of classified aircraft, beginning with the Lockheed U-2. Its existence was first formally acknowledged in declassified CIA documents released to researcher Jeffrey Richelson on 15 August 2013 under a 2005 FOIA request. The surrounding airspace is designated R-4808N and is among the most restricted in the United States.

Notable & intriguing

The CIA officially acknowledged Area 51's existence on 15 August 2013 in a 407-page declassified internal history of the U-2 program, released under a 2005 FOIA request by Jeffrey T. Richelson of the National Security Archive.

CIA, 'The Central Intelligence Agency and Overhead Reconnaissance: The U-2 and OXCART Programs, 1954–1974' (declassified 2013)
Two Lockheed engineers — Edward Lovick and Kelly Johnson — supervised flight-testing of the A-12 OXCART at Groom Lake beginning 26 April 1962. Cover stories prepared for Nevada residents in case of A-12 crashes existed pre-staged for each test.

CIA OXCART history (declassified 2013)
Workers at the facility have been bused in from Las Vegas's McCarran Airport via the unmarked 'Janet' airline (call sign WWW), operating since at least the early 1970s. Flight schedules are publicly visible on flight-tracking websites; destinations are masked.

Edwards AFB Detachment 3 records; flight-tracking via FlightAware/FAA registry
In 1994, eight civilian Area 51 workers and the widows of two more filed suit against the EPA, the Air Force, and the Department of Defense alleging illegal open-pit burning of toxic materials at the site. President Clinton signed Presidential Determination 95-45 on 29 September 1995 exempting the facility from environmental-disclosure law.

Frost v. Perry; Presidential Determination 95-45 (29 September 1995)

Public-record imagery

The main gate of Area 51 / Groom Lake, southern Nevada.Wikipedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0 · David James Henry · 2019

Landsat 'GeoCover' mosaic of Area 51, 2000 — the only widely-available satellite imagery of the base before commercial high-res coverage. The runway runs north-south along the bed of the dry Groom Lake.Wikimedia Commons · Public domain · NASA · circ

Area 51 main gate, photographed from the limit of public-access land. The 'use of deadly force authorized' signs and unmarked Cammo Dudes who track approaches are the closest most civilians ever get.Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0 · David James Henry · 2019

Groom Lake Road — the dirt track that leads to the back gate. The drive across the dry lakebed approach was where Bob Lazar said he was brought in November 1988 to work on 'sport model' craft.Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Andre30c · Take