The legend of Area 51—and why it still fascinates us

National Geographic

12 hours ago

Secluded in the Nevada desert, the military base has long been associated with alien and UFO sightings. Here's the real history behind the conspiracy theories. UFO believers look for suspicious spacecraft during a UFO and Vortex Tour in Sedona, Arizona. This composite image is a combination of six photographs taken in 2017 through night vision goggles. Composite photograph by Jennifer Emerling Photographs by Jennifer Emerling
The myths surrounding Area 51 draw tourists from around the world, as people travel to the air base near Rachel, Nevada, in hopes to catch a glimpse of otherworldly spacecrafts.
Although the legend of extraterrestrials at the top-secret facility has been discredited for years, some of the myths are based on true events. Here's what you need to know about Area 51.
Area 51 is one of the most famous military installations in the world—a remarkable feat considering the government didn't formally acknowledge the site existed until 2013. Rumors of hidden extraterrestrial technology and lifeforms have fueled its popularity and the public's imagination for decades.
While no proof of aliens has yet surfaced, declassified information reveals that during the Cold War, the CIA and Air Force spent decades developing advanced spy planes like the U-2 and A-12 at the base. Sightings of these impossible crafts likely inspired the rumors of otherworldly visitors—although a recent investigation by the Pentagon suggests that the UFO myths might have been perpetuated by the Air Force itself. Today, Area 51 is still an active base, but its purpose and history are a top-secret mystery.
Earthlings are welcome at the restaurant and bar Little A'Le'Inn in Rachel, Nevada—a popular stop on the pilgrimage to Area 51. Photograph by Jennifer Emerling An illustration of different flying saucers from reported sightings around the world, on display at the International UFO Museum and Research Center in Roswell, New Mexico. Photograph by Jennifer Emerling UFO Research Center library was opened to the public in 1992, as part of the UFO Museum in Roswell, New Mexico. The UFO library allows visitors to comb through an extension collection of reference materials focused on the history of UFO encounters and related phenomena, with many spending days or weeks in the library doing research. Photograph by Jennifer Emerling
'What's important about the public fascination with UFOs and Area 51 is what it says about our human nature and our perspectives on our place in the cosmos,' explains Bill Diamond, the CEO and president of the SETI, a scientific institute focused on finding extraterrestrial intelligence. 'It says that we want to believe we're not alone.'
SETI's search continues today, beyond the deserts of Nevada.
About 200,000 people visit the International UFO Museum and Research Center in Roswell, New Mexico each year. Photograph by Jennifer Emerling
About 120 miles northwest of Las Vegas, somewhere between mile markers 11 and 12 along Nevada's 'Extraterrestrial Highway' (State Highway 375), lies an unmarked dirt road. Although no buildings are visible from the asphalt, the track leads to the dried-up Groom Lake and Homey Airport, as it's called on civilian aviation maps.
For those in the know, this road leads to the back gate of a remote military base with many unofficial names: Paradise Ranch; Watertown; Dreamland Resort; Red Square; The Box; The Ranch; Detachment 3, Air Force Flight Test Center (Det. 3, AFFTC); and Area 51.
The base is inaccessible to civilians and most military members, but the installation is surrounded by a small but thriving trail of alien-themed museums, restaurants, motels, parades, and festivals.
(Is there really alien life on this exoplanet? We asked 10 experts.) Why is Area 51 in the middle of the desert?
Before World War II, the area near Groom Lake was used for silver and lead mining. Once the war began, the government needed a large swath of desolate land to develop and test nuclear weapons. They turned to Nevada.
After acquiring 2.9 million acres of land—roughly three times the size of Rhode Island—the Nevada Test and Training Range was born in 1950. Nearly everything within its borders was classified, especially the 1,350 square miles of land called the Nevada Test Site where the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) detonated more than 900 nuclear weapons. Groom Lake is only five miles outside the edge of the Nevada Test Site and still within the protected Nevada Test and Training Range.
When the CIA started developing spy reconnaissance planes during the Cold War, then-CIA Director Richard Bissell, Jr. realized a private base was needed to build and test prototypes. In 1955, he and Lockheed aircraft designer Kelly Johnson selected the secluded airfield at Groom Lake to be their headquarters. The AEC added the base to the map and labeled the site Area 51.
Within eight months, engineers at Area 51 developed the U-2 plane, which could soar at an altitude of 70,000 feet—much higher than any other aircraft at the time. This allowed pilots to fly well above Soviet radar, missiles, and enemy aircraft.
(Read how Area 51 engineers used cardboard to mislead Soviet spy satellites.)
After a U-2 was shot down by a Soviet anti-air missile in 1960, the CIA began developing the next generation of spy planes: the titanium-bodied A-12. Nearly undetectable to radar, the A-12 could fly across the continental United States in 70 minutes at 2,200 miles an hour. The plane also was equipped with cameras that could, from an altitude of 90,000 feet, photograph objects just one foot long on the ground.
A man named Bob Lazar forever changed the way we remember this military base. In 1989, Lazar gave an interview with a Las Vegas news station, KLAS, where he claimed to have worked at Area 51 as a physicist. While on air, he said that Area 51 housed and studied alien spacecraft and that his job was to recreate the technology for military use.
The world's only spaceship-shaped McDonald's attracts UFO tourists in Roswell, New Mexico. Photograph by Jennifer Emerling
Lazar's credentials were quickly called into question. Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the California Institute of Technology, both schools Lazar claimed to have attended, said they had no record of him. He also said he was a physicist at Los Alamos National Lab, but officials denied he ever worked there.
Regardless of the controversy around Lazar, some of his claims were unquestionably correct: Engineers at Area 51 were studying and recreating advanced aircraft—just aircraft likely acquired from other countries, not from outer space.
With all the high-tech flights out of Area 51—including more than 2,850 takeoffs by the A-12—reports of unidentified flying objects skyrocketed in the area.
'The aircraft's titanium body, moving as fast as a bullet, would reflect the sun's rays in a way that could make anyone think, UFO,' sources told journalist Annie Jacobsen for her 2011 book on Area 51.
Although entrance to the official site requires an invitation from the upper echelons of the U.S. military, Area 51 continues to attract visitors hoping to catch a glimpse of the unknown. The Lil A'Le'Inn, a popular themed diner and motel twelve miles from Area 51, estimates they receive between a hundred and 500 visitors a day in the summer with roughly half making their way to the base entrance gate. 'But we're busy year-round,' the inn's assistant manager said.
This number of earthly visitors spiked in 2019 when an interview with Lazar on a popular podcast inspired a 'Storm Area 51' event, in which several thousand people showed up in the desert to look for evidence of aliens. It ultimately morphed into a festival celebrating all things alien. High school students wear matching alien masks in downtown Roswell, New Mexico during their spring break in 2017. Photograph by Jennifer Emerling
However, it's wise not to get too close to the site itself. The airspace above is a no-fly zone, and armed guards and thousands of CCTV cameras monitor the perimeter of the base.
If unwelcome guests make it past security, legal consequences swiftly follow. In 2019, two Youtubers found trespassing inside the base were apprehended and originally sentenced to a year in jail before the sentence was suspended. In the end, they were each fined $2,280 and spent three days in jail.
'My feeling was, you're going into a place that is restricted, and it says so, and everybody knows it's restricted, and so I didn't consider it a trivial matter,'​​​​​​ explains Chris Arabia, who was the Nye County District Attorney at the time. 'We were trying to come up with something that was fair but also recognized the gravity of the situation.'
Signs at the site also warn that the guards are authorized to use deadly force if necessary. The search for aliens outside Area 51
If scientists at NASA were to detect extraterrestrial intelligence, they don't have an official protocol in place to guide them on next steps, according to NASA's astrobiology division. However, the researchers with SETI do—and it doesn't involve Area 51.
According to SETI's protocol, the first step would be to verify the findings with other independent observatories and organizations around the world. Once other scientists confirmed the evidence, they would then hold a press conference to share their discovery with the public. No top-secret security clearance needed. A temporary art installation created in the shape of an alien face was displayed on a fence outside a shopping center in Roswell, New Mexico, March 17, 2017. Artist unknown. Photograph by Jennifer Emerling
'We would share the nature of the phenomena we detected, say this is where it came from, this is how far away it is, and that this warrants more study,' says Diamond.
As for SETI's search for ET, Diamond says they're not looking to Nevada for clues. For him, the rumors of stashed spacecraft wreckage are inconceivable. 'If you think about a civilization with the technology to bring hardware and/or biology to Earth, the likelihood that they would be incompetent enough to crash land anywhere on the planet is absolutely zero,' he says.
"All UFO observations or sightings have one thing in common: a hundred percent of them are a result of an accidental observation. Not one of them has ever been the result of an actual, engineered and developed experiment or observational program to observe, look for, study, evaluate, and characterize these phenomena," explains Diamond. "We would not say that it is impossible that there's alien technology in our airspace, but there's no evidence for it that we're aware of.'
(Are we alone in the universe? These Mars rocks could finally give us an answer.) UFO sightings continue
Even without stepping foot onto the base, people around the world continue to report remarkable sightings of mysterious flying objects.
In 2004, off the coast of California, military personnel witnessed a smooth, oblong craft, nicknamed 'Tic-Tac,' drop from 60,000 feet to just above the ocean waves in mere seconds, then zoom off at shocking speeds. One radar technician saw it with his own eyes and said it glowed.
With so many sightings of UFOs—or Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAPs), as they are now officially referred to—by military personnel, the federal government has a long history of documenting and studying UAPs, stretching back to nearly the end of WWII. This legacy is ongoing.
In 2022, the Office of the U.S. Defense Department created the latest team tasked with investigating and documenting UAP sightings: the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO). With authority to review highly classified information, they accept reports by current or former U.S. Government employees, service members, or contractor personnel. Based on their investigations, common causes of UAP sightings include high-altitude balloons, satellites, and unmanned drones. ARRO says they don't have any proof of extraterrestrial technology, but that they will 'follow the science wherever it leads.'
As for Area 51, as more video recordings of unidentified aircraft come to light, some bear resemblance to those described by Bob Lazar in 1989, like the 'Tic-Tac' UAP. Despite wide disbelief, Lazar continues to share his story in interviews and documentaries today. Two humans and their backseat stowaway drive to Roswell, New Mexico, famous for a supposed alien spaceship crash in 1947. Some conspiracy theorists believe remains from the Roswell crash were taken to Area 51, a secret military base near Rachel, Nevada, to study. Photograph by Jennifer Emerling Photographer Jennifer Emerling has spent time photographing UFO culture in the American West. See more photos from the project on her website Welcome, Earthlings and her Instagram. Editor's note: This story was originally published on September 20, 2019. It has been updated.