60 Fun Facts About Area 51

In which US state does Area 51 lie?

It lies 83 miles north-northwest of Las Vegas inside the Nevada Test and Training Range.

Roughly how far is Area 51 from Las Vegas?

It sits north-northwest of the city inside the Nevada Test and Training Range.

What is the official name of the airfield at Area 51?

Its ICAO code is KXTA; it is also simply called Groom Lake after the neighbouring salt flat.

Area 51 is administered as a remote detachment of which California installation?

The CIA transferred jurisdiction of the site to the Air Force Flight Test Center at Edwards in 1979.

The USAF and CIA acquired the Groom Lake site in 1955 primarily to test which aircraft?

Project AQUATONE's Lockheed U-2 needed a site far more secret than Edwards or Palmdale.

On what date did the CIA publicly acknowledge the base's existence in a declassified history?

It responded to a 2005 Freedom of Information Act request by Jeffrey Richelson of the National Security Archive.

State Route 375, which passes near the base and the town of Rachel, is nicknamed what?

Rachel is a popular tourist stop for UFO enthusiasts.

Area 51 shares a border with which region, site of 739 of the 928 nuclear tests at the neighbouring test site?

The Yucca Mountain waste repository lies southwest of Groom Lake.

Groom Lake, whose bed serves as runways, is what kind of geographical feature in the desert?

It sits about 4,409 feet above sea level and is roughly 3.75 miles long.

The name 'Area 51' is believed to come from a numbering grid used by which agency?

Oddly, the site is not part of that grid; it sits next to Area 15.

Which nickname for the facility is also the approach-control call sign for the surrounding airspace?

The special-use airspace itself is Restricted Area 4808 North.

Which metals were discovered in the Groom Range in 1864, leading to the mines that gave the district its name?

The English company Groome Lead Mines Limited financed the Conception Mines in the 1870s.

What was the CIA codename for the U-2 development project that founded the Groom Lake facility?

Project director Richard Bissell needed a site with extreme security.

Which aircraft designer said of Groom Lake, 'within thirty seconds, you knew that was the place'?

He called the dry lake 'as smooth as a billiard table without anything being done to it'.

The U-2's designer named the new base what, to encourage workers to move to the middle of nowhere?

The name was soon shortened to 'the Ranch'.

Which aircraft was developed under Project OXCART, for which Area 51 was expanded from 1960?

The Lockheed A-12's titanium body flashing past at 2,000-plus mph fooled many airline pilots into reporting UFOs.

What was 'The Hook' at Area 51?

The two-mile Archimedean spiral let an A-12 pilot who overran the runway turn instead of plunging into the sagebrush.

The A-12s at Area 51 were assigned to which CIA-operated unit?

Nine A-12s were on site by the end of 1963.

The D-21 was a Mach 3 reconnaissance drone tested at Groom Lake under what codename?

It was launched from the M-21, a two-seat A-12 derivative, until a fatal 1966 collision.

After the M-21 launch aircraft was lost, D-21B drones were carried by which strategic aircraft instead?

The first B-52 attempt in September 1967 failed when the drone simply fell off its pylon.

An Iraqi pilot's defection to Israel in 1966 brought which Soviet fighter to Groom Lake for evaluation?

Captain Munir Redfa flew it out as part of Mossad's Operation Diamond.

What was the codename of the 1968 program in which US pilots flew the captured MiG-21 in mock dogfights?

Initial results showed the F-4 and MiG-21 evenly matched; pilot skill made the difference.

The forbidden exercise airspace above Groom Lake was marked in red on maps and nicknamed what?

It was a tongue-in-cheek reference to the square in Moscow.

Instructors from which new Navy school flew against the captured MiG-17s at Area 51?

By war's end the Navy kill ratio climbed to 8.33 to 1 while the Air Force's improved only slightly.

The 2017 crash that killed Lt. Col. Eric 'Doc' Schultz at the site reportedly involved which foreign aircraft?

Unconfirmed 2022 reports tied it to the classified Foreign Materials Exploitation program.

Which stealth-fighter prototype, a proof-of-concept for the F-117, first flew at Groom Lake in December 1977?

The first full-scale YF-117A lifted off there on 18 June 1981 with Hal Farley at the controls.

The F-117 test team at Area 51 adopted what mascot after finding one in their offices?

They called themselves the 'Baja Scorpions'.

Northrop's Tacit Blue demonstrator, flown at Area 51 by a team called 'the Whalers', directly influenced which aircraft?

It never entered production but pioneered curved stealth surfaces.

To which airfield did the first operational F-117 unit move from Groom Lake in 1982-83?

Area 51 was ideal for testing but not for an operational group.

What is the name of the small passenger airline that flies workers to Area 51, mainly from Las Vegas?

It operates on behalf of the USAF from Harry Reid International Airport.

In which year did the USAF first officially acknowledge the site's existence?

The 2013 CIA release was the first acknowledgement of specific activity there, not of the base itself.

In 1995 the government expanded the exclusion zone to include what?

It removed 3,972 acres of former Bureau of Land Management land from public access.

The 1994 lawsuit by contractors' widows Kasza and Frost alleged illness from what activity at Groom?

Biopsies showed high levels of dioxin, dibenzofuran and trichloroethylene.

Which president issued a determination exempting 'the Air Force's operating location near Groom Lake' from environmental disclosure laws?

The exemption is renewed annually and is the only formal recognition that Groom is more than part of Nellis.

What is the ICAO airport code that surprised pilots when it appeared in navigation databases in 2007?

Pilots were warned never to use 'Homey Airport' as a waypoint or destination.

Enthusiasts call the guards who patrol the base perimeter in white pickup trucks what?

Signs warn that deadly force is authorised against trespassers.

Astronauts aboard which space station inadvertently photographed the site in 1974, prompting a CIA memo?

The memo said it was the only location with specific instructions not to be photographed.

Which 1988 TV broadcast introduced Americans to the Majestic 12 hoax and first publicly linked Area 51 to aliens?

Bob Lazar's claims about 'S-4' followed the next year.

Bob Lazar claimed in 1989 to have worked on alien spacecraft at an underground site called 'S-4', located where?

Papoose Lake lies 8.5 miles south of Groom Lake.

A mythical disappearing airstrip at the base, said to appear when water is sprayed on it, is named after what?

It is one of many claims about underground facilities at Groom and Papoose Lake.

Why did early U-2 flights generate so many UFO reports?

Airliners flew below 20,000 feet, military jets to 40,000, but the U-2 cruised above 60,000.

Which Air Force UFO investigation checked U-2 and OXCART flight records to explain away sightings?

Project Blue Book could not tell letter writers the truth behind what they had seen.

How many people responded to the 2019 Facebook joke proposing to 'Storm Area 51'?

Only 150 or so made it near the gates on 20 September 2019, and seven were arrested.

What was the tagline of the 2019 'Storm Area 51' event?

Two festivals, AlienStock and Storm Area 51 Basecamp, sprang up to cash in.

Which 1996 film features secret alien research at Area 51?

The 2011 comedy Paul imagined an alien held prisoner there.

Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas parodies the base under what name?

A mission has Carl Johnson steal a jetpack from it.

Chris Hadfield's 2023 novel The Defector has a Soviet pilot debriefed at Area 51 after defecting in which aircraft?

The astronaut-turned-novelist set it during the Cold War.

Which airline pilots' association warned student pilots about KXTA after it appeared in databases?

They advised never to consider it a waypoint or destination.

Which 2011 comedy follows an alien who escapes after decades held prisoner at Area 51?

Simon Pegg and Nick Frost play the British sci-fi fans who give the runaway a lift.

Which music festival was organised in rural Nevada to cash in on the 2019 'Storm Area 51' meme?

A second event, Storm Area 51 Basecamp, was staged as well; the Air Force said it would discourage anyone from entering the training range.

Area 51's MiG-17s came from two Syrian pilots who mistakenly landed in which country in 1968?

Believing they were over Lebanon, the lieutenants put down at Betzet Landing Field; the jets reached the Area 51 fleet by year's end.

Under what name did the airfield on the Groom Lake site first open in 1942?

It began with two unpaved 5,000-foot runways, more than a decade before the CIA arrived to test the U-2.

How long was runway 14/32, built diagonally across the lakebed for Project OXCART in 1960?

Until then the base had only a 5,000-foot asphalt strip and buildings for about 150 people.

In HAVE DRILL, how many Navy pilots beat the MiG-17 in their first mock dogfight?

Fleet F-4 crews were quietly invited to fight the MiGs from 1970, while other Nellis pilots were kept unaware the US operated them.

Which CIA project director ran the search for a secret U-2 test site that ended at Groom Lake?

He judged that neither Edwards Air Force Base nor Lockheed's Palmdale plant could keep the programme secret enough.

What is the designation of the restricted special-use airspace around Groom Lake?

In January 1962 the FAA made the lakebed the centre of a 600-square-mile addition to the zone ahead of the A-12's arrival.

In which year did the CIA hand Area 51 to the Air Force Flight Test Center at Edwards?

The Air Force had begun funding improvements two years earlier under project SCORE EVENT.

What was the designation of the first operational F-117 unit, initially called 'A Unit'?

It formally activated at Nellis in October 1979 but was physically based at Area 51 before moving to Tonopah.

The 1974 memo about astronauts photographing the base was addressed to which CIA director?

Historian Dwayne Day later wrote that the CIA considered no other spot on Earth as sensitive as Groom Lake.

Who was the last CIA commander of Area 51, handing over to Lt. Col. Larry McClain?

The handover ended nearly a quarter-century of agency control that began with the U-2 in 1955.