54 Fun Facts About Area 51

In which US state does Area 51 lie?

Nevada. The CIA chose the remote site in 1955 because a closed government test range next door already kept visitors away.

Which is the nearest major city to Area 51?

Las Vegas is the base's lifeline: workers commute from a private terminal at its airport every weekday on unmarked passenger jets.

Under what name is Area 51's airfield listed in pilots' navigation databases?

Homey Airport turned up in pilots' flight-planning software in 2007, but the Air Force disowned it: a spokeswoman said the name was 'not something that we designated'.

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

Edwards. The CIA built the desert base because it judged Edwards too exposed for testing a secret aircraft, then ended up handing Edwards control of it.

Which U-2 pilot, shot down over the Soviet Union in 1960, had learned to fly the plane at Groom Lake?

Francis Gary Powers trained at the secret base in 1956; his capture four years later wrecked a Paris summit between the United States, the Soviet Union, Britain and France.

The CIA acknowledged Area 51 in 2013 in a declassified history released in response to what?

A Freedom of Information request filed in 2005 by researcher Jeffrey Richelson took eight years to pry loose the CIA's history of its spy planes, complete with a map of Area 51.

State Route 375, which runs past Area 51 and the town of Rachel, carries which official nickname?

The Extraterrestrial Highway got its name in 1996, when the state's tourism commission decided to cash in on the UFO sightings reported along the lonely road.

Area 51 borders which desert basin, where most of the neighbouring test site's nuclear blasts took place?

Yucca Flat, now pocked with hundreds of craters, lay so close that everyone at the CIA base had to wear a badge that measured radiation exposure.

Boeing's secret Bird of Prey, test-flown at Area 51 in the 1990s, was named after a warship in which sci-fi franchise?

Star Trek's Klingon Bird-of-Prey lent its name to the stealth jet, which stayed secret until 2002, when its makers said its design tricks had become standard practice.

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

The Atomic Energy Commission agreed to add the site to its nuclear proving ground next door at the CIA's request, so the commission's own secrecy rules would shield it.

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

Dreamland is the name its controllers answer to on the radio, and even military pilots training nearby risk discipline if they stray into its closed airspace.

The A-12 spy plane tested at Area 51 was built mostly of which heat-resistant metal?

Titanium was light yet survived the heat of flying at three times the speed of sound, but it was so hard to work that its builders had to invent new tools and methods to shape it.

Which Indiana Jones film opens with Soviet agents raiding a desert warehouse marked 'Hangar 51'?

Kingdom of the Crystal Skull has its Soviet villains hunt a mummified alien there in 1957; a broken crate in the same scene reveals the Ark of the Covenant from the first film.

What did the U-2's designer name the remote Area 51 camp to tempt workers into the desert?

Paradise Ranch was salesmanship: the 'paradise' was a few shelters, workshops and trailer homes in the middle of nowhere, and the name was soon cut to 'the Ranch'.

Area 51 lies deep inside the vast desert bombing and training range of which Air Force base?

Nellis runs the range, yet the secret site sits at its centre in a box of airspace closed at every altitude, even to the base's own pilots.

Which roadside object near Area 51, owned by a local rancher, became a famous meeting point for UFO watchers?

A black mailbox belonging to rancher Steve Medlin drew so many snoopers that he swapped it for a sturdier one and added a second box marked 'Alien' for their letters.

Which journalist wrote the 2011 bestseller Area 51: An Uncensored History of America's Top Secret Military Base?

Annie Jacobsen built it on interviews with people who had worked at the base; two national-security scholars answered with a critical review that listed its many errors.

The U-2 spy plane, first flown at Area 51 in 1955, is known by which nickname?

Dragon Lady first left the ground by accident: during a taxi test at the base its long wings lifted it into the air days before the planned maiden flight.

After a fatal 1966 collision ended launches from a modified A-12, which bomber carried Area 51's D-21 spy drones instead?

The B-52H carried a drone under each wing, but on the first attempt in 1967 a stripped nut let the D-21 simply fall off its pylon on the way to the launch point.

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

The MiG-21 was flown out by Captain Munir Redfa, who was upset at being ordered to attack Kurdish villages; within two years American pilots were dogfighting his jet over the desert.

The 2019 'Storm Area 51' joke claimed raiders could outrun bullets by running like the hero of which anime?

Naruto sprints leaning forward with both arms trailing behind; the student who posted the joke later walked away from the real festival it inspired, blaming poor planning.

During the 2019 'Storm Area 51' craze, which beer brand promised a free drink to any alien that made it out?

Bud Light had first announced that it would not be sponsoring the raid, then changed its mind and unveiled a special-edition can with an alien on it.

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

Top Gun, set up in 1969 to fix the Navy's poor dogfight record over Vietnam, sent its instructors to learn the Soviet jet's weaknesses first-hand, and the test results went into its teaching.

The 2017 crash near Area 51 that killed test pilot Eric 'Doc' Schultz reportedly involved which foreign aircraft?

A Sukhoi Su-27 two-seater is what a 2022 account by an aviation historian described, saying both crew ejected after a landing-gear failure; the Air Force has never said what he was flying.

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

Have Blue proved that a faceted, arrowhead-shaped jet could all but vanish from radar; both prototypes were lost in accidents, yet the Air Force had ordered the full-size fighter before testing ended.

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

A scorpion: after a large one turned up in their offices at the base's south end, known as 'Baja Groom Lake', the testers dubbed themselves the Baja Scorpions.

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

The B-2 Spirit inherited the curved, radar-dodging surfaces first proved on Tacit Blue, a one-off so ungainly that its own team called it 'the Whale'.

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

Tonopah Test Range Airport, in the far corner of the same range, had its runway lengthened and hangars built so the stealth unit could operate away from the test base.

What is the name of the small passenger airline that flies workers to Area 51?

Janet is only the fleet's radio call sign: the jets, plain but for a red stripe, carry no airline name at all, and nobody is sure where the nickname came from.

In 1995 the government widened Area 51's exclusion zone to take in what?

Nearby mountains that overlooked the base had become a tourist camp: sightseers stayed for days on the hilltops, and flights had to be delayed or cancelled until the land was seized.

A 1994 lawsuit by Area 51 workers blamed their illnesses on what?

Burning unknown chemicals in open pits was the claim; the government answered that even the base's name was secret, and the case was dismissed for lack of evidence.

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

Bill Clinton signed it in 1995 to stop a workers' lawsuit from forcing the Air Force to disclose classified details of the base, and later presidents kept renewing it.

Warning signs on Area 51's boundary say that the use of what is authorised against trespassers?

Deadly force is in the small print, but visitors are watched long before they reach a sign, by guards on the hilltops, cameras and motion sensors buried beside the roads.

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

Signs warn that deadly force is authorised against trespassers.

Astronauts on which American space mission inadvertently photographed Area 51, prompting a CIA memo?

Skylab's crew had orders not to photograph this one spot; when they did, the Pentagon wanted the picture withheld, while NASA and the State Department wanted it released.

Rachel's motel and bar, a favourite stop for Area 51 tourists, goes by which name?

Little A'Le'Inn, said 'alien', is the hub of a town of about 50 people; in 2019 it hosted one of the festivals spun off from the joke raid on the base.

Bob Lazar claimed in 1989 that he had been hired at a hidden site near Area 51 to do what?

Reverse-engineer alien spacecraft was the job, he told a television reporter; MIT and Caltech, where he says he earned degrees, have no record of him.

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

Their high silver wings caught the setting sun while airliners far below were already in darkness, so pilots reported fiery objects at a height where nothing was thought able to fly.

Which Air Force UFO investigation quietly checked sightings against the CIA's spy-plane flight logs?

Project Blue Book could rule out many of its reports this way, yet it could never tell the letter writers what they had really seen.

On which social network did a 2019 joke event inviting people to storm Area 51 draw over two million sign-ups?

Facebook is where a 20-year-old student from California posted the event as a joke; within weeks the Air Force was publicly warning people to stay away from the base.

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

They Can't Stop All of Us was the whole plan: enough people charging at once would overwhelm the guards, but on the day only a small crowd gathered at the gates and nobody got in.

Which 1996 film features secret alien research at Area 51?

Independence Day has its heroes haul a captured alien to the base, where they learn the government has kept a crashed alien ship and three alien bodies there for decades.

Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas parodies Area 51 as a desert military base with what name?

Area 69 is the target of one of the 2004 game's missions, in which Carl Johnson breaks in to steal a jetpack.

Which astronaut wrote The Defector, a 2023 thriller in which a Soviet fighter pilot is debriefed at Area 51?

Chris Hadfield made it the second of his Apollo Murders thrillers: the defector seems glad to explain his MiG-25 to the base's pilots, but he has come for something else entirely.

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

Paul, voiced by Seth Rogen, is picked up by two British sci-fi fans touring UFO sites, played by Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, who help him dodge federal agents and get home.

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

AlienStock went ahead in tiny Rachel, in a county of about 5,000 people where officials had braced for tens of thousands of visitors; far fewer came.

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

Israel was the last place they meant to land: the two lieutenants had lost their way on a training flight, and within months their jets were in American hands.

Before the CIA arrived in 1955, the abandoned dirt airstrip at Groom Lake had served in World War II as what?

An aerial gunnery range: the CIA's survey party found the lake bed littered with spent shell cases, and the old strip had turned to dust deep enough to flip a landing plane.

Which president approved the land takeover that gave the CIA its secret U-2 test site at Groom Lake?

Dwight D. Eisenhower approved the plan after the CIA's project chief, Richard Bissell, found the lakebed lay just outside the nuclear test site and asked for it to be added.

Which Lockheed design shop, nicknamed after a place in the comic strip Li'l Abner, built Area 51's first spy planes?

Skunk Works: engineer Irv Culver took to answering the phone 'Skonk Works', after a foul-smelling spot in the strip, and the joke stuck until Lockheed registered the name as a trademark.

Many Area 51 legends trace back to debris the Army recovered in 1947 near which New Mexico town?

Roswell: in 1947 the Army air base there announced it had a 'flying disc', then retracted the claim within a day and called the debris a weather balloon, and theorists later said it was hidden at the base.

The 2019 'Storm Area 51' joke was dreamed up after its creator watched a Bob Lazar interview on whose podcast?

Joe Rogan aired a two-hour talk with Lazar on 20 June 2019; student Matty Roberts posted his joke event a week later, and for three days only about 40 people signed up before it took off out of nowhere.

Which actor voiced Ethan Cole, the hero of the 2005 video game Area 51?

David Duchovny, who had already visited the base as Fox Mulder on The X-Files, voiced the hazmat trooper, and IGN's reviewer said he did it with less emotion than an over-boiled carrot.

Which Air Force jet was developed from a secret CIA spy plane first flown at Area 51 in 1962?

SR-71 Blackbird: the White House retired the CIA original in 1968, judging it wasteful to keep a covert fleet beside the Air Force's openly acknowledged Blackbirds.