The following is an excerpt from "The Essential Guide to UFO Sightings" by Frank Schwede. You can purchase it here.
AREA 51 - America's Secret World
Sand and stones as far as the eye can see. I am located approximately eighty miles (130 km) northwest of the glittery world of Las Vegas on highway SR 375—the only road that leads to Groom Lake.This place is like the back of beyond. Far and wide, there's not a soul; the sky is steel blue; in the distance, the exteriors of half-abandoned villages, houses, and trailers are peeling away in the shimmering midday heat. The only inhabited place, which bears the name Rachel, is enthroned like a Biblical apparition on the horizon. Barely one hundred people live in this desert hell hole, only thirteen miles (twenty-one km) from the boundary of a restricted military zone, the former nuclear test site Yuka Flats, which is the size of Bavaria.
Since the late 1980s, Rachel has become the "UFO Capital of the World; as the locals tell me, a kind of place of pilgrimage for UFO enthusiasts from around the world, which is why the people here call Route 375 'Alien Highway."
Dalton, who has lived in the small town right on the border of Dreamland, for more than thirty years, points to the mighty Tikaboo Mountains and says grinning: "I've seen a lot of unusual things in the sky and I'm sure they all come from the base over there. the LittleA'Le'Inn (pronounced "Little Alien," a kind of pun) is the last place to stop before the base. It is a saloon, bar, and motel in one and offers, besides a few rooms, a whole bunch of UFO photos on the walls and all sorts of odds and ends that make the hearts of UFO enthusiasts beat faster. Anyone who has the courage to drive up to the gates of the Area, now must finally leave the highway and take Groom Lake Road. It leads directly into"Dreamland," which has become the byword for conspiracy theorists around the world for secret UFO research. Area 51 is officially part of the 1.5 million hectare Nellis Air Force base (NAFB).The name Area 51 comes from the old area divisions on the maps of the Nevada test site. Wild stories circulate especially about the military base airport. Perhaps not entirely without reason. Civilian aircraft are strictly forbidden to fly over it, under threat of being fired or Even Air Force pilots, if they are not authorized, have to give it a wide berth when they want to fly from A to B. So what's going on that is so mysterious? An old lady, who grew up in Rachel, waves it off, laughs loudly, and finally declares:"This is all hocus-pocus, nothing more. But tourism is booming, since everyone is talking about the Area and people come here from around the world. That's good, because who otherwise would wander into this deserted place?"
The sixty-two-mile-square- (100 square kilometer) sized Area 51 lies northeast of Groom Lake, a dry salt lake. After the Second World War, an Air Force base was established on the southern edge of the lake—surrounded by huge hangars, giant utility installations, radar facilities, and the longest runway in the world: the runway is 5.9 miles (9.6 km) long. It stretches from one shore of the lake to the other.There is a second takeoff and landing strip parallel to it. Conspiracy theorists suspect that most of the structures are located underground. The witness reports to this effect, but also official documents, which indicate that the geology of the region is particularly suitable for underground installations, supporting this theory. High fences and motion detectors along the edges of the Area protect it against unwanted visitors. Guards in white Jeeps patrol here constantly and energetically rebuke every curious visitor—if necessary by threatening further measures. Motion detectors and video cameras are hidden everywhere in the desert terrain. Crossing the boundary is punishable with a $5,000 fine and a year in prison, as is written in large letters on the sign.
That's everyday life there, people from Rachel tell me. They have become used to it. There is probably no other place in the United States that is as closely guarded as this small desert hell hole. Until April 1995, you could still see the base from the summit of the approximate one-mile-(1,800 meter) high White Sands mountain and the neighboring Freedom Ridge mountain saddle, but then these two viewpoints were commandeered by the military and closed to visitors. Now you can only get a look at the base from the summit of one and one-half mile (2,500 meter) high Tikaboo Peak, some twenty-six miles (forty-two km) away.The view is bad on unfavorable days when a haze spreads over the region, but on a clear day, you can still just make out a part of the installations with the naked eye, even from this distance.
Originally, Groom Lake was used during the Second World War as a bomb and artillery firing range.Then the site was shut down until 1955, when representatives of the top-secret "Skunk Works" discovered the site as a suitable place for test flights of its Lockheed U-2 spy plane. In the engineers' view, the lake offered ideal takeoff and landing conditions, and the Tikaboo Valley protected it from the prying eyes of the public. In August 1955, the first U-2 took off here on its maiden flight, and a year later, the CIA launched their spy flights over the Soviet Union from that base. Even before completion of development work on the U-2, Lockheed started work on its successor project "A-12 Oxcart" at Groom Lake—o reconnaissance aircraft that was supposed to fly at 1,864 mph (3,000 km/hour). Not only the A-12's flight characteristics, but also its enormous miles (2,600 meters) and the base was now maintenance requirements made extensive manned by a fixed personnel of around 1,000 expansion of the test facility necessary at Groom men. It also had its own fuel depot, and o tower Lake. Right in time for the first flight of the A-12, with the call sign "Dreamland" was constructed, in 1962, the main runway was extended to 1.6 which later became a symbol of the whole installation. From this time, the region around Area 51 was declared a high security zone. Anyone who entered the premises illegally could be shot without warning.
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