If the US government is not hiding something in the Nevada Desert, why could entering it cost you your life?
Around 190 km north-west of Las Vegas, in the Nevada desert, google maps show roads, creeks, mountains, bunkers, buildings and a massive 9.5 km runway across an area the size of Switzerland.
Public access to this zone is forbidden. 'Use of deadly force authorized', warn the signs. Its airspace is the most sacred in the US. This is Nellis Air Force Range and Nuclear Test Site, more commonly known as Area 51 (a name given for one section of the base on old government maps - also known as Groom Lake or Homey Airport). The closest people can get to it is Highway 375 - renamed Extraterrestrial Highway in March 1996.
ALIEN TECHNOLOGY?
Founded as a secret base in 1954 so the Lockheed Aircraft Corporation could develop spyplanes for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Area 51 is still home to some of the US's most futuristic projects. The Stealth bomber was tested there with other unconventional aircraft. It has been shrouded in secrecy with the US Air Force (USAF) only admitting it existed in 1994. It represents the cutting edge of US military technology. The only trouble is that the technology is not American. Nor are the technicians. It is claimed that both are from outer space.
Since Area 51 was established, people have reported seeing strange objects in the sky above it. The authorities denied these claims but one of their own men alleged that not only were there UFOs above Area 51, but the USAF was actively working with alien technology.
Robert 'Bob' Lazar, a contract scientist who worked on the base for five months from December 1988, broke the news on television in May 1989 filmed in shadow, under the alias 'Dennis', and his voice electronically distorted. He revealed the government was investigating nine flying saucers and was trying to adapt alien technology to its own ends. Following the interview, he recieved death threats and his car was shot at.
In November 1989, Lazar described the top-secret 'S4' site, next to Papoose Lake within Area 51, an under ground complex which occupied a whole mountain range.
INSIDE S4
He was employed in a team of 22 engineers to figure out how alien aircrafts' propulsion systems operated. He entered one of the discs, its form had no physical seams, no welds or bolts or rivets. Lazar said. 'Everything has a soft, round edge to it... as if it's made out of wax and heated for a time and then cooled off.' The design would not be out of place today.
There were portholes, arches and tiny chairs only a foot or so off the ground. Its propulsion unit was the size of a baseball, which radiated an anti-gravity field through a hollow column that ran vertically through the centre of the craft.
The briefing papers Lazar read included pictures of autopsies of little grey beings with large hairless heads. They stated that these aliens were from the Zeta Reticuli star system. They also mentioned an incident in 1979 in which the aliens had killed security guards and scientists at the base.
Lazar does not categorically say he saw aliens in S4. But when passing a room, he glimpsed two men in white lab coats 'looking down and talking to something small with long arms.
WEIGHING UP THE EVIDENCE
These are incredible claims. But was Lazar adapting UFO clichés about flying saucers and little grey men to his own ends? Or does his story prove that they are true? It is a conundrum which is typical of UFOlogy and which makes it even harder to separate fact from fiction.
There is some corroboration for Lazar's claims with more than a dozen people coming forward with supporting evidence. George Knapp, who interviewed Lazar on TV, has video testimony of a man who ran several large military programmes out at Nellis. He claims that the authorities have possessed alien technology and aliens themselves since the 1950s.
DEATH THREATS
When another journalist tried to investigate Area 51 he met fear. One former electrical engineer said he had seen a flying saucer and was willing to repeat his claim on TV. He backed out when he saw dark-suited men in cars parked outside his house through the day and night. Another witness was threatened directly.
Lazar has always told the same story - something which is unusual in false witnesses - but his claim to gaining masters degrees from two prestigious US universities remains unsubstantiated and he has been convicted of involvement in running a brothel, although having a criminal record does not necessarily make him a liar.
But Lazar's motives for going public are questionable. He says he did it because he thought the secrecy was an insult to science and US citizens. Yet his drawings of the alien craft have been merchandized and he sold the rights for a movie based on his story.
Again, none of this is proof that he lied. In fact, the only proven liar is the US government. Authorities denied Lazar worked at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico on the 'Star Wars' Strategic Defence Initiative between 1982 and 1984, but his name was on the internal phone directory at Los Alamos. But the government never denied that he worked in Area 51; his tax return for that year confirmed that.
TESTIMONIALS
In 1995, a German film company released a video, Secrets of the Black World, which supplied more evidence to support Lazar's story. It has several witnesses whose testimonies show that something is going on in Area 51.
In 1996, Bruce Burgess directed a documentary called 'Dreamland' which included an interview with a 71-year-old mechanical engineer who claimed to be a former employee at Area 51 during the 1950s. His claims included that he had worked on a "flying disc simulator" used to train pilots which was based on a disc originating from a crashed extraterrestrial craft. He also claimed he worked with an extraterrestrial being named "J-Rod" he described as a "telepathic translator".
In 2004, Dan Burisch (pseudonym of Dan Crain) claimed he worked on cloning alien viruses at Area 51, also alongside the alien named "J-Rod". Burisch's PhD from the State University of New York is the subject of debate.
Since then, there has been 144 sightings of unidentified aerial phenomena (UAPs) by US Navy pilots.
VIDEO PROOF?
In 1990, Norio Hayakawa of Nippon TV, caught a glimpse of an object rise from Area 51; a glowing light over the mountains which skated through the sky.
Many other films showed much the same thing - a bright object which hops through the sky at incredible speeds and performed impossible manoeuvres. An NBC TV crew was approached by one of these objects. They came back with radiation burns. Someone went further still, allegedly inside S4, and filmed a roomful of canisters in which dead aliens were being stored.
Sadly, though, catching a UFO on film is not conclusive proof. Secrets of the Black World shows videos of two alleged UFOS - one looked like a jet at low altitude, the other was a badly - montaged sequence of a flying dustbin. There are countless videos to be found on YouTube.
DEATH ON THE BASE
On January 28, 2019, an unidentified man drove through a security checkpoint near Mercury, Nevada in an apparent attempt to enter the base. After an 8-mile (13-kilometer) vehicle pursuit by base security, the man exited his vehicle carrying a "cylindrical object" and was shot dead by NNSS security officers and sheriff's deputies after refusing to obey requests to halt. There were no other injuries reported.
In July 2019, more than 2,000,000 people responded to a joke proposal to storm Area 51 which appeared in an anonymous Facebook post. The event, scheduled for 20 September 2019, was billed as "Storm Area 51, They Can't Stop All of Us". Two music festivals were subsequently organized in rural Nevada, "AlienStock" and "Storm Area 51 Basecamp". Up to 3000 people attended the festivals. While over 150 people made the longer journey to get near the gates to Area 51, only seven people were reportedly arrested.
Still, there are at least eight Black Programs flying out of Area 51; ultra-secret government projects, such as the Stealth bomber and drones whose speed and manoeuvrability could easily fool people into mistaking them for flying saucers.
But are these craft silent and faster than the speed of sound like the one which flew out of Area 51 and was later tracked by the Federal Aviation Administration Center going in excess of 16,000 km/h- around 13 times the speed of sound. If human technology can pull it off, was it influenced by alien technology? Ben Rich, former President of Lockheed Advanced Development, confirmed that he is a firm believer in UFOs, but many dismiss UFOs as government-orchestrated disinformation designed to cover-up, so what really is going on?