US military warns people preparing to storm Area 51
Officials warn public of dangers at secretive Nevada base and signal that the Air Force stands ready; national security correspondent Jennifer Griffin report from the Pentagon.
Area 51, secret U.S. Air Force military installation located at Groom Lake in southern Nevada. It is administered by Edwards Air Force Base in southern California. The installation has been the focus of numerous conspiracies involving extraterrestrial life, though its only confirmed use is as a flight testing facility.
In 2013 the U.S. government officially acknowledged the existence of Area 51. That year the National Security Archive at the George Washington University obtained through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) a formerly classified CIA document that chronicled the history of the U-2 spy plane; a heavily redacted version had previously been released in 1998. According to the report, in 1955 the remote site—which included an airfield not used by the military since World War II—was selected in order to test the U-2. Test flights of that spy plane, and subsequent aircraft, accounted for many of the UFO sightings in the area; the U-2 could reach altitudes much higher than any other planes at the time. After the U-2 was put into service in 1956, Area 51 was used to develop other aircraft, including the A-12 (also known as OXCART) reconnaissance plane and the stealth fighter F-117 Nighthawk.