Area 51 : an uncensored history of America's top secret military base

Annie Jacobsen is obsessed with secrecy. Her other book, Operation Paperclip, deals with the hidden machinations of the US government after WW II to find and import Nazi scientists who had special expertise in rocketry and chemical weapons.

This book details the hidden history of Area 51, an ultra-secret location (officially it doesn’t exist) in the Nevada desert just next to the atomic weapons testing area. Supposedly created by the CIA in 1955 for U-2 flights, Jacobsen discovered it had been set up by the Atomic Energy Commission to conduct tests some might consider to be unethical on animal subjects. The secrecy of the Manhattan Project, an effort unknown to Congress and even the Vice-President --Truman was briefed on it only after show more he assumed the presidency, -- was adopted as SOP by the CIA, NSA, and AEC to the point where one might argue the United States had a shadow government run by the military.

Jacobsen’s entry into this world came by chance when she met Edward Lovick, an 88-year-old physicist, who suggested he might have an interesting story for her and connected her with other elderly pilots, engineers and scientists regarding the plane known as Oxcart (the A-12) which had been created half a century earlier.

Some of the secrecy was arguably quite necessary since it related to aerial surveillance that ostensibly helped keep the world from nuclear holocaust. Whether even in hindsight this kind of secrecy justified keeping the president (President Clinton was not privy to Area 51 affairs) out of the loop is problematic and certainly undemocratic.

The UFO conspiracy theories emanating from Area 51 she attributes to some seriously awful human research being done there during the early cold war and the whole UFO nonsense became useful for the Air Force as a cover for its own nefarious activities. Who needs nasty aliens when we have the Air Force?

Area 51 was where the U-2 was developed. Richard Bissell (of later Bay of Pigs fame) was put in charge and everything was so secret and control of the money providing so much power that Curtis LeMay, the Air Force general and SAC commander, was royally pissed off and he was not someone to mess with. Eisenhower insisted that the pilot be CIA so as to avoid charges of military complicity should one of the pilots ever be captured. The last thing he wanted was to risk charges of hostile action. Yet hundreds of Air Force personnel were assigned to the program (by Bissell) since they had all the expertise. Eisenhower, when pushed by LeMay, insisted it remain under CIA control so he could have plausible deniability.

Secrecy could cause problems. Since they wanted no one to drive to Area 51 or live in Las Vegas, the closest town, a shuttle between Burbank and the area was initiated and workers lived in Burbank. No flight plan was listed nor any record of the flights kept. So when, inevitably, the C-54 became lost in a snowstorm, and asks for help finding their position, controllers were completely flummoxed; they had no record of any plane being in that area. The plane crashed on the top of Mount Charleston north of Las Vegas killing some all on board. Several interesting side-effects resulted from the crash. It was the first time the U-2 was used on a mission (to help pinpoint the exact location so they could retrieve briefcases and classified documents), and the CIA learned how easy it was to use the public’s preconceptions and the media’s desire for a story - any story -- to manipulate publicity. The press, denied access to the site, made up a story that those killed on board were working on a secret nuclear weapons program, hence all the security.

It’s no wonder UFO sightings proliferated. The U-2 was originally silver in color, had an extraordinary wing span, and flew at 70,000 feet during a time when commercial aircraft flew between 10,000 and 20,000 feet. The sun glinting off the plane made it look like some kind of fiery cross. You have to remember this was a time of great paranoia. Americans were terrified of nuclear holocaust and a Russian induced Armageddon. I remember being on my uncle’s farm in Wisconsin in the late fifties scanning the sky every time we heard a plane, jotting down the characteristics and its direction of flight, so the information (my uncle volunteered with the Civil Air Patrol) could be phoned in and checked to make sure it wasn’t some Russian bomber. (Even then we thought it odd that a Russian bomber would make it all the way to Wisconsin without dropping any bombs, but logic never plays much of a role in paranoia.)

Politics. money and the media all symbiotically created the perfect storm of paranoia in the fifties. Time Magazine was terrifying readers with stories of Soviet ICBMs crashing down on American cities; Curtis LeMay was locked in a battle with the Defense Department over whether manned bombers were better than ICBMs (they could be recalled, missiles could not while he called for a pre-emptive strike on Russia and even ordered massive test launches of B-47s** from Alaska and Greenland taking them just to Russian airspace risking a Russian missile launch.) He disdained the overflight research being done at Area 51 but continued to lose officers to both that program and the missile initiative promoted by the Paperclip scientists imported from Germany.

Those wanting a specific focus on Area 51 will be disappointed as Jacobsen uses it more for a springboard to discuss the history and background of such things as the U-2 flights, etc. Personally, I loved those details and once again was amazed that we survived the twenty years after WW II without descending into WW III. Our arrogance and self-righteous behavior was on display over and over. Can you imagine the Congressional reaction had the Soviets flown a U-2-like plane over the U.S.?

One interesting, if scary, tidbit is that the physical experiments for the U-2 pilots were designed by Paperclip doctors, i.e., German doctors who had conducted experiments on concentration camp victims. Many of those tests buggered the imagination.

Project 57 involved another kind of test. Assuming that someday an Air Force plane would crash in the United States carrying a nuclear bomb, the scientists wanted to see what would happen. (Today we would call that a dirty bomb.) The only area that could guarantee secrecy, was outside the area normally allocated for open air nuclear testing, and wouldn’t be used for 25,000 years (the half-life of plutonium) was in Area 51.

The book abounds with scientists, who, had they conducted the experiments they did for the other side, would have been labeled evil. James Killian, for example. Former president of MIT, Kennedy asked him to be head of a super-secret internal agency that was hidden even from Congress. Killian authorized two extremely dangerous atmospheric 3.2 megaton hydrogen bomb tests, one at a height of 140,000 feet, over the Pacific, i.e. in the midst of the ozone layer. In order to see what the effects would be on eyesight, hundreds of monkeys were flown, their heads locked into a position where they would have to look at the explosion. Their retinas were burned, blinding them painfully. The effect on the ozone layer wasn’t recorded (although I suspect it was far more deleterious than aerosol chloroflourocarbons) and damage was observed 250 miles away.

I could go on. Let’s just say Jacobsen uses Area 51 discuss a wide range of topics and people related to work done at Area 51. to I won’t spoil anything by discussing the flying disc that crashed in 1947, but will whet your curiosity only by suggesting you research the Horton Brothers and Operation Paperclip. Or, you could read the book. It’s a depressing page-turner. I won’t ever believe again anything coming out of Washington or the media. I’ve always said that if you really want to find out what happened, forget the daily news and wait a decade for the book, or, in this case wait fifty years for some things to be declassified..

**LeMay sent some flights over Russia to test their radar defense. Some of these were shot down and those pilots who survived spent the rest of their lives in the Gulag. When asked about the provocative nature of the flights, he replied, “With a little more luck we could have started WW III.” The CIA was not happy and reported his clandestine activities to Eisenhower in 1956. LeMay’s actions, ironically, provided an extra boost to the push for the U-2 as the CIA argued it could provide necessary intelligence about Russian capabilities at far less risk. Still Eisenhower worried that one might be shot down triggering a nuclear holocaust. Bissell assured the president that could not happen. Well, we all remember Gary Powers. The CIA, as I note from recent headlines, has a long history of continuing to lie to the president (and probably itself.) show less

On the plus side, this book provides fascinating details about the history of nuclear weapons development and testing, the establishment and evolution of Area 51, the U2 spy plane, and the Cold War. The book disappoints, however, in its treatment of the flying saucer controversy. The author claims that, according to an unnamed source with personal knowledge of the post-Roswell secret work at Area 51, two flying discs (not a weather balloon) really did crash at Roswell, NM in 1947. But the discs, which had hover capability (supplied by a few captured German scientists), were of Soviet origin (they had Russian letters inscribed on their inner rings)-- a cold war trick by Stalin intended to make the American people believe that aliens had show more landed in New Mexico so as to panic us. According to this story, the Soviets hired Josef Mengele after WWII to supply altered children with enlarged heads and eyes to mimic the appearance of aliens. These children were in the two discs that crashed. Several died, but two were alive and comatose. The US military moved the discs and children to area 51 and invented the weather balloon cover story. Wow. An actual alien landing would be more believable. Why on earth would the Soviets be so stupid (a) as to deliver to the US, its arch enemy, an aircraft capable of defying gravity, (b) as to believe that an alien crash on US soil and the supposedly ensuing mass panic would provide the Soviets with any real or lasting strategic advantage, and (c) as to leave Russian letters inside the craft so as to blow any chance that the hoax would succeed? show less

Superior documentation, a thorough yet casual writing style and a real “Holy F___balls!” moment make this a treat to read. Jacobson tries to find a balance between the times when secrecy really did save lives and the times when it was simply used to sweep embarrassing (and lethal) failures under the carpet. Is the grand reveal true? I don't know. But it's certainly possible, and I wouldn't put it past anyone involved.

This book was in three parts for me. First, introductory promises about alien secrets referring to much to the discredited Bob Lazar. (How could someone too easily outed as a liar about their scientific and academic career be given high responsibility to reverse engineer extraterrestrial tech?) Then, there is the meat of the book which is largely based on declassified docs of the last few decades. This is an arc from WW II Operation Paperclip Nazi scientist missile tests and atomic research leading to when the CIA was directly an airpower. Next comes to Curtis LeMay and the Air Force moving while the shadowy Atomic Energy Commission tests dirty bombs and other nuclear techniques in a growing infrastructure of sites, tunnels and show more interactions with feisty neighbors that are miners and ranchers. After this, the the final material is about Mengele rushing to modify children to be living, large-headed ersatz aliens before retreating to South America. Stalin uses this bizarre crew to staff an advanced, remote-controlled disc craft whose crash near Roswell (the mothership ending up in Alaska) is an elaborate ploy to scare Americans. (Why didn't the USSR put this amazing tech to other known uses.) Well, its a great movie plot but all based on interviews put it in the realm of the least reliable forensic evidence. No physical proof... show less

I'd write a review, but you do not have "the need to know."

That might be funny if you weren't the president of the United States trying to get some answers as to what is transpiring at Area 51. While I started this book hoping to gain some insight not only to this very secret spot in Nevada but also to the alleged links to UFOs, I came away horrified by what the author reveals was the "true" course of events at Roswell. Although UFOs (UAVs in today's parlance) are still fascinating and a wonderful thing upon which to speculate, the real secret may be so disheartening and appalling that it's easy to see why it's been kept secret for so long.

Ms. Jacobsen's writing takes you by the hand and leads you into these darkened spaces, show more illuminating them weakly with the tidbits that she is able to uncover. Naturally we do not get to really see inside Area 51, but we are able to see that the events which took and take place there are at the same time vital to our national defense and a contractor's dream come true. show less

I have to say, I admired how the author attacked the subject matter of this book, and it seems she had mulitple sources for most of the material. And even if a fifth of this book is close to the mark, it's terrifying. The amazing tests (almost blowing a hole in the ozone layer, pilots flying through the mushroom clouds of exploded atom bombs), the stupidity of politicians and others in charge, the total disregard for the planet and life on it.

As I read this book, I kept thinking a Hollywood producer should snap this up. There's at least three different sections that would make for riveting television series.

And then, toward the end, Jacobsen seems to veer off into the conspiracy theories she seemed so careful to avoid for the majority show more of the book. When she gets to the Roswell incident of 1947, it's almost all conjecture. It's fascinating conjecture, but conjecture all the same. And it seems to defy logic.

Jacobsen spends most of the book detailing the various espionage efforts of the US to get intelligence from Russian flyovers. Great. Fine. We all know about how that turned out for Gary Powers. But then to indicate that Russia had hover and fly capabilities in a flying saucer vehicle...in 1947...and never ever expanded on it or ever used it again? For the next 70 years? Nah. Don't buy it.

But read the book. It's fascinating stuff. show less

Firstly: put away that tin-foil hat, Clarence, this has nothing to do with telling you about the bodies of alien visitors. The Roswell, NM 'incident' is debunked in this book as being nothing more than a demented attempt by the then Soviet leader Stalin to create panic among the American public akin to the 1938 "War of the Worlds" radio broadcast. Had the original USAF Press Release not been replaced in a matter of hours, he might have succeeded. The craft was a crescent-shaped wing and created by two former Nazi scientists, and the bodies of two deformed children were inside to resemble 'pilots', the craft being actually controlled as drones are today.

So that's that.

Now: Area 51, however, *does* exist. It's been used since the early show more '50s as a testing location for a stream of planes being developed by both the CIA and the USAF for reconnaissance and combat purposes. The U-2, then the A-12 / SR-71 were both developed there, as was the F117 'Stealth Fighter'. Most recently they've used the area to develop military drone technology without the public being aware of things until they've been deployed (although the CIA will neither confirm nor deny anything about the devices).

The history of the development of the facility, the reasons therefore, and the various political and national influences on its continued use is fascinating and far more interesting than any "my sister was abducted by aliens" theory spouted by a fictional FBI agent might be.

The final chapter and epilogue declares what the actual answer to the 'alien body' question might have led to, and — to be frank — it's hoped that the author has been sold a tissue of lies by an old man. Were the matter as terrifying as is claimed (no, still no aliens; it's all human), it's no wonder no one wants to open that Pandora's Box. While not convincing in its arguments, the real project resulting from Roswell would make the Iran/Contra affair, the Pentagon Papers, and Nixon's recordings together look like harmless, week-end pranks. I don't *want* to believe the answer. show less