its no longer being completly denied, they acknowledge that there is a base out there, and that the bases sole use is to test soon-to-be aircraft such as the f-117 nighthawk, SR-71 Blackbird, B-2 Stealth Bomber, F-22, F-35 Joint Strike fighter etc.. Although, they don't officially acknowledge that its specifically for aircraft, that would make sense as the runway is GIGANTIC. (my estimate is the primary runway is about 4 miles long) perfect for helping those jankity prototype-aircraft get in the air.

The main runway is a little over 13,000 feet long, about 2,000 feet shorter than the runway at Edwards AFB where the space shuttle lands. The old runway dating to the OXCART era was about the same length but had an emergency-use extension onto the lakebed. This entire airstrip has been closed for years, ever since the new runway was declared fully operational.

Cool article. Unfortunately, it doesn't tell much of anything we don't already know minus a few top secret aircraft tests and a CIA 'truth serum' story. One interesting thing that it does confirm that reverse engineering did in fact take place on foreign technology and it did confirm underground tunnels. However, the compartmentalized nature of working at A51 makes it near impossible to prove that anything does or doesn't exist there.

In talking with Collins, Lovick, Slater, Barnes and Martin, it is clear that much of the folklore was spun from threads of fact.

As for the myths of reverse engineering of flying saucers, Barnes offers some insight: "We did reverse engineer a lot of foreign technology, including the Soviet MiG fighter jet out at the Area"—even though the MiG wasn't shaped like a flying saucer. As for the underground-tunnel talk, that, too, was born of truth. Barnes worked on a nuclear-rocket program called Project NERVA, inside underground chambers at Jackass Flats, in Area 51's backyard. "Three test-cell facilities were connected by railroad, but everything else was underground," he says.

[edit on 8-4-2009 by NightVision]

Of course, the OXCART project, and even test programs involving Soviet aircraft, have been declassified for many years.

The OXCART and TAGBOARD programs were declassified in 1976 when the surviving D-21B drones were placed in outdoor storage at Davis-Monthan AFB, Arizona. The A-12 aircraft were to join the drones but instead remained in a building at A.F. Plant 42 in Palmdale until 1981. In preparation for placing the aircraft outdoors, the CIA in 1976 crafted a memo for Air Force officials to use in response to queries about the aircraft. In 1981, after the A-12 airframes were moved outdoors at Palmdale, a number of historical photos of the A-12 and D-21 were released along with some general details about the OXCART and TAGBOARD programs. "The OXCART Story," a 1982 article in the CIA's "Studies in Intelligence" magazine was declassified in 1991 when A-12 aircraft started entering museums for public display.  Over the next 16 yeards the CIA declassified thousands of pages of OXCART-related documents, mostly in response to FOIA requests. In 2007, an A-12 was placed on permanent display at CIA Headquarters in a ceremony that recognized the accomplishments of the pilots who performed operational reconnaissance missions in the aircraft.

The HAVE DOUGHNUT and HAVE DRILL/HAVE FERRY foreign materiel evaluation programs were declassified in the late 1990s. CONSTANT PEG was declassified just a few years ago along with other related projects.

The recent L.A. Times article is based on oral history interviews which are highly subjective. T.D. Barnes was right to say that foreign technology was "reverse engineered" - Soviet radar systems were simulated for test purposes - but he was exercising dramatic license in order to explain some of the popular myths about Area 51. The tunnels he discussed were located at the Nevada Test Site, not at Area 51, and are a well known part of the underground nuclear testing program.

Ken Collins' story about being debriefed under the influence of sodium pentothal ("truth serum") is not completely accurate. He was, in fact, administered sodium amytal, a drug used to recover memories from people who have been through a traumatic event (in this case his ejection from the stricken A-12). It is also unlikely that he told the civilians who picked him up that his airplane had nuclear weapons aboard. This would have drawn unwanted attention to the incident (the exact opposite of what he wanted!) and there are no documents (including his own reports and the CIA debriefing transcript) that support such a tale.

But Steve Quayle is nuts and the drawings are of a conceptual design.

Somewhere on the YMP website is a video of one of these boring machines popping out the side of the mountain.