Is Area 51 just a Smoke-screen?

Right guys sorry if this has been put up before.

I was reading through some of the threads about Area 51, Groom Lake not surprisingly in the “Area 51 and other facilities” forum and it seems to me allot of us are missing a trick. Surely with the media and public fascination with Area 51 it would suit the USAF more too just keep it as a distraction for the other real secret facilities. If they are keeping anything secret there it seems like a really stupid place to be keeping it, everyone knows what it is and it only takes a Google search to get an exact location. And nowadays anyone can look strait at it thanks to Google earth and some intelligence agencies can get a good look at it as well via satellites. There have been numerous people who have broken their silence to tell us the “secrets” of Area 51. Maybe these people are put into the public domain to spread disinformation and keep us fascinated by Area 51 but distracted from the really interesting secret facilities.

Therefore I don’t think anything interesting is kept their anymore. I think all this talk of what may be at Area 51 and imaginative plans of how to infiltrate the place are playing straight into the government’s hands. The want us to think the good stuff is their so we don’t go looking elsewhere.

reply to post by kevinunknown


Last I checked you couldn't zoom in with a Google search; has that changed recently?

I agree, there are plenty of bases and Area 51 hasn't been in regular use since the early 90s or before. A friend and I walked 1/4 mile past the "lethal force" signs back in '92 and got a nice glimpse of the buildings and runways. Not many lights were on - looks abandoned from the mountain view I had.

reply to post by Thermo Klein


True I don’t think you get much of a zoom but there are some pretty good aerial pictures online, was just to help make my point.

I do think there may have been some interesting stuff going in there in ’92 though and I also think it was or still is being used to test AURORA aircraft. Did you get caught after going over the marker?

reply to post by Thermo Klein



I just went onto Google Maps in put in Area 51.

You can zoom into it in very high detail, all the cars, buildings etc.

They might have photoshopped out the UFO's though lol?

reply to post by minkey53


HAHA true, let’s face it though Google Earth won’t really prove anything.

reply to post by kevinunknown



From what I have heard and read, Area 51 knows when certain foreign satellites go over and hide things from view from them too.

So I think unless you actually go in there, you won't know for sure what's there!

If you do the search I said about on Google Maps, it says there are 31 reviews for the place. The latest one, done today, states that they had a 9 month wait to get in there to do a report. They had to sign a non-disclosure form and they are glad they did because the public wouldn't like what they did there.

Mmmm, interesting or is it BS??

That a interesting idea however i still maintain that it’s just a distraction now, maybe in the past they did keep the really secret stuff there. Now i think most of it is kept elsewhere and how do they do that with the satellites?

reply to post by Thermo Klein


Where did you cross the border?

Lines sorry

As far as I know, the only US AFB that is censored on google earth is HANSCOM AFB, 15 miles west of Boston, Massachusetts.

Every now and then someone posts a ridiculous thread claiming that "Area 51 is just a distraction" to draw people's attention from the "real" secret activities.

No. It's not.

There is abundant evidence that the Groom Lake facility (Area 51) is more active than ever. It is one of the premier U.S. test and evaluation assets, a fully instrumented test range comparable to Edwards Air Force Base but more remote.

Yes, more people know it exists now, with the Internet and lots of stupid television "documentaries," but it was never really secret either. Area 51 has been in the public eye since construction of the base was announced to news media in 1955. When the CIA Inspector General visited the base in 1961, he complained that Groom Lake was "extremely vulnerable...to unauthorized observation" and that it was also "demonstrably vulnerable to air violation including landings" (as had been proven in 1958 and would be so again and again in the ensuing years). That didn't put an end to classified flight test activities. In fact, the number of programs continued to increase.

When the Air Force took control of the base in the late 1970s, more than $200 million was spent on improvements. This seems to be a drop in the bucket compared to the expenditures of the past two decades. A study of aerial and satellite imagery from 1988 through 2009 shows a startling amount of new construction and infrastructure improvement (new buildings and hangars, radar sites, communications facilities, runways, etc.). The government doesn't spend that kind of money on a "smoke screen."

Also, look at the number of personnel commuting to the base by ground and air transportation. Cars, buses, and planes can be observed and tracked. That's too many people to simply be pretending to go to work. (I happen to know a number of these people. They are indeed hard at work on critical national defense projects. Claiming that former workers who are now able to "break their silence" on certain projects are disinformation agents is an unforgivable insult to our Cold War heroes.).

I'm also tired of people who say they "don't think anything interesting is kept there anymore." They usually follow with some comment like, "Groom Lake is most likely just used for testing classified aircraft and weapons." YES! Yes, that's exactly right. That is the mission of Area 51 and always has been. Advanced reconnaissance platforms. Stealth aircraft. Unmanned vehicles. Foreign technology. Advanced missiles. Electronic warfare systems. Nothing extraterrestrial. Just good old fashioned human tech.

Originally posted by METACOMET
As far as I know, the only US AFB that is censored on google earth is HANSCOM AFB, 15 miles west of Boston, Massachusetts.

Why would they censor it?

I just looked on Google maps and it's all pixelated, unlike Area 51 which I thought was more secure or supposedly the most secure place on Earth?

Anybody know how up to date Google Maps are because it says 2010 on mine when I look at my house but the picture was taken years ago when the neighbours were doing some renovations to their house!

if I go onto Streetview, it's last year, much more recent, wierd!

reply to post by Shadowhawk


Fair comment, however do you not think with the interest in Area 51 it would serve the USAF better to let us all babble on about it so that they can do their testing elsewhere in a more secret more secure base? Weather there is something extraterrestrial going on i suppose is for the whole debate of weather we have or have not been visited by little green men, but if we were i highly doubt that they would be keeping any evidence at Groom Lake. I would agree that it is still used as a facility for testing the latest military tech. And the military have always spent huge sums on money on disinformation, and am not even saying these people aren’t doing any work, all I am saying is that there is no massive conspiracy taking place there, but they can still be doing their jobs.

At last we can finally agree on something. As you say, "there is no massive conspiracy taking place [at Area 51]."

Quite true. There never was. It is a flight test center and always has been. The conspiracy/UFO mythology grew out of the apparent secrecy surrounding activities at the Groom Lake test site.

Public interest in Area 51 does not "serve the USAF better" at all. The government has never condoned such conspiracy theories because, rather than serving as a distraction from other secret projects, they draw unwanted attention to the ones going on at Groom. The Area 51 tourist industry has cost the government valuable time and money by delaying and canceling ground and aerial test operations while unauthorized observers waited on the edge of the range hoping to see flying saucers.

Regarding the dates shown on Google Earth, they have more to do with what coverage can be sold rather than the date of the image. Run the linux version of google earth (which incidentally has the old and I think better controls) and the dates don't even agree. Just one days difference, but people try to draw all sorts of conclusions based on the number of cars in the Janet lot on a Wednesday, etc.

Regarding security of the base, they test at night, so even from TIkaboo you don't see much when they do a test. However, the blue lights on the runway sure are pretty!

When I photographed the SU-27 during daylight hours, I'm sure the base wanted me to photograph the plane. It was between sessions of Red Flag, and they knew people were around with cameras. Sometimes the tourists are useful to the base.

reply to post by Shadowhawk


Yes what I am saying is that any real conspiracy is going on elsewhere!
Perhaps if you believed in UFO’s you might think differently i don’t doubt that it does get used for secret military tech testing all I am trying to say that IF there was any conspiracy such as storing UFO’s, testing alien tech, they wouldn’t do it at Area 51 due to the public and media interest risking a compromise.

It's hard to describe to somebody that has never actually been to the perimeter of Area 51 that it is without a doubt the perfect location for what the USAF needs. The remoteness is unbelievable. One trip out there and you would totally understand why the Area 51 is just as active as ever. No matter how many people become interested in Area 51, you just can't get close enough to really matter to them! They are the best in the world at doing what the do. If they want the public to see something, you will. If they don't want you to see something, you never will. It is the perfect location!

reply to post by DesertShadow


I have noticed that you and Shawdohawk are both fanatics when it comes to Area 51, its all your posts seem to be about or at least most of them. So it is reasonable to assume that your minds have already been made up that there are things going on there. Neither of you will like my idea because it would mean that your main conspiracy interest, is nothing more than disinformation. Also it’s quite interesting to compare your threads you both seem very interested in Area 51 but have completely different takes on what’s going on there.

I am not a "fanatic" about Area 51. I am simply posting about subjects where my expertise is strongest.

My "take" on Area 51 is based on more than 25 years of research that includes interviews with people who actually worked there at every level (engineers, contractors, air traffic controllers, loadmasters, security personnel, test pilots, base commanders, and many others - some who have since become good friends), as well as the study of thousands of pages of declassified and unclassified archival documents. As a historian, I have worked very hard to preserve the heritage of Area 51 and separate it from the mythology.

Really, I would find that very interesting, do you have any academic publications online or have you wrote any books on the subject?

Hadn't really thought about that, but it does make sence