UFO buffs and believers in alien encounters are celebrating the CIA's
clearest acknowledgement yet of the existence of Area 51, the
top-secret Cold War test site that has been the subject of elaborate
conspiracy theories for decades.
The recently declassified
documents have set the tinfoil-hat crowd abuzz, though there's no
mention in the papers of UFO crashes, black-eyed extraterrestrials or
staged moon landings.
Audrey Hewins, an Oxford, Maine, woman who
runs a support group for people like her who believe they have been
contacted by extraterrestrials, said she suspects the CIA is moving
closer to disclosing there are space aliens on Earth.
"I'm thinking that they're probably testing the waters now to see how mad people get about the big lie and cover-up," she said.
For a long time, U.S. government officials hesitated to acknowledge even the existence of Area 51.
The
CIA history released Thursday not only refers to Area 51 by name and
describes some of the aviation activities that took place there, but
locates the Air Force base on a map, along the dry Groom Lake bed.
It also talks about some cool planes, though none of them are saucer-shaped.
George
Washington University's National Security Archive used a public records
request to obtain the CIA history of one of Area 51's most secret Cold
War projects, the U-2 spy plane program.
National Security Archive
senior fellow Jeffrey Richelson first reviewed the history in 2002, but
all mentions of the country's most mysterious military base had been
redacted. So he requested the history again in 2005, hoping for more
information. Sure enough, he received a version a few weeks ago with the
mentions of Area 51 restored.
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