Features

• About 120 miles to the northwest of Las Vegas is a 6-by-12-mile tract of land known as the Nevada Test Site, which houses a top-secret U.S. military installation. Area 51 is situated upon one corner of the complex. The entire facility is protected by approximately 1,000 square miles of restricted airspace as well as by armed patrols on the ground. Adjoining areas are off limits to the public and the taking of photographs is strictly forbidden.
  
  

History

• Area 51, also known as Groom Lake, first served as an Army Gun Corps gunnery range during World War II. By the mid-1950s, it became a testing ground and storage area for technologically advanced aircraft such as the A-12 spy plane and the F-117 Stealth Fighter. Sightings of unidentifiable aircraft are commonplace in the local area, and these encounters with the unusual likely serve to perpetuate the popular mythology that surrounds Area 51.
  
  

Roswell

• On a stormy evening in early July 1947 near Roswell, New Mexico, a local sheep rancher named William Mac Brazel reportedly heard what he described as an explosion. The next morning, while checking on his sheep, Brazel found what he considered to be some very unusual debris spread out over an area hundreds of feet wide. The rancher brought some of the debris to the local sheriff who in turn notified the military. Soon after, he found himself under guard as an involuntary guest at the nearby military base. Upon his release, Brazel gave an entirely different explanation as to what was found on his ranch.
  
  

Alien Bodies

• After a January 1990 broadcast about Roswell on television's "Unsolved Mysteries," a man named Gerald Anderson came forward and told of a second UFO crash near Maglalena, New Mexico, in which several alien bodies were found, pronounced dead, and taken to Area 51 for autopsy. Anderson's story eventually fell apart, but other accounts maintain that the government is still in possession of these dead aliens. One of the men involved allegedly smuggled out a video and photos of one such autopsy; these still remain available.
  
  

Considerations

• The evidence indicates that something crashed into the New Mexico desert on that stormy July evening, but eyewitness accounts and the government's explanation do not agree as to what it was. Did a second crash take place? Do alien bodies and technology continue to be studied at the highly-secretive Area 51? The myths live on, and it is up to each person to examine the evidence and come to his or her own conclusions.