Why Would Aliens Target Area 51? | Unveiled

Why Would Aliens Target Area 51?

Out in the sweltering plains of Nevada is one of the most secretive and mysterious locations on Planet Earth. Officially known as Homey Airport, it’s a base with severely restricted airspace, and patrolling soldiers make it completely inaccessible by ground. The only way in or out is from above… but just how far from above do these visitors come from? This is Unveiled, and today we’re answering the extraordinary question; why would aliens target Area 51? The official line on Area 51, the existence of which was only formally acknowledged by the US government in 2013, is that it serves as a testing ground for top-secret aircraft. The first planes it developed were the U-2 spy planes, and it’s also famous for being the home of the F-117 Nighthawk. In the public consciousness, however, Area 51 has long served as an ultra-classified laboratory full of extra-terrestrial specimens and equipment. Downed flying saucers, reverse-engineered technology, and perhaps even aliens themselves all linger within the confines of Groom Lake. In fact, the connection between Area 51 and aliens is so prevalent that the closest major road was renamed the “Extra-terrestrial Highway”, because of the large number of UFO sightings reported along it. While these sightings can be explained away by weird-looking planes (like the F-117 Nighthawk), the belief that the US military is harbouring alien life persists. So, where did that belief come from? Current stories around Area 51 are generally a conflation of various other modern, alien mythologies from the US, and not all of them are even centred all that close to the base - like the Roswell Incident in 1947. Some have suggested that the remnants of the Roswell Crash - officially a weather balloon, unofficially a spaceship - were taken all the way from New Mexico to Nevada, thus sparking the interest in Area 51. But the root of this particular folklore lies elsewhere, with the real event to kickstart UFO culture today being a sighting from the pilot Kenneth Arnold, who said he encountered nine UFOs while flying near Mount Rainier in Washington. This sighting was made on June 24th, 1947 - a few days before Roswell gained its infamy - as the case marked the first-ever uses of the phrases “flying saucer” and “flying disc” in reports; words which are today used exclusively to refer to the archetypal UFO shape. Arnold’s story, and his explanations that the “discs” were of extra-terrestrial origin, captured the attention of the American presses, so much so that the same phrase emerged during the now-heightened news coverage of the Roswell Crash, which didn’t actually hit the papers until July. Shortly after all of that, and especially once the US started testing U-2s in the mid-‘50s, UFO sightings shot up in Nevada especially, and it wasn’t long before theorists put two-and-two together to suggest that maybe it was all connected; maybe Area 51 really was an alien hub. The base in the back and beyond seemed as good a place as any for aliens to stop by, and an even better place for top secret government work to take place. News coverage is only one half of the equation where UFOs in the Nevada Desert are concerned, though; the other half is Hollywood. By the end of the ‘40s, various sources were claiming that alien bodies had been recovered from flying saucer crash sites all across the United States. And in 1950, the film “The Flying Saucer” was released, a b-movie that became the first film to cover the concept. As soon as the idea of UFOs and government cover-ups hit the mainstream, Hollywood had its “next big thing”, and by the early 1960s the alien legend was a bankable home run for sci-fi producers. Over the years since then, the “alien boom” has triggered a pop-cultural feedback loop, where more media means bigger audiences means more people who learn and begin to believe in the subject. With Area 51 and UFOs it’s modern folklore being written in front of our eyes - fuelled by our fascination with science, space and technology - in much the same way as the vampire myth has resurfaced time and time again as a knock-on effect (and variation of) Bram Stoker’s “Dracula”. But still, why should news stories from all across America and a slew of Tinsel Town movies mean that aliens actually would target Area 51 - in the middle of the desert - specifically. What makes it so special? Well, the Silver State does have more mysteries up its sleeve to feed the conspiracy than just the existence of Area 51. The Nevada Triangle, for one, has intrigued people for years, as the site of a supposed 2,000 plane disappearances. The Triangle is a large region stretching from Las Vegas to Reno to Fresno, California, covering much of the Sierra Nevada mountains. Like the Bermuda Triangle its name was inspired by, it’s notorious for strange vanishings and unrecovered planes, making it a popular source for conspiracy theorists. Area 51 is along the boundaries of the Nevada Triangle, and many of the people who are said to have disappeared there have supposedly never resurfaced. So, there’s that. But, why even America at all, though? There have been significant UFO sightings made outside of the United States, after all, with the UK and France leading the way for UFO reports across the rest of the world. However, there’s often some kind of US influence not too far away. One particularly famous UFO encounter in the UK is the Rendlesham Forest Incident in 1980, appropriately nicknamed “Britain’s Roswell”. The sighting says that a flying saucer landed in the woods, shortly after Christmas. The saucer, though, wasn’t actually witnessed by a Brit, but by American Air Force Personnel stationed at the nearby RAF Woodbridge base. Regardless, the after-effects at Rendlesham have played out much like Area 51 but on a smaller scale, with a high number of UFO sightings reported even today… so is this because other-worldly aliens just really want to visit this particular corner of England? Or, is it just another example of alien excitement brought on by western media? Pine Gap is a similar place of interest. Widely dubbed “Australia’s Area 51”, it’s a surveillance installation deep within the outback that’s also jointly used by the United States military and is also rumoured to be housing aliens. It should be said that America isn’t always directly involved, though. There are areas in Russia with similar legends surrounding them, like the Soviet missile development site Kapustin Yar, and the mountainous town of Mezhgorye where nuclear weapons were once stored and tested. Perhaps Russian sites being linked to similar mysteries shouldn’t be that surprising though, since such facilities were often founded during the Cold War, at a time when it was feared that seeing strange things in the sky could signal a nuclear attack. Not one other location holds anywhere near the same status as Area 51, however, whose mere name evokes images of alien autopsies and exotic propulsion systems. So, if, against the odds, the UFO sightings in the area are all absolutely real, then the question remains; Why America? Why Nevada? And why Area 51? Is it because one ship crashed there by accident in the ‘40s, and extra-terrestrials have been trying to recover it ever since? Is it because they’re actively liaising with the US government specifically to help them reverse engineer alien devices, like energy weapons and alternative propulsion techniques? Or, just maybe, is there something else bright and shiny out there in the desert, that draws millions of human visitors every year? They do say Las Vegas has it all, and it does boast giant replicas of near-enough every single piece of Earth iconography all along the strip… Could it be that for all this time, tourists haven’t been flocking to UFO hotspots, but UFOs have been flocking to tourist traps? Maybe… but probably not. In all likelihood, the “UFO in the sky over a suspiciously secretive military base” motif is really just a creation of the US mass media; an amalgamation of different, contemporary stories stuck together, made into movies, and then turned into legends. All of which means that Homey Airport in the Nevada Desert is as likely (or as unlikely) a melting pot of extra-terrestrial activity as practically anywhere else. But that’s why aliens appear to “target” Area 51.