Of all the places in the world which arouse speculation and wonder, Area 51 easily takes the cake. The activities that occur inside the facility have been kept prodigiously secret since the 1950s when the barren land was claimed and used by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Prior to that time, Groom Lake, the dry salt flat located on Area 51, was used during World War II for flight training.

Approximately 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas, NV, and just a few miles from the Nevada Test Site, where hundreds of nuclear weapon tests were conducted in the 1950s and 1960s, Area 51 is ideally suited for secrecy. Generally, it is boxed in by mountains, preventing hobbyists and spies alike from getting a ground-level peak. Security has increased over the years from simple barbed-wire fencing to high-tech barriers and observation.

Since its inception in the 1950s, Area 51 has been America’s test site at the forefront of many of the country's clandestine, advanced aviation technology programs. That we know of, two spy planes, the U- 2 and A-12 Oxcart —the precursor to the SR-71 Blackbird variants— were assembled and test flown there as part of America’s spy program against the USSR. The F-117 Nighthawk was also test flown out of Area 51. Area 51 remains active, and projects are ongoing to this day.

Theories abound concerning suspected unpublished projects that have taken place and are ongoing at Area 51. Ufologists maintain a heavy interest in the facility. Much of their interest comes from “whistleblowers” such as Bob Lazar, the famous Area 51 employee who revealed in a 1989 interview with a Las Vegas, NV news journalist that the U.S. government was working to understand and replicate alien technology, and was even housing extraterrestrial beings at the facility, whom he claimed he saw.

Interest also stems from civilian sightings of unidentified flying objects (UFOs) in the vicinity of Area 51. However, cover-up, or not, the CIA and U.S. Air Force have correlated most of the reported sightings over the past decades to test flights of their new, highly classified, and far-advanced aircraft projects.

Regardless of what goes on in Area 51, it is a fact that some of America’s most advanced technology has rolled and flown across the facility and the surrounding desert. It is also a fact that the majority of people will continue to speculate about the goings-on inside the fences. Who knows, maybe the next technology to come from the base will be a hoverboard, or a flying car. Or maybe, if we are lucky, one day the world will get concrete evidence of UFOs and extraterrestrials at Area 51.