“Area 51 is among the most mysterious, most secretive bases,” Jacobsen told CNN, “which only adds to the public fascination and lore with it.”

“Until then,” Jacobsen said, “it was officially a state secret.”īy the time the US government finally acknowledged Area 51, it had been used for decades as fodder for conspiracy theorists. President Barack Obama became the first US president to mention Area 51, at the Annual Kennedy Center Honors later that year. But the government didn’t publicly acknowledge its existence until 2013, when the CIA published declassified documents confirming it was used as a test facility for the U-2 and A-12 OXCART aerial surveillance programs.Īccording to those documents, the cloak of secrecy surrounding Area 51 was to keep information from the Soviet Union – not to cover up evidence extraterrestrial life. Management of the facility was turned over to the US Air Force in the late 1970s. With the ability to fly at 70,000 feet, the U-2 “was commonly mistaken for a UFO by civilians on the ground, who couldn’t imagine how anything could be flying that high,” Jacobsen said.

What is area 21