Area 51
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About
Area 51 is the colloquial name given to the Homey Airport located near Groom Lake, Nevada. The site became popular source conspiracy theories about the contact with Aliens due to UFO sightings reported in the area. While the base has been the subject of various works of popular entertainment, it became the subject of much discussion in summer 2019 due to the popularity of the Storm Area 51 meme.
History
In 1942, the Groom Lake airfield began servicing airforce machinery (satellite image, below.[1] According to Fox, [2] the area was "used during World War II as an aerial gunnery range for Army pilots." In 1955, President Dwight D. Eisenhower approved the site's usage for development of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) reconnaissance aircraft the Lockheed U-2.
In 2013, the United States "officially acknowledged the existence of Area 51," according to Britannica.com.[3]
Conspiracy Theories
The area surrounding Area 51 has been the subject of a series of unidentified flying objects (UFO) sightings since the 1950s, likely due to tests regarding the U-2 aircraft. The aircrafts tested on the site, such as OXCART, flew higher than civilian and even military aircraft (aircraft show below). Additionally, their unconventional shape led to many reports of UFOs.
As such, the site has been the subject of numerous conspiracy theories regarding extraterrestrials and UFOS. Interest in the site grew in public interest in 1989, when a man named Bob Lazar claimed to have worked at the site, which he said was the site of various studies on extraterrestrials, including the recovery of the infamous conspiracy theory that a UFO had crashed in Roswell, New Mexico.
In Popular Culture
In 1995, a first-person shooter arcade game entitled Area 51 was released (video below, left). Players use a light gun to play as a tactical response team charged with defeating an army of alien zombies that have overtaken the site.
The following year, the site was a setting for the alien-invasion film Independence Day, which used some of the lore and conspiracy theories surrounding the airfield in the plot. The film features the site as a holding facility for alien corpses and spacecraft leftover from the "Roswell incident" (clip below, right).
Related Memes
Storm Area 51
Storm Area 51 refers to a satirical Facebook event which suggests that attendees storm the American airbase Area 51, long-rumored to hold top-secret information about extra-terrestrials, on September 20th, 2019. It became a popular Facebook group, with over 120,000 members as of July 8th, 2019. The event increased in size quickly and by July 10th had over 222,891 confirmed as going with over 251,965 interested. By July 12th, this number grew to over 400,000.
My Area 51 Alien
My Area 51 Alien refers to jokes made by social media users as the satirical Storm Area 51 Facebook event went viral in which they imagined the humorous scenarios they would get into with the aliens they rescued from the top-secret US military base long-rumored to house information about extraterrestrials.
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