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The Area 51 base lies within the United States Air Force's vastNevada Test and Training Range

(NTTR), formerly called the Nellis Air Force Range (NAFR). Although the facilities at the range

are managed by the 99th Air Base WingatNellis Air Force Base, the Groom facility appears to be

run as an adjunct of the Air Force Materiel CommandAir Force Flight Test Center(AFFTC) at

Edwards Air Force Base in the Mojave Desert, around 186 miles (300 km) southwest of Groom,

and as such the base is known as Air Force Flight Test Center (Detachment 3).[3][4]

Though the name Area 51 is used in official Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) documentation,[5]

other names used for the facility includeDreamland,Paradise Ranch,[6][7]Home Base, Watertown

Strip, Groom Lake,[8] and most recentlyHomey Airport.[9] The area is part of the Nellis Military

Operations Area, and the restricted airspace around the field is referred to as (R-4808N),[10] known

by the military pilots in the area as "The Box" or "the Container".[11]

The facility is not a conventional airbase, as frontline operational units are not normally deployed

there. It instead appears to be used for highly classified military/defense Special Access Programs

(SAP), which are unacknowledged publicly by the government, military personnel, and defense

contractors. Its mission may be to support the development, testing, and training phases for new

aircraft weapons systems or research projects. Once these projects have been approved by the

United States Air Force or other agencies such as the CIA, and are ready to be announced to thepublic, operations of the aircraft are then moved to a normal air force base.

The intense secrecy surrounding the base, whose very existence the U.S. government did not even

acknowledge until 29 September 1995, has made it the frequent subject ofconspiracy theories and a

central component to unidentified flying object (UFO) folklore.[7][12] Everything that happens at

Area 51 is classified Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information (TS/SCI). This security

policy ensures that only those insiders with a "need to know" have access to only the information

they require, and ensures that outsiders don't know what they don't know.[13]

U.S. government's positions on Area 51

A letter from the USAF replying to a query about Area 51

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Air_Forcehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Air_Forcehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nevada_Test_and_Training_Rangehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nevada_Test_and_Training_Rangehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/99th_Air_Base_Winghttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/99th_Air_Base_Winghttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nellis_Air_Force_Basehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Force_Materiel_Commandhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Force_Flight_Test_Centerhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwards_Air_Force_Basehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mojave_Deserthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Area_51#cite_note-cambell_afftc-3http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Area_51#cite_note-merlin_afftc-4http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Intelligence_Agencyhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Area_51#cite_note-CIA_BYE2369-67-5http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Area_51#cite_note-6http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Area_51#cite_note-jacobsen-7http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Area_51#cite_note-patton_names-8http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Area_51#cite_note-9http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Area_51#cite_note-9http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_Operations_Areahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_Operations_Areahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restricted_airspacehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Area_51#cite_note-10http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Area_51#cite_note-11http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_access_programhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Air_Forcehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conspiracy_theoryhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conspiracy_theoryhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unidentified_flying_objecthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Area_51#cite_note-jacobsen-7http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Area_51#cite_note-lacitis20100327-12http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Area_51#cite_note-Jacobsen-13http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Usaf_on_area51.pnghttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Usaf_on_area51.pnghttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nevada_Test_and_Training_Rangehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/99th_Air_Base_Winghttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nellis_Air_Force_Basehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Force_Materiel_Commandhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Force_Flight_Test_Centerhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwards_Air_Force_Basehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mojave_Deserthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Area_51#cite_note-cambell_afftc-3http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Area_51#cite_note-merlin_afftc-4http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Intelligence_Agencyhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Area_51#cite_note-CIA_BYE2369-67-5http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Area_51#cite_note-6http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Area_51#cite_note-jacobsen-7http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Area_51#cite_note-patton_names-8http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Area_51#cite_note-9http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_Operations_Areahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_Operations_Areahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restricted_airspacehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Area_51#cite_note-10http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Area_51#cite_note-11http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_access_programhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Air_Forcehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conspiracy_theoryhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unidentified_flying_objecthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Area_51#cite_note-jacobsen-7http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Area_51#cite_note-lacitis20100327-12http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Area_51#cite_note-Jacobsen-13http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Air_Force

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CIA document from 1967 referring to Area 51

The amount of information the United States government has been willing to provide regarding

Area 51 has generally been very minimal. The government explicitly concedes (in various court

filings, government directives and replies to inquiries) that the USAF has an "operating location"

near Groom Lake, but does not provide any further information. Information on and photos of

various past projects have been declassified however and are now available to the public. [14]

The base does not appear on public U.S. government maps;[15]the USGS topographic map for the

area only shows the long-disused Groom Mine.[16]A civil aviation chart published by theNevada

Department of Transportation shows a large restricted area,[17] but defines it as part of the Nellis

restricted airspace. The official aeronautical navigation charts for the area show Groom Lake but

omit the airport facilities.[18] Similarly the National Atlas page showing federal lands in

Nevada[19] does not distinguish between the Groom block and other parts of the Nellis range.

Although officially declassified, the original film taken by U.S. Coronaspy satellite in the 1960s

has been altered prior to declassification; in answer to freedom of information queries, the

government responds that these exposures (which map to Groom and the entire NAFR) appear tohave been destroyed.[20]Terra satellite images (which were publicly available) were removed from

web servers (including Microsoft's TerraServer-USA) in 2004,[21] and from the monochrome 1 m

resolution USGS data dump made publicly available. NASA Landsat 7images are still available

(these are used in theNASA World Wind). Higher resolution (and more recent) images from other

satellite imagery providers (including Russian providers and the IKONOS) are commercially ava

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