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| Source: Amazon.com |
From the book's cover:
Area 51
It is the most famous military installation in the world. And it doesn't exist. Located a mere seventy-five miles outside of Las Vegas in Nevada's desert, the base has never been acknowledged by the U.S. government-but Area 51 has captivated imaginations for decades.
Myths and hypotheses about Area 51 have long abounded, thanks to the intense secrecy enveloping it. Some claim it is home to aliens, underground tunnel systems, and nuclear facilities. Others believe that the lunar landing itself was filmed there. The prevalence of these rumors stems from the fact that no credible insider has ever divulged the truth about his time inside the base. Until now.
Annie Jacobsen had exclusive access to nineteen men who served the base proudly and secretly for decades and are now aged 75-92, and unprecedented access to fifty-five additional military and intelligence personnel, scientists, pilots, and engineers linked to the secret base, thirty-two of whom lived and worked there for extended periods. In Area 51, Jacobsen shows us what has really gone on in the Nevada desert, from testing nuclear weapons to building super-secret, supersonic jets to pursuing the War on Terror.
This is the first book based on interviews with eye witnesses to Area 51 history, which makes it the seminal work on the subject. Filled with formerly classified information that has never been accurately decoded for the public, Area 51 weaves the mysterious activities of the top-secret base into a gripping narrative, showing that facts are often more fantastic than fiction, especially when the distinction is almost impossible to make.
Review:
Well, I simply don't buy the UFO idea as presented in chapter one. I'm only two and a half chapters into Area 51 at present, so we'll see what comes of it. But I find the idea a bit hard to swallow. There was one line early on that I especially found just plain silly. The "veiled threats of imprisonment" that people who receive a Top Secret security clearance are subjected to, that is. There is no "veiled threat," according to my research. You are flat out told what will happen to you if you violate your security oath. So the guy who "broke his silence" and disclosed to the world via Eyewitness News in 1989 or so? He's got to be a crackpot. No offense, but if he was that high up and he really broke clearance, he wouldn't be complaining of government harassment and danger to his life, nor of being "discredited" falsely. He'd be in federal prison and almost no one would even know it. The U.S. government doesn't play those sort of games. They don't have to. They can make problems like those go away. So I don't buy it, sorry.
The parts about the birth of the Cold War and the history of Groom Lake, Area 51, Roswell are all interesting, as was the connection to the H.G. Welles broadcast of the War of the Worlds in '38 and the Bikini Atoll stuff. The author puts proper gravitas to the history and events, but her conclusions... I'm still in doubt. Sorry.
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| The author, Annie Jacobsen / Source: WeLovedC.com |
Later, after having read more... Material on Gary Powers shoot down was interesting, as I had never actually gotten around to looking up his own account of the incident. The 'dirty bomb" incident prior to the launch of the Oxcart program at Area 51 was also fascinating. The scientific data about exposure to plutonium was a valuable insight. I knew it settled into the bones and had a long half-life, but was unaware about the fact that forms of exposure other than breathing it in (such as ingestion) were not a guarantee of death.
Also, the stuff on the concern of earthworms moving plutonium deposits and then being moved by birds who feed on the worms was also interesting. Natural ways to spread radioactive fallout... I'm surprised that never made it into a bad 1950s sci-fi film. Heck, for all I know, it did. There were some whoppers (been watching Mystery Science Theater 3000 re-runs lately as I type that observation).
Ad now, having just finished reading Area 51, I'll give more closing review. Up front I need to call "spoiler alert," as I'm going to ruin the "big reveal" behind the book's premise (i.e.: the aliens at Area 51 thing). As I said before, the book loses some early credibility by beginning with info on a guy who "saw" aliens at Area 51, but has been totally discredited. Then the book totally ditches the sampling of UFO conspiracy theorist stuff and goes about giving a straight forward and fairly plausible history of Area 51, including the nuclear testing that has gone on there, the dirty bomb of Project 57 and the associated clean up and how it has come back around with the loss of the B-52 over Spain and a nuke lost over Greenland that I had not heard about before.
The book also discusses the drone programs, goes into great detail on both the U-2 and the Oxcart (the forerunner to the SR-71), and discusses bunker busters, the F-117 Stealth Fighter (inadvertently called the Stealth "Bomber" by the author, though her point is clear as the fighter credit for the plane is a misnomer), the connection of Area 51 to the moon-landing hoax theorists, and plenty of other plausible subjects. In fact, I'd be interested in seeing Ms. Jacobson's footnotes, as her information is almost entirely attributed to sources of one kind or another, and therefore seems more relevant than the old wheeze: "I believe" (sorry X-Files fan).
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| When I Googled "Area 51" images, this came up. Apparently this was a shot taken by ABC News when they went out to do some investigative reporting. I am sure any curious soul could find more information on the 'how's" and "why's" and such of this photo and the story behind it. personally, it doesn't impress. I lived next door to an air force base for a good part of my life. Signs like these are fairly commonplace. / Source: abcnews.com |
But then she does something I can't quite reconcile. The "big reveal" is Jacobsen's use of several details she points out in the book in connection to the UFO conspiracy theory. Jacobsen claims to have discussed the matter of the UFO that went down in Roswell with an un-named engineer (I didn't catch if a name was given, but assume none was) who was an employee of the military contractor E.G.&G. This engineer revealed that the UFO that supposedly crashed in New Mexico was actually Soviet in origin, and that it went down in 1951 (thus the "Area 51" moniker) and was actually a dis-information plot by Joseph Stalin to destroy American society by causing mass panic - ala War of the Worlds. The flying saucer had "hover and fly" technology, stealth, and was piloted by human children who had been experimented upon by Dr. Joseph Mengles, the notorious Nazi war criminal. The children were surgically altered to appear as close to what martians were supposed to look like as human beings could be. And the ship did accidentally crash in the U.S., though a craft like this coincidentally crashing on U.S. soil seems far-fetched to me (the Soviets being just as rigorous on flight testing their air vehicles, if not as stringent about the casualties associated with such testing). But the whole incident was covered up, and is reportedly (according to Ms. Jacobsen's source) a clandestine event that will never be revealed to the American public.
The reason for this, claims Ms. Jacobsen's source, is that the United States was also conducting similar experiments on people like Mengle's highly questionable research, and with the similar goal of spooking the Soviets by sending UFOs over there to disrupt their society. And the source claimed this was only a small bit of the full machinations that happened under this secret "Sigma-Four" program.
Now here comes my weigh-in. I don't believe in UFOs. I happen to think that any civilization capable of visiting Earth would be able to hide themselves from us quite adequately, and if they didn't, they'd make themselves known in such a way that leaps of faith would not be required. Yes, you can spout Star Trek prime directive theory at me all you want, but that is basing alien decision-making processes on our own set of norms and values, which I believe an alien species probably would not share. Look at other life forms on Earth. They don't follow the same rules humans set for themselves, so why would a species not of this world necessarily do things in ways we could easily relate to?
On the other hand, I believe there are odd things afoot in the fenced-off parts of this country (the United States), and the world in general. I do so because my mom worked for a government contractor during the mid 1980s, and though she never broke her security clearance and told me things she shouldn't, she implied having knowledge of things that have yet to be de-classified, and that, by her inferences, seem mysterious to me, to say the least. For one thing, she once mentioned very superficially that she knew that the Blackbird wasn't the fastest thing the United States had in the air, but couldn't give details because she said she wasn't sure it was declassified and she meant to keep her security oaths, even though she has long been out of that job and the program has probably lived its life cycle/never went into mass production and thus been put away for years. Just the same, there are things that can't be said until they can be said, you know?
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| I ought not to be lazy, I know, but I decided to Google "Soviet UFO" to see what images came up. Here is one that looks like it came from the 1980s, and shows a disk-like object half buried in the ground with some Soviet looking troops standing around nearby. If you'll forgive an assertion, I just don't buy it. Even with things being less "together" in the former Soviet Union during the later period of its existence, I still don't believe that something like this (if it was REAL) wouldn't be a major state secret. Then again, if I had done more background research on this image, maybe it is from a Soviet-era movie about UFO's or something. / Source: Photos.360Treasure.com |
Based on these two conflicting points of view, I am left wondering what is true, and what isn't. You see, I think Ms. Jacobsen's premise is pretty rational, compared to other "UFO's from outer space" theories I've heard. Let's face it, what little I know of Mengles would suggest the deformed pre-teens that Jacobsen's book describes could be true. And Stalin was a canny operator. And the timing and the lack of adequate disclosure about something that could be easily explained - if there wasn't something about it that the government doesn't feel comfortable outing - is convenient. Plus, I believe the various UFO images that there are so many pictures of out there ARE something. Not space ships from another world, most likely, but technology the government isn't comfortable bringing out yet? Sure. Stealth technology came out because it made us look good. But if there are things out there that don't make our nation look good, or more specifically, that don't do anything to make us appear better than we are for a specific reason, then why disclose them? Aircraft that can do things that seem utterly implausible when viewed through the eyes of conventional physics doesn't seem like a real stretch to me. Plus, such work must have cost a bundle, and people would scream about oversight issues and budget issues and national debt issues until they were blue in the face. If things like these came to public light. Plus, when one person knows something, other people know something. Why risk potentially hostile foreign governments getting hands on ideas?
Anyway, as my final analysis, I'll just say that the ideas that Jacobsen presents are interesting, and more plausible to me than the conventional conspiratist's line. However, I am still not convinced on her thesis. My recommendation is to read Area 51: An Uncensored History of America's Top Secret Military Base with your eyes open, but use your head to evaluate what you read. And I do recommend it for the historical look at this chunk of Nevada real estate. Much of it is real good stuff, recently declassified and fascinating when viewed through the lens of the Cold War.
P.S.: Also, why would the Soviets, who had this tech all this time, be so far behind us in tech otherwise? It doesn't make sense. And why only do it just the once? It just doesn't jive, you know?
Learn more about Area 51: An Uncensored History of America's Top Secret Military Base on Amazon.com
The parting comment:
Three times the parting comments today. These were all appropriate for the moment.
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| Source: taofear.com |
What makes this funny to me is that the only thing on there that is a weather balloon is not identified as such. The real message: lie always, even if it is pointless to do so. Then you can never be taken seriously and people will just believe what they want to believe. Actually a pretty profound nugget of wisdom, I think.
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| Source: tshirtmagic.com |
For the record, I'd wear a shirt that said that.
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| Source: lightsinthetexassky.blogspot.com |
And according to a recent Op-Ed piece I did, these guys are in the wrong place. The ship was moved to the Utah West Desert some while back. So... uhmm... better luck next time, fellas.
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