Area 51 does exists, CIA documents show, but still no mention of UFOs

ewly declassified CIA documents confirm the existence of Area 51, a test site for U.S. spy planes.

The truth really is out there … in Nevada.
Documents obtained by George Washington University’s National Security Archive confirm for the first time what conspiracy theorists and UFO fanatics have long argued — that Area 51 exists.
Chosen as the site for a top secret testing facility in the 1950s for the U-2 spy plane, the parcel of land, which for decades was never identified on any government maps, resides in the desert of southern Nevada.

Barry King/WireImage

Area 51 file photo near Rachel, Nevada.

“The outlines of Area 51 are shown on current unclassified maps as a small rectangular area adjoining the northeast corner of the much larger Nevada Test Site,” the newly released National Security Archive documents state.

On a secret landing strip adjacent to a salt flat known as Groom Lake, the CIA used Area 51 to test numerous reconnaissance aircraft during the Cold War with the Soviets, and the site was quickly renamed.

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Not listed for decades on official government maps, Area 51 is located in southern Nevada, adjacent to a salt flat known as Groom Lake.

“To make the new facility in the middle of nowhere sound more attractive to his workers,” one of the men in charge of the U-2 program renamed it “Paradise Ranch, which was soon shortened to the Ranch,” the documents state.

Perhaps inevitably, given the testing of futuristic planes, numerous UFO sightings were reported in the vicinity of the secret base, and reports from people employed on the base spurred grandiose theories on what the government was keeping hidden from view.
While some claimed that the CIA was hiding a crashed alien spacecraft, others argued that the government was developing a machine that could control the weather.
None of those conspiracy theories appear in the newly released CIA documents, however.