Apr 10, 2009 06:07 PM
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Details related to Area 51 have been declassified, and for the first time in history former members of the staff are allowed to admit Area 51 exists and talk about what went on there.
Unfortunately for UFO conspiracy buffs, the sunshine that's falling on Area 51 sounds like more of the same obfuscation and cover-up stuff that we've been hearing for decades.
Four Area 51 employees spoke to the Los Angeles Times today about their work during the 1960s. These were:
Colonel Hugh "Slip" Slater, 87, commander of the Area 51 base in the 1960s. Edward Lovick, 90 . . . spent three decades radar testing some of the world's most famous aircraft (including the U-2, the A-12 OXCART and the F-117). Kenneth Collins, 80, a CIA experimental test pilot, was given the silver star. Thornton "T.D." Barnes, 72, was an Area 51 special-projects engineer. And Harry Martin, 77, was one of the men in charge of the base's half-million-gallon monthly supply of spy-plane fuels
These men discuss how OXCART, a MACH-3 spy plane built by Lockheed Aircraft Corporation was tested extensively at Area 51. They claim that thousands of UFO reports during that time can all be traced back to tests of OXCART.
Says the LA Times:
Since only a few Air Force officials were cleared for OXCART (even though it was a joint CIA/USAF project), many UFO sightings raised internal military alarms. Some generals believed the Russians might be sending stealth craft over American skies to incite paranoia and create widespread panic of alien invasion. Today, BLUE BOOK findings are housed in 37 cubic feet of case files at the National Archives-74,000 pages of reports. A keyword search brings up no mention of the top-secret OXCART or Area 51.
The men working on OXCART suggest that the military was "forced" to create UFO-tracking Project Bluebook to deal with UFO reports that nobody realized were OXCART. Really? I'm not a big conspiracy person, but even to my skeptical sensibilities that sounds a little half-baked.
via LA Times
Send an email to Annalee Newitz, the author of this post, at annalee@io9.com.
Original material is licensed under a Creative Commons License permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution.
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