Area 51: An Uncensored History of America's Top Secret Military Base

I bought this book because I am interested in Area 51 and the reviews were scored quite well for it. Now I am letting you know the truth, this book is an incredible read!! It should have six stars! I'm reading this book around the clock. I can't put it down! It has the right details, the right method of delivering the story, everything needed to make a great reading experience. If you're not interested in the subject matter, don't worry. As the story unfolds, you will keep reading until the end. It's that good.

I was turned on to this book which was published in 2011, during Joe Rogan’s interview of its author Annie Jacobsen in 2020 on his show-the Joe Rogan Experience on YouTube. Initially, Ms. Jacobsen appeared to be promoting her book but she convinced me to read Area 51. She said she has received a lot of hate and grief from the UFO believers who say Area 51 is indeed tied to extraterrestrials and alien technology. Like Joe Rogan, I’ve always kept an open mind that there might be extraterrestrial life along with alien technology. Well, Ms. Jacobsen presents a strong case that Area 51 is actually a secret govt test facility for cutting edge spy aircraft. And that it was the result of the Cold War and the USA’s ongoing research into stealth technology. There is a sad angle that the US govt participated in non consensual human experiments of children and adults in regard to radiation effects and that’s very very very disturbing but not surprising. The govt has deflected attention of this facility thru misinformation and manipulation of the media. Kind of like now. Ms. Jacobsen’s research is tedious, historical, and extremely creditable. There are NO bug eyed aliens! This alleged alien tech (flying saucers etc) is actually human-engineered war fighting and espionage technology. Great book, follows history from end of WW2 thru Cold War to present. I could not put it down, kept me on the edge of my seat. I’m surprised that Ms. Jacobsen has not been fully awarded the Pulitzer prize yet.

Overall, a very good and informative book. I thought that the author did an excellent job of discussing the weapons and aircraft testing. I do have some questions about the author's treatment of The Roswell Incident. Let me lay my cards on the table before I get started. I have serious doubts as to the possibility of alien visitation, but I am open to that idea if I see some evidence. Having said that, the author, using apparently one source, lays out an explanation that seems, to me at least, to be even less plausible than alien visitation. If I understand it correctly, this explanation involves Russian children, who, on Stalin's orders, had been either genetically or surgically modified to look like aliens by Josef Mengele, and were then placed in a flying disk designed by the Horten brothers, and then sent to fly into the airspace of New Mexico and crash so as to cause panic in the US. Here are some of my questions: 1. How was the craft refueled? 2. How did Mengele modify the children in just two years (which is apparently how long Stalin had him, if he was captured in 1945). 3. Are we confident that Mengele had at his disposal medical techniques that would seem to be a stretch for even today? 4. Did the Russians have the technology, in 1947, to remotely pilot this Horten craft at great distances? 5. Is there any good explanation to explain how this craft supposedly displayed flying characteristics that were well beyond the capabilities of 1947? 6. If the Russians were trying to trick the US into thinking that it was being invaded by aliens, why did they put Russian writing on the inside of the craft where they knew that it would be found? To sum up, a good enjoyable read but some questions were not adequately answered.

Hi, I read through the reviews here. I can understand why the Roadrunners feel betrayed but I feel parts of the book are simply ways of talking about things that one can't talk about openly. Science and engineering comes at a price. For every leap of technology there is a corresponding human and ecological cost. While one can celebrate nuclear technology, the aviation technology, avionics as great advances - one has to face the fact that a lot of nasty stuff that happened in the process of making these advances. Today there are strong health and safety norms, this is largely because a lot more is understood about the ill-effects of radiation, chemical and biological exposure. In the days of old - there were no such norms or if they existed people didn't follow them because the enforcement machinery was not in place. It also makes sense that once the idea of the "born secret" came into use for the physics of nuclear devices, the related notion of compartmented information gained popularity. Information compartmentation is great for secrecy - but not so great for health and safety. Can you really have secret research being conducted in one room and then not tell the people in the next room about the potential for hazardous and life-threatening exposure? That is where as Yeats once said - "things fall apart". The discussions on Plumbbob, Hardtack, Argus and Dominic are ways of highlighting the ecological costs. These have been discussed at length in other more authoritative accounts - but the real elephant in the room is unethical human experiments. Was there a regime of such experiments that accompanied the advances in aviation, space, nuclear technology? It is well known that medical norms on vivisection, patient rights etc... didn't converge to their present positions until well into the late 70s and that programs like Paperclip gave Auschwitz and Unit 731 "scientists" an opportunity to continue their brand of "research". The disclosures to the Frank Church committee on activities at Fort Detrick are a clear indicator that this kind of stuff happened in the US too. It is possible that a secret regime of government sponsored unethical human experiments predates the work at Fort Detrick. It is also curious that most of the classification protocols secure information for periods approaching 150 years. At the present levels of life expectancy - that is equal to the entire lifetimes of two generations (parents and children). If one were to reduce the risk of legal accountability for genetic effects of any experiments, one would seek such a long classification period. By contrast the stuff pertaining to the detailed construction and functioning of nuclear devices is classified in perpetuity. This is what came to mind when I read the book. I suspect that may be what Annie was trying to say without talking through the painfully difficult details. It is true that a full disclosure of the details will go a long way in ensuring that this sort of thing does not happen again. But as the only people who could shed some light on this issue are gradually dying - one can only have indirect discussions. There is another bigger problem which in a decade or so will become the new elephant in the room. It surfaced briefly in discussions about the Carlsbad storage facility and in discussions about the RRW. The fear of technological regression due to expanding ignorance of what was done earlier. As the people who know the details leave us - our ability to "know" what was done before will diminish. If there is a point of time where old information is lost at a greater rate than new information is created - one will approach such the point of technological regression at a faster pace. A disclosure of the details would significantly hedge against it. A lot of people have pointed out errors in author's text, I agree there are errors but I feel one should avoid missing the wood for the trees.

Good

This is a superbly written, well-structured and informative book on Area 51. Anyone who is remotely interested in the top secret military base that is located out in the middle of the Nevada desert should read this book! It contains the facts and the history and is thankfully devoid of a lot of the storytelling and fictitious material that is contained within many of the books in this genre. If you want to read about aliens and how alien spacecraft were reverse engineered for military purposes then you will sadly be disappointed! A brilliant read and I thorughly recommend it to all people genuinely interested in the real "truth" and history about this top secret base!

If you want to know something true about Area 51, read this book. No false claims, no fantasies, no dream.

Aunque por el título pueda parecer un libro sobre OVNIS, nada más lejos de la realidad (aunque cada uno pueda sacar las conclusiones que le parezcan). Detalla todo el desarrollo de los aviones espía (U-2 y Stealth), espionaje aéreo y su involucración en las crisis más importantes que hemos vivido, así como todo lo desclasificado sobre el área 51, incluyendo los sorprendentes ensayos nucleares ocultos durante los tratados que los prohibían y sobre nuestras cabezas, tanto de los Estados Unidos como de la Unión Soviética. Imprescindible para quienes deseen estar informados sobre algunas de las cosas que se llevan a cabo a nuestras espaldas. Y para aquellos a quienes les haya interesado recomiendo leer a continuación "Nuclear War" y "The Pentagon's Brain", los tres muy entrelazados.

A well written book. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️