Why Would Aliens Target Area 51

Unveiled

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00:00Area 51 was built in 1955.

00:03Over the years, it's also been known as Dreamland, Paradise Ranch, Groom Lake, and Homie Airport.

00:10If you wanted to visit, you'd have to travel deep into the harsh and blistering Nevada desert.

00:15But of course, the official line is very much against that kind of thing.

00:19Area 51 is one of the most secretive locations on the entire planet.

00:24And yet, it's also one of the most well-known sites in modern pop culture.

00:28Despite all the governmental claims otherwise,

00:31it's said that Area 51 houses extraterrestrial tech and true alien life.

00:39But even if that were true… then why, exactly, would that be?

00:49The official line on Area 51, the existence of which was only formally acknowledged by

00:53the US government in 2013, is that it serves as a testing ground for top-secret aircraft.

00:58The first planes it developed were the U-2 spy planes,

01:01and it's also famous for being the home of the F-117 Nighthawk.

01:05In the public consciousness, however, Area 51 has long served as an ultra-classified

01:09laboratory full of extraterrestrial specimens and equipment. Down-flying saucers, reverse-engineered

01:15technology, and perhaps even aliens themselves all linger within the confines of Groom Lake.

01:20In fact, the connection between Area 51 and aliens is so prevalent that the closest major

01:25road was renamed the Extraterrestrial Highway because of the large number of UFO sightings

01:30reported along it. While these sightings can be explained away by weird-looking planes

01:34like the F-117 Nighthawk, the belief that the US military is harbouring alien life persists.

01:40So, where did that belief come from? Current stories around Area 51 are generally a conflation

01:45of various other modern, alien mythologies from the US… and not all of them are even

01:49centred all that close to the base, like the Roswell Incident in 1947.

01:54Some have suggested that the remnants of the Roswell Crash, officially a weather balloon,

01:58unofficially a spaceship, were taken all the way from New Mexico to Nevada,

02:02thus sparking the interest in Area 51. But the root of this particular folklore lies elsewhere,

02:07with the real event to kick-start UFO culture today being a sighting from the pilot Kenneth

02:12Arnold, who said he encountered nine UFOs while flying near Mount Rainier in Washington.

02:17This sighting was made on June 24th, 1947, a few days before Roswell gained its infamy,

02:23as the case marked the first-ever uses of the phrases flying saucer and flying disc in reports,

02:28words which are today used exclusively to refer to the archetypal UFO shape.

02:33Arnold's story and his explanations that the discs were of extraterrestrial origin

02:37captured the attention of the American presses, so much so that the same phrase emerged during

02:42the now-heightened news coverage of the Roswell Crash, which didn't actually hit the papers until

02:46July. Shortly after all of that, and especially once the US started testing U-2s in the mid-fifties,

02:52UFO sightings shot up in Nevada especially… and it wasn't long before theorists put two and two

02:57together to suggest that it maybe was all connected. Maybe Area 51 really was an alien hub.

03:03The base in the back and beyond seemed as good a place as any for aliens to stop by,

03:07and an even better place for top-secret government work to take place. News coverage is only one

03:12half of the equation where UFOs in the Nevada desert are concerned, though. The other half is

03:17Hollywood. By the end of the forties, various sources were claiming that alien bodies had

03:21been recovered from flying saucer crash sites all across the United States… and in 1950 the film

03:27The Flying Saucer was released, a B-movie that became the first film to cover the concept.

03:32As soon as the idea of UFOs and government cover-ups hit the mainstream, Hollywood had

03:36its next big thing, and by the early 1960s the alien legend was a bankable home run for sci-fi

03:41producers. Over the years since then, the alien boom has triggered a pop-cultural feedback loop,

03:46where more media means bigger audiences means more people who learn and begin to believe in

03:51the subject. With Area 51 and UFOs, it's modern folklore being written in front of our eyes,

03:56fuelled by our fascination with science, space and technology, in much the same way as the vampire

04:01myth has resurfaced time and time again as a knock-on effect and variation of Bram Stoker's

04:06Dracula. But, still, why should news stories from all across America and a slew of Tinseltown

04:11movies mean that aliens actually would target Area 51, in the middle of the desert specifically?

04:16What makes it so special? Well, the Silver State does have more mysteries up its sleeve to feed

04:21the conspiracy than just the existence of Area 51. The Nevada Triangle, for one, has intrigued

04:27people for years, as the site of two thousand supposed plane disappearances. The Triangle is

04:32a large region stretching from Las Vegas to Reno to Fresno, California, covering much of the Sierra

04:37Nevada Mountains. Like the Bermuda Triangle, its name was inspired by, it's notorious for strange

04:42vanishings and unrecovered planes, making it a popular source for conspiracy theorists.

04:47Area 51 is along the boundaries of the Nevada Triangle, and many of the people who are said

04:51to have disappeared there have supposedly never resurfaced, so there's that. But why even America

04:57at all, though? There have been significant UFO sightings made outside of the United States,

05:02after all, with the UK and France leading the way for UFO reports across the rest of the world.

05:07However, there's often some kind of US influence not too far away. One particularly famous UFO

05:12encounter in the UK is the Rendlesham Forest Incident in 1980, appropriately nicknamed

05:17Britain's Roswell. The sighting says that a flying saucer landed in the woods, shortly after Christmas.

05:22The saucer, though, wasn't actually witnessed by a Brit, but by American Air Force personnel

05:27stationed at the nearby RAF Woodbridge Base. Regardless, the after-effects at Rendlesham have

05:32played out much like Area 51, but on a smaller scale, with a high number of UFO sightings reported

05:37even today. So, is this because otherworldly aliens just really want to visit this particular

05:42corner of England? Or is it just another example of alien excitement brought on by Western media?

05:47Pine Gap is a similar place of interest. Widely dubbed Australia's Area 51,

05:52it's a surveillance installation deep within the outback that's also jointly used by the

05:56United States military and is also rumoured to be housing aliens. It should be said that

06:01America isn't always directly involved, though. There are areas in Russia with similar legends

06:06surrounding them, like the Soviet missile development site Kapustin Yar, and the

06:10mountainous town of Mezhgorye where nuclear weapons were once stored and tested. Perhaps

06:14Russian sites being linked to similar mysteries shouldn't be that surprising, though,

06:18since such facilities were often founded during the Cold War, at a time when it was feared that

06:22seeing strange things in the sky could signal a nuclear attack. Not one other location holds

06:27anywhere near the same status as Area 51, however, whose mere name evokes images of alien autopsies

06:33and exotic propulsion systems. So, if against the odds the UFO sightings in the area are all

06:38absolutely real, then the question remains… why America? Why Nevada? And why Area 51? Is it because

06:45one ship crashed there by accident in the forties and extraterrestrials have been trying to recover

06:49it ever since? Is it because they're actively liaising with the US government specifically to

06:54help them reverse-engineer alien devices, like energy weapons and alternative propulsion techniques?

06:59Or, just maybe, is there something else bright and shiny out there in the desert that draws

07:03millions of human visitors every year? They do say Las Vegas has it all, and it does boast

07:08giant replicas of near enough every single piece of Earth iconography all along the Strip.

07:13Could it be that for all this time tourists haven't been flocking to UFO hotspots,

07:18but UFOs have been flocking to tourist traps? Maybe… but probably not.

07:23In all likelihood, the UFO in the sky over a suspiciously secretive military base motif

07:27is really just a creation of the US mass media, an amalgamation of different contemporary stories

07:33stuck together, made into movies and then turned into legends. All of which means that

07:37Homey Airport in the Nevada desert is as likely or as unlikely a melting pot of extraterrestrial

07:42activity as practically everywhere else. But that's why aliens appear to target Area 51.

07:53What do you think? Is there anything we missed? Let us know in the comments,

07:56check out these other clips from Unveiled,

07:57and make sure you subscribe and ring the bell for our latest content.

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