Page 55 - The 'X' Chronicles Newspaper - Febrary/March 2020 Edition

AREA 51 - Facts, Fiction, Myths & Truth 55

AREA 51 - The Facts, The

Fiction, The Myths, The

Truth

Continued from Page 54

Pilots even upon their arrival at Area 51
were unaware of what they were going to be
doing with a few wondering what they had
gotten themselves into.
People on the project did not know
everything. The mechanics, for example, did not
know what the pilots were doing in the air.
That’s how secret it was.
No aircraft was every kept out in the
open. After their missions, aircraft were
immediately placed in hangers.
The men were testing one of the most
important weapons of the cold war. The U-2 Spy
Plane.
There was no trainer. There was no two-
seater. There was no simulator.
The U-2 was armed with high resolution
by the same name. It admonishes that “the titanium plane.
cameras designed to fly at 21,000 metres and
traveler, traveling through it, may not-dare not • An A-12 spy plane was used when the
take photographs from the edge of the
openly view it; Never its mysteries are exposed, USS Pueblo was captured by North Korea to
stratosphere.
to the weak human eye unclosed.” photograph the area and determine the ship's
As the cold war arms race with the
• Flying at 2,200 mph, it took OXCART location.
Soviet Union intensified, the U-2 was America’s
pilot 186 miles just to make a U-turn. To • The OXCART's engines acted as
best hope for tracking their rivals growing
accommodate the plane, an additional 38,400 vacuum cleaners, sucking up any debris left on
nuclear arsenal and it put enormous demands on
acres of land around the base had to be the runway. So personnel would vacuum the
pilots who had to breathe pure oxygen to survive
withdrawn from public access and the restricted runway before each test flight.
at such heights.
airspace expanded to create a 440-square mile
Every extra kilogram, even wheels could
box. AREA 51 - The Facts, The Fiction, The Myths,
limit the U-2s ability to fly high.
• Early on, the only entertainment at Area The Truth.Continued in the NEXT Edition of The
The government’s cover story for the U-
51consisted of a single cement tennis court and ‘X’ Chronicles Newspaper.
2 was that it was being used for weather
a small bowling alley. There was no television,
research.
and radio signals only made it through the
The U-2 cruised at three times the From the Mind of Executive Producer, Rob
surrounding mountains in the evening.
altitude of regular commercial airliners and McConnell,
• The Area 51 mess hall sometimes served
would sometimes be glimpsed by civilians.
lobsters and oysters. Once a week it was steak
In the mid 1950s while both the cold war THE FACT*OID GAME
night.
and America’s interest in UFOs were at their
• There is a sliver of truth to the
peak, the silver coloured planes sometimes
conspiracy theory that the moon landing was • A statue of Nikola Tesla in Silicon Valley
created confusion.
staged at Area 51. Various space equipment – serves as a free Wi-Fi hotspot.
U-2 pilots were told to deny everything
including land rovers and life support systems – • Only primate with a venomous bite: the
even to aircraft controllers.
were tested by the astronauts at the adjoining slow loris.
By 1957, unacknowledged U-2 flights
nuclear testing grounds. • The underground vault at Lego headquarters
were the source of half of all reported UFO
• After an increase in UFO sightings in in Denmark contains nearly every Lego set
sightings but they were nothing compared to
1952, the CIA concluded that “there is a remote ever made.
what would come.
possibility that they may be interplanetary • A statue of Nikola Tesla in Silicon Valley
aircraft,” and that it was necessary to investigate serves as a free Wi-Fi hotspot.
AREA 51 - The Facts, The Fiction, The Myths,
each sighting. • Only primate with a venomous bite: the
The Truth.Continued in the NEXT Edition of
• 90% of reported UFO sightings could be slow loris.
The ‘X’ Chronicles Newspaper.
easily debunked, while the other 10% were “a • Cryptophasia is the language twins invent to
number of incredible reports from credible talk to each other.
Until then, here are some facts about Area 51:
observers.” • Pseudis paradoxa, or the paradoxical frog, is
• Over half of all UFO reports from the four times larger as a newborn than it is as an
• The name ‘Area 51’ derives from its
late 1950s through the 1960s were accounted for adult.
marking on 1950’s Nevada Test Site maps.
by manned reconnaissance flights (namely the • A single strand of spaghetti is called a
Today, the official name of Area 51 is Air Force
U-2) over the United States. spaghetto.
Flight Test Center, Detachment 3, or AFFTC
• The A-12 OXCART required special fuel • 176 countries have fewer citizens than the
Det. 3 for short.
in order to fly at such extreme speeds and city of Beijing, China (21.5 million
• Area 51 was also referred to as Groom
heights. The fuel was made to withstand • In winter, a reindeer’s eyes are blue. In the
Lake (the name of the dry lake Area 51 was built
extremely high temperatures and would not summer, they’re gold.
around), Paradise Ranch (a half-serious way to
ignite even if someone threw a match into a • “Crayola” comes from a combination of two
entice employees to accept positions at the
barrel full of it French words that mean “oily chalk.”
remote, rustic base), Watertown (the official
• The OXCART cruised at 2200 miles per • Blood donors in Sweden receive a text when
name of the test site, given in 1956), and
hour, but because the plane was secret it was their blood gets used by a person in need.
Dreamland (after an Edgar Allan Poe poem).
kept out of official speed competitions.
• Area 51’s nickname DREAMLAND was
• The A-12 OXCART consisted of more Keep Reading for More Fact*oids!
allegedly derived from an Edgar Allan Poe poem
than 90% titanium. It was the world’s first