The photos are out there.
Finally, satellite images of Area 51, the stealth Air Force base that has been the obsession of UFO conspiracy buffs and X-Files’ Agent Fox Mulder, as well as the butt of late night humor, are now available on the Web.
The 6.5-foot (2-meter) images were captured on March 15, 1998 by the Russian Kometa satellite. They show views of the Nellis Air Force base and Nevada Proving Grounds. Included in these images are Groom Lake, the Nevada Nuclear test site and the area commonly known as Area 51.
"There have been a few older, low resolution shots of Groom Lake floating around, but nothing like this has ever been available before," said John Hoffman, president of Aerial Images of Raleigh, North Carolina.
Aerial has posted five images of the site, in partnership with Microsoft, Kodak, Digital Equipment, Autometric and the Russian agency Sovinformsputnik. The group launched the satellite from Kazakhstan in 1998. The super-secret base's airspace is restricted, but satellites are allowed to fly over the area thanks to a 1992 open-skies agreement by 24 nations.
The area -- 75 miles (120 kilometers) northwest of Las Vegas -- was named after the grid it occupies on an old Nevada map. It came into existence in 1955 when Lockheed Martin landed there to test the U 2, a high-altitude surveillance plane.
"...nothing like this has ever been available before."
The top-secret base later became a proving ground for several generations of high-tech prototypes, including the F 117-A Stealth fighter plane.
Ufologists have long-believed that captured or crashed unidentified flying objects from other planets are stored in underground bases in the region and insist alien autopsies have been conducted there. But conventional wisdom says the base is likely a center for super-secret operations dealing with sophisticated military aircraft.
Aerial Images, at
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