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Area 51: For Your Eyes Only
By
Senior Business Correspondent
posted: 06:49 am ET
22 April 2000
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area51_teaser_000421 WASHINGTON -- Call it Area 51, Part 2. On Sunday April 23, SPACE.com will showcase the latest and greatest images of the super-secret area from the high-tech IKONOS satellite. These color, 1-meter resolution images show in detail anything on the base that is at least 3 feet wide. The exclusive photos may not show evidence of aliens, but they do show a runway that is about 2.36 miles (3.8 kilometers), or about 42 football fields long. This is longer than the runways for the worlds largest commercial aircraft. The images also show a burgeoning growth in the area, including a doubling in size of workers' residences over the past 30 years. A geometrically-shaped munitions storage area is also identified. Earlier this week, 6.6-foot (2-meter) images of the area -- captured by Aerial Images of Raleigh, North Carolina -- stirred up great interest. The companys website was attacked by hackers and had 10 times more traffic than the site usually bears, the overload resulted in a 36-hour shutdown. The Air Force only recently acknowledged that Area 51 even existed. The base is 75 miles (121 kilometers) northwest of Las Vegas, in the arid, rugged Nellis Range. Its moniker comes from its designation on old Nevada test site maps.
Beginning with the U 2 spy plane in the 1950s, the base has been the testing ground for top-secret aircraft, including the SR 71 Blackbird and, more recently, the F 117-A stealth fighter and B 2 stealth bomber.
Ufologists have long-believed that unidentified flying objects from other planets are entrenched in underground bases in the region and insist alien autopsies are being conducted there. But, conventional wisdom says the base is likely a center for super-secret operations dealing with sophisticated military aircraft.
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