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Project OXCART Declassified From Area 51
An anonymous reader sends this excerpt from the LA Times:
"... the myths of Area 51 are hard to dispute if no one can speak on the record about what actually happened there. Well, now, for the first time, someone is ready to talk ... Colonel Hugh 'Slip' Slater, 87, was commander of the Area 51 base in the 1960s. Edward Lovick, 90, featured in 'What Plane?' in LA's March issue, spent three decades radar testing some of the world's most famous aircraft (including the U-2, the A-12 OXCART and the F-117). Kenneth Collins, 80, a CIA experimental test pilot, was given the silver star. Thornton 'T.D.' Barnes, 72, was an Area 51 special-projects engineer. And Harry Martin, 77, was one of the men in charge of the base's half-million-gallon monthly supply of spy-plane fuels."
They've been cleared to not talk about the aliens.
Any aliens sufficiently advanced to be able to travel to Earth from another planet, would be able to hide themselves......
Nuff said
If I had an Ass, I'd call it Fanny Bottom, then I could slap my Ass; Fanny Bottom, on the Arse.
The real conspiracy theory is that that is where the USA tests it's illegal weapons. After all, the U-2 was developed there to be used for illegal overflights, and it's existence was only discovered because the Soviets shot one down (and only then after denials coming right from the top). Seen that way, it starts to look reasonably likely that much worse things have been developed there.
# cat
Damn, my RAM is full of llamas.
Regardless of what comes out it won't really change anything. The Area 51 mythos is to ingrained for conspiracy buffs to give it up. After all if Area 51 was just a secret government facility for planes, then what about everything else that was a cover up/conspiracy.
...or (more likely) it was just stamped with a standard 50-year classification, and nobody wanted to be bothered to declassify it earlier. See, they don't know how long in advance things will have to remain classified, so they pick an arbitrary number far enough ahead that it won't release while it could still put our people and operations in jeopardy.
The meek may inherit the earth, but the strong shall take the stars.
Geez, you just felt like ranting, right?
Do you seriously question the need to conceal the nation's highest technology from other governments?
Lying to the public is obvious. You need to lie to the public because the public aren't the only people listening. The intelligence agencies know that anything said to the public in general is also being said to foreign agencies. It doesn't work to print a story in the local paper describing what's going on with a byline to make sure no one tells the Russians.
Drugging the pilot also serves an end: they gave him sodium pentathol to ensure that he was telling them all he knew, and didn't leave anything out, consciously or otherwise. This has as much of a use to reveal something the person didn't even realize they were concealing (mental block) than it does at trying to catch someone in a conscious lie.
Forcing civilians to sign a NDA: that should be self-evident. We're dealing with the most secret technology at the time, obviously the government is going to use legal tools to help ensure that it stays secret as long as possible.
The SR-71 was still in official operation late into the 1990s, the official service record is from 1964 to 1998. This year, about 10 years after it was retired, is about the right time I would expect the government to start talking about that plane. A government will only discuss its technology in public when that technology is no longer the best or would not be a threat if another government had it. I think it's fair to assume at this point that if another air force came at us with an SR-71, that we would be able to shoot it down.
Area 51 is a pile of hangers and a run way that house next gen planes... the reason it's secret is because even the shape and size of an aircraft can give away it's purpose.. in the mean time other governments can build counter measures against it even before the plane goes into production... Do you know what's next to Area 51? Area 52... it's a square on a map, nothing more.
So we have guys who were actually working at Area 51 and say there were no ETs or ET technology there.
Will this debunk any conspiracy theory?
No.
The axioms upon which the conspiracy theories are established will be protected. The theorists will interpret reality so as to protect their cherished axioms. The theorists will just say that these men are part of the cover up and that their declaration is in fact proof of ETs at Area 51.
Really, it wasn't any secret among the American public (the non consparicy nuts that is) for some time that it is a flight test facility. The Soviets likely had an easy time telling that from satellite shots. So they likely had no trouble figuring out this was a testbed for US planes. By the secrecy surrounding it, they probably had no trouble figuring out it was for secret planes.
As for the specifics, I imagine not unless they got a spy in there. All the projects that have so far been declassified in terms of secret craft, like the U2, were quite effective at being secret from the public during their development.
I imagine if one were allowed complete access to the classified American records of the facility you'd discover that yes, it is just an aircraft testing facility that has worked with lots of neat planes.
Anyone who saw a U2 or SR71 or F117 or other "black" aircraft flying around in the airspace near Area 51 would not have recognized what it was unless they has a security clearance. Ergo, to the general public, all of these "black" aircraft would (at the time they were being tested at Area 51 and before the public knew about it) have been Unidentified Flying Objects.
Whether there has ever been aliens at Area 51 is another matter altogether.
It stopped being fuel for my imagination right about the time I turned 14, and realized that most of the theories were complete garbage.
If you want to fuel your imagination, buy yourself a telescope and gaze into the heavens. The universe can inspire more awe and wonder than any crazy theory made up about a nondescript patch of desert in the middle of the US.
Woosh.
The joke is that 6*9=42 in base 13.