Area 51
A secret desert airbase became the world's most famous place for stories of captured flying saucers.
What was reported
Area 51 is a US Air Force facility around Groom Lake in the Nevada desert. For decades the government would not admit it existed, and people around it reported strange lights and aircraft moving in ways they could not explain.
In 1989, Bob Lazar said on television that he had worked near the base on alien spacecraft. Since then it has been the centre of stories about recovered UFOs and alien bodies.
Explanations offered
CIA papers released in 2013 confirmed the base was built to test spy planes, starting with the U-2 in 1955, and that the U-2 and later aircraft accounted for many UFO reports of the time, flying higher than anyone thought possible. Lazar's account has not been supported by records.
- When
- Opened in 1955
- Where
- Groom Lake, Nevada, USA
- Witnesses
- Pilots, nearby residents, a man who claimed to work there
- Status
- Explained
Famous cases are real, widely reported events. Each file sets out what witnesses said and the explanations that have been offered, without taking a side.