Area 51 : : an Uncensored History of America's top Secret Military Base

Location & Checkout Length	Call Number	Checkout Length	Item Status
Downtown 2nd Floor 4-week checkout	001.942 Ja	4-week checkout	Due 05-03-2024
Westgate Adult Books 4-week checkout	Adult Book / Nonfiction / Paranormal / Jacobsen, Annie	4-week checkout	Due 04-15-2024

The secret city -- The riddle of Area 51 -- Imagine a war of the worlds -- The secret base -- The seeds of a conspiracy -- The need-to-know -- Atomic accidents -- From ghost town to boomtown -- Cat and mouse becomes downfall -- The base builds back up -- Wizards of science, technology, and diplomacy -- What airplane? -- Covering up the cover-up -- Dull, dirty, and dangerous requires drones -- Drama in the desert -- The ultimate boys' club -- Operation Black Shield and the secret history of the USS Pueblo -- The MiGs of Area 51 -- Meltdown -- The lunar-landing conspiracy and other legends of Area 51 -- From camera bays to weapons bays, the Air Force takes control -- Revelation.
Presents a history of the most famous secret military installation in the world, assembled from interviews with the people who served there and formerly classified information.

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About 90% accurate, 10% bizarre conspiracy theory submitted by jhaiduce on October 29, 2016, 1:25pm At first glance this looks like a diligent effort at compiling the known history of Area 51. And most of the book is that. Jacobsen interviewed dozens of sources, a majority of whom actually worked at Area 51, and puts their stories together to build a fairly detailed and engaging look into the now-declassified aircraft testing programs that went on at Area 51, as well as the facility's occasional involvement with nuclear testing at the neighboring Nevada Test Site. The book takes an abrupt turn for the worse, however, upon reaching the end of the Oxcart program in 1968. Coverage of the events of the 70's, 80's, and 90's is disappointingly scant, with programs now well-known to the public (such as the F-117) only given the briefest treatment despite considerable information now available to the public since declassification.

But the book's real downfall is that, after finishing with the real historical events, it wraps up with a bizarre conspiracy theory on the 1947 "UFO" crash near Roswell, NM. The author's claim, supported only by a few quotes from an anonymous source, replaces the usual "it was aliens" theory with an equally implausible one involving a crashed Soviet aircraft.

Read the book, but don't believe anything you read in the last 18 pages.