JACOBSEN: Well, Operation Plumbbob took place in 1957. GROSS: Let's start with some of the nuclear tests in the nuclear testing ground in this secret area. And that land parcel is divided up into quadrants: Area One, Two, Three, Four, Five, etc, going up to Area 25.Īnd then also keep in mind, Terry, that this parcel of land that I just described sits within an even bigger parcel of land, federally restricted land, which is called the Nevada Test and Training Range.Īnd that's where the Department of Defense comes in because that larger land parcel, which is about the size of the state of Connecticut, is where all three of these organizations, the - what was called the Atomic Energy Commission, now the Department of Energy the Department of Defense and the Central Intelligence Agency - merge with these secret projects. JACOBSEN: Absolutely, and the Nevada test site is a land parcel that's 1,350 acres. GROSS: So there's really two secret areas that you're writing about: Area 51 and the secret nuclear testing ground. It's just outside the Nevada Test and Training Range, which is where, starting in 1951, President Truman authorized what would end up being over 100 atmospheric bomb tests, nuclear bomb tests.Īnd Area 51 was created on the other side of the fence, so to speak, to deal with overhead espionage. ANNIE JACOBSEN (Los Angeles Times Magazine): Area 51 is a land parcel in the middle of the desert in southern Nevada. So given that, would you describe what Area 51 is and why it was created? ![]() Now, let's acknowledge from the start we're talking about an area and research projects that for the most part don't officially exist. Jacobsen is a contributing editor at the Los Angeles Times Magazine, where she writes about national security.Īnnie Jacobsen, welcome to FRESH AIR. She addresses these conspiracy theories in the book and speculates about what led to them. The secrecy surrounding Area 51 has made it fertile ground for conspiracy theories, including one about a UFO cover-up and another about how the moon landing was actually staged at Area 51. She thinks that some of the projects developed at Area 51 were hidden for good reasons, others for arguably terrible ones. Thirty-two of them lived and worked at Area 51. ![]() She says her book is based on declassified documents and on interviews with 74 individuals with rare firsthand knowledge of the secret base. My guest, Annie Jacobsen, has written a new book called "Area 51" about the secret surveillance plane projects developed there and the nuclear tests done just outside Area 51, within the Nevada Test and Training Range. Area 51 is the nation's most secret domestic military facility, so secret the government doesn't acknowledge it exists.
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