When the CIA recently -- finally -- released a declassified report confirming the existence of the once-mythical Nevada military base known as Area 51 -- aka Groom Lake -- it also opened the door for many little known stories to emerge about the goings-on at the still-top secret installation.
Many people think Area 51, pictured below, about 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas, Nev., houses the hidden technology of captured extraterrestrial spacecraft as well as the remains of the alleged unfortunate drivers of those ships.
What the public now knows, officially, is that Area 51 is where the CIA spent decades developing high-altitude spy plane technology during the Cold War.
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| area 51 map |
Little known to the public was how Soviet-built MiG jets -- captured from previous aerial conflicts -- were brought to Area 51, reengineered and used in simulated combat dogfights with American jet fighters.
"Actually, I've been to Area 51 -- I flew out there, back in the days when I was in the Navy, flying F-14 Tomcats out of Naval Station Miramar in San Diego, around 1975," former distinguished Air Force and Navy pilot Allan Palmer told The Huffington Post.
"We spent some time in the desert up there doing aerial gunnery. We'd go out to Naval Air Station Fallon [in western Nevada]. They said, 'Look, at the end of your flying time, go out here on this radial and DME mileage from the station and just orbit there and wait for further instructions.' So, we'd go out there and check in on our frequency at this place we were supposed to be at over the desert.
"And then we'd check in and they'd say, 'OK look out five miles at 10,000 feet and tell us what you see.'
"Well, it was a MiG, and so we'd go join up on him and fly along with him, and then we'd split up and do simulated combat for a couple of turns. And that was over Area 51 -- right over the top of the base out there at Groom Lake -- the big dry lake, you couldn't miss it. And that's where we ended up doing a few combat turns and air-to-air dogfighting with the MiGs. We did that a couple of times and it was always very interesting."
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