WEBVTT - Techstuff Classic: The Mythology of Area 51 0:00:04.160 --> 0:00:07.160 Get in text with technology with tech Stuff from how 0:00:07.240 --> 0:00:14.000 stuff works dot com. Hey there, and welcome to text Stuff. 0:00:14.040 --> 0:00:17.320 I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer at 0:00:17.360 --> 0:00:20.360 hell Stuff Works. In Today, we're looking at another classic 0:00:20.560 --> 0:00:24.200 tech stuff episode. This was a really fun one. Ben 0:00:24.239 --> 0:00:27.320 Bowen and I did a whole series of episodes about 0:00:27.480 --> 0:00:31.080 Area fifty one, a k a. Groom Lake, the most 0:00:31.200 --> 0:00:35.519 famous secret base in the world. And in this episode 0:00:35.560 --> 0:00:38.360 we start talking about the mythology of Area fifty one, 0:00:38.400 --> 0:00:41.040 which gets pretty crazy and a lot of fun, and 0:00:41.080 --> 0:00:43.760 I hope you guys really enjoy it. Here we go 0:00:44.040 --> 0:00:48.120 with this classic episode, the Mythology of Area fifty one. 0:00:48.960 --> 0:00:52.920 This episode, we're looking at the crazy, Yes, sir, we 0:00:53.080 --> 0:01:00.720 are looking at all of the US conspiracy theories and uh, 0:01:00.800 --> 0:01:06.000 let's just say unsupported anecdotes to be diplomatic. That's very diplomatic. Yeah, 0:01:06.240 --> 0:01:09.160 so so quick rundown, Just so that we're all on 0:01:09.200 --> 0:01:12.680 the same page. Area fifty one, also known as Groom Lake, 0:01:13.280 --> 0:01:16.320 is a facility. It's out in Nevada. It's near the 0:01:16.560 --> 0:01:19.760 what Well. It's near the Nevada Test site where a 0:01:19.800 --> 0:01:23.160 lot of nuclear tests were held. In fact, some during 0:01:23.240 --> 0:01:28.040 the lifetime of Very fifty one. UH. It is UH 0:01:28.240 --> 0:01:31.440 run by the CIA and the Air Force. Lockheed is 0:01:31.560 --> 0:01:34.880 essentially the main contractor that does work there. It's not 0:01:34.959 --> 0:01:38.280 the only one. We've seen some other aircraft from different 0:01:38.360 --> 0:01:42.319 companies tested at that facility as well. And the whole 0:01:42.360 --> 0:01:45.319 purpose of it is to be remote from everywhere else 0:01:45.360 --> 0:01:50.440 so that secret tests of top secret spy technology can 0:01:50.480 --> 0:01:54.080 happen without anyone learning about it, because, as we've said, 0:01:54.280 --> 0:01:56.360 if you want to be an effective spy, part of 0:01:56.400 --> 0:01:58.680 that means people can't be aware of the tools that 0:01:58.760 --> 0:02:01.600 you have at your disposal, right yeah, And which, as 0:02:01.640 --> 0:02:05.120 we say, that's why it is in a Goldilocks zone 0:02:05.520 --> 0:02:08.480 for its for its purpose, right yeah. One of my 0:02:08.520 --> 0:02:12.040 favorite points that you made in the previous episode, I 0:02:12.080 --> 0:02:16.720 believe was the first installment, was that this was just 0:02:17.360 --> 0:02:21.280 far enough away to be so inconvenient to get to 0:02:21.800 --> 0:02:25.280 that people people wouldn't try. Yeah, it was. It's a 0:02:25.360 --> 0:02:30.079 remote desert location on a dry lake bed, and so 0:02:30.240 --> 0:02:33.440 it was close enough where you could get supplies from 0:02:33.480 --> 0:02:35.800 places like Las Vegas, which is less than a hundred 0:02:35.840 --> 0:02:39.720 miles away, but far enough away where you know your 0:02:39.760 --> 0:02:43.959 your casual traveler is unlikely to stumble upon it, especially 0:02:43.960 --> 0:02:46.680 once you start posting lots of warning signs with scary 0:02:46.760 --> 0:02:50.240 wording on it warning people away. Oh yeah, Now, the 0:02:50.280 --> 0:02:52.720 fact that it is remote, the fact that you do 0:02:52.840 --> 0:02:56.400 have these signs that warned people away. Uh, the fact 0:02:56.480 --> 0:02:59.480 that you have to bring people in to work at 0:02:59.480 --> 0:03:02.520 this facility, and most of them are commuting in maybe 0:03:02.560 --> 0:03:04.760 on a weekly basis, which means you have to figure 0:03:04.800 --> 0:03:07.520 out how do you transport them from some place like 0:03:07.639 --> 0:03:11.960 Las Vegas to the actual facility itself. All that means 0:03:11.960 --> 0:03:15.560 that you're leaving just enough traces to really start to 0:03:15.600 --> 0:03:20.240 peak people's interests. Right, yeah, it's tantalizing. Oh and uh, 0:03:20.320 --> 0:03:24.680 point of order for the listeners out there, Jonathan, we 0:03:24.720 --> 0:03:28.400 should probably tell everybody check out the first two episodes 0:03:28.600 --> 0:03:31.480 of this before you listen to this one, right, it 0:03:31.560 --> 0:03:35.960 will make this make I can't say more sense, but 0:03:36.040 --> 0:03:40.000 you'll at least understand the references to see Yeah. So so, yeah, 0:03:40.120 --> 0:03:43.680 we've got just enough information for the typical person to say, 0:03:43.720 --> 0:03:46.240 I really want to know what's happening there. And because 0:03:46.440 --> 0:03:50.480 of the security uh features that are in place, including 0:03:50.560 --> 0:03:53.400 roving bands, which we'll talk about a little bit later. 0:03:53.600 --> 0:03:56.880 Of security personnel. Uh, it means that you end up 0:03:56.880 --> 0:03:59.200 having to fill in a lot of gaps. And when 0:03:59.240 --> 0:04:03.240 that happens and people are given the leeway to try 0:04:03.240 --> 0:04:05.600 and fill in like that, there's the big here, there 0:04:05.680 --> 0:04:09.040 be dragons on the map. That's where you get the dragons, right, 0:04:09.080 --> 0:04:11.040 You're like, well, I don't know what's out there. It's 0:04:11.080 --> 0:04:13.760 probably dangerous, so we're just gonna slap dragons on it 0:04:13.840 --> 0:04:16.760 and call it a day. Yeah, which is you know, 0:04:16.920 --> 0:04:21.120 at heart of valuable instinct to have, right, it's it's caution. 0:04:21.360 --> 0:04:26.920 But what happens here is that as we're gonna see um, 0:04:27.160 --> 0:04:31.640 one thing with a grain of truth such as oh 0:04:31.680 --> 0:04:35.360 there's something I'm not allowed to go see, uh, became 0:04:35.920 --> 0:04:41.119 embellished and then exaggerated. And many times the people saying 0:04:41.160 --> 0:04:47.400 these things sincerely do believe this. They're not hucksters. Yeah, yeah, 0:04:47.440 --> 0:04:49.599 this This isn't necessarily someone who's trying to get a 0:04:49.600 --> 0:04:52.880 book deal or trying to get on the talk show circuit, 0:04:52.960 --> 0:04:57.200 and maybe someone who has just enough information to leap 0:04:57.279 --> 0:05:00.120 to some conclusions that are not supportable. And also we 0:05:00.120 --> 0:05:03.799 should say there are times where people make guesses where 0:05:04.080 --> 0:05:07.000 either they latch onto something that is actually true, or 0:05:07.040 --> 0:05:10.360 they've got part of the story. So just because something 0:05:10.440 --> 0:05:14.040 is a theory or a rumor or a conspiracy of 0:05:14.120 --> 0:05:17.840 some sort doesn't mean that there's nothing there. Right. So 0:05:18.040 --> 0:05:21.120 here's a great example, and it's one of the more grounded, 0:05:21.560 --> 0:05:25.440 no pun intended examples of the mythology around Area fifty one. 0:05:26.320 --> 0:05:30.440 There's the myth that there is a giant subterranean network 0:05:30.800 --> 0:05:35.560 of UH tunnels and facilities that are underneath the ground. 0:05:35.640 --> 0:05:38.280 So that way, when you get that overhead view of 0:05:38.279 --> 0:05:40.360 Area fifty one, keep in mind every fifty one is 0:05:40.400 --> 0:05:42.760 restricted airspace that goes all the way up in space. 0:05:43.279 --> 0:05:46.800 But there are satellites since the nine eighties that have 0:05:46.880 --> 0:05:52.599 taken multiple images of that area. So if you know that, 0:05:52.760 --> 0:05:56.480 in fact, you're going to be photographed from space there, 0:05:56.480 --> 0:05:59.520 that seems logical that you would want to go underground, 0:05:59.760 --> 0:06:03.080 right sure, So you can understand why people would say, oh, well, 0:06:03.200 --> 0:06:05.320 it makes sense. You you want to have that secrecy, 0:06:05.400 --> 0:06:07.640 you can no longer depend upon it above ground, so 0:06:07.839 --> 0:06:13.320 you have to go below. But this raises some logistical issues, right, yeah, 0:06:13.360 --> 0:06:19.280 how do you build an underground base and keep it quiet? Especially, 0:06:19.560 --> 0:06:23.039 as we said in the History podcast, UH the construction 0:06:23.080 --> 0:06:27.839 workers that were taken out there probably would have known 0:06:28.000 --> 0:06:31.359 something about it because they would have been the ones digging. Yeah, 0:06:31.400 --> 0:06:33.719 I mean, and digging is a big deal. You're talking 0:06:33.720 --> 0:06:37.320 about subterranean network. That's a lot of earth that you 0:06:37.360 --> 0:06:39.440 have to move. And only do you have to move it, 0:06:39.680 --> 0:06:41.480 you then have to figure out what do you do 0:06:41.560 --> 0:06:43.599 with the earth you have taken. You know, when you 0:06:43.600 --> 0:06:48.159 when you create a whole, that dirt doesn't just magically disappear, right, 0:06:48.279 --> 0:06:51.640 you have to put it someplace. And so that's that's 0:06:51.640 --> 0:06:56.120 a logistical issue, and it's an enormous type of endeavor 0:06:56.160 --> 0:07:01.039 to undertake. I mean, imagine having to ate something a 0:07:01.120 --> 0:07:04.320 network of tunnels that is stable enough to support the 0:07:04.360 --> 0:07:06.960 weight of whatever is above it. Uh not to mention 0:07:07.000 --> 0:07:10.800 the idea of like level upon level of subterranean layer 0:07:11.120 --> 0:07:16.280 like dr Evil style. It's it's an enormous task and 0:07:16.320 --> 0:07:19.880 it would have required such a huge investment and manpower 0:07:20.080 --> 0:07:23.040 let alone. I don't even think about the cost financially, 0:07:23.720 --> 0:07:28.640 just the practical manpower necessary to make it. It's not likely, 0:07:28.880 --> 0:07:30.840 and there there's some rumors that go so far as 0:07:30.920 --> 0:07:34.880 to suggest that there are there's an entire underground network 0:07:34.920 --> 0:07:40.000 of tunnels that connect various bases together. And really, when 0:07:40.000 --> 0:07:43.040 you think of the engineering challenge that represents and the 0:07:43.720 --> 0:07:48.360 construction that is required, you realize that while it might 0:07:48.400 --> 0:07:51.680 be technologically possible for us to do it, it is 0:07:51.800 --> 0:07:54.880 not really feasible to do it secretly where you have 0:07:55.000 --> 0:07:57.800 not left any trace at all in the whole process 0:07:58.040 --> 0:08:00.920 right now. And I think that's really good distinction, because 0:08:01.280 --> 0:08:05.960 it's not just plausible, but it is probable that there 0:08:06.040 --> 0:08:11.200 is some sort of below the ground construction at Roswell 0:08:11.320 --> 0:08:15.000 in excuse me, at area fifty one in that when 0:08:15.120 --> 0:08:17.920 you build things, there might be a basement, there might 0:08:17.960 --> 0:08:21.720 be a safe room, something like that. But that is 0:08:22.120 --> 0:08:26.480 a far far cry from, uh, what do we have here? 0:08:26.520 --> 0:08:30.960 What's what's the biggest record? Jonathan? Fifty stories? The stories. Yeah, 0:08:31.040 --> 0:08:36.800 imagine a fifty story skyscraper, but underground. I mean, if 0:08:36.840 --> 0:08:40.800 you've ever seen a skyscraper being built, you know this 0:08:40.840 --> 0:08:43.640 is a process that takes some time. And we we 0:08:43.840 --> 0:08:46.680 here at Hell stuff works. We moved into this. You know, 0:08:46.720 --> 0:08:49.720 we're in an office that has recently, over the last 0:08:49.720 --> 0:08:52.760 maybe five or six years, seen a lot of growth 0:08:52.840 --> 0:08:55.280 with the buildings around us, and so We've actually watched 0:08:55.480 --> 0:08:58.880 year over year as skyscrapers were being built, and it 0:08:58.920 --> 0:09:01.360 takes a really long time. Name uh, and I know 0:09:01.400 --> 0:09:04.080 people would say, yeah, but this is a top secret establishment, 0:09:04.120 --> 0:09:05.720 you know, you they'd really pour a lot into it. 0:09:05.760 --> 0:09:09.280 If you've ever seen the government at work, the US 0:09:09.360 --> 0:09:12.920 government at work, speed is not one of the adjectives 0:09:12.960 --> 0:09:16.120 you would typically use, right where if the U s 0:09:16.160 --> 0:09:18.800 everyone is a superhero, it would probably not be the Flash. 0:09:19.080 --> 0:09:22.080 I mean everyone knows that maybe the Blob. Yeah, I 0:09:22.120 --> 0:09:25.040 was gonna go safe with Captain America. Well all right, 0:09:25.080 --> 0:09:27.320 I was he I was merely going to all the villains. 0:09:27.320 --> 0:09:29.280 I was thinking the Blob or maybe the Jugger, not 0:09:29.679 --> 0:09:33.479 you know, the Juggernauts. Cool though, that's a different podcast. 0:09:33.559 --> 0:09:36.080 We we've got to get to one of the one 0:09:36.120 --> 0:09:39.840 of the biggest things here, the biggest conspiracies we hear 0:09:39.880 --> 0:09:43.840 about with Area fifty one. Well, first off, spoiler alert, 0:09:43.880 --> 0:09:49.640 the real conspiracy is are their secret spy planes? Yes, yeah, 0:09:49.679 --> 0:09:52.840 and that's exactly what it's for. And that's crazy. Yeah, 0:09:52.880 --> 0:09:55.600 I mean that is the first off. The fact that 0:09:55.600 --> 0:09:58.480 that can even be possible, it's kind of frightening. We 0:09:58.520 --> 0:10:00.680 talked in the last couple of podcasts about some of 0:10:00.720 --> 0:10:04.720 the the aircraft that were under development there that remains 0:10:04.760 --> 0:10:09.560 secret a good twenty years after they had finished testing, 0:10:10.080 --> 0:10:12.960 and that's when they were unveiled. Uh. There was one 0:10:13.000 --> 0:10:16.160 that that I think had a run from eighty three 0:10:16.160 --> 0:10:18.439 to eighty five something like that, and it wasn't it 0:10:18.520 --> 0:10:22.480 wasn't acknowledged by the government until ninety six, which was 0:10:22.520 --> 0:10:25.719 the first time anyone outside of that that program had 0:10:25.760 --> 0:10:29.160 seen it. Um and I think that was maybe Tacit Blue, 0:10:29.559 --> 0:10:31.280 but it was one of those that just when you 0:10:31.320 --> 0:10:33.800 saw the aircraft, you thought, Wow, what a weird looking thing. 0:10:33.840 --> 0:10:36.840 I can't believe that this remained a secret. Granted, they 0:10:36.880 --> 0:10:40.120 only built two of them and they were under strict 0:10:40.280 --> 0:10:43.840 raps over at fifty one. It never got further out 0:10:43.920 --> 0:10:46.800 from from that area, Like even the tests would be 0:10:46.800 --> 0:10:50.520 done at night, so it limited when the potential of 0:10:50.520 --> 0:10:56.000 even being spotted. But they were the genuine articles of 0:10:56.040 --> 0:11:00.480 conspiracy were indeed spotted in the sky. And that brings 0:11:00.559 --> 0:11:04.120 us to as we were saying, the biggest part of 0:11:04.240 --> 0:11:08.160 the area fifty Are you talking UFOs UFOs? Yeah? Yea 0:11:09.559 --> 0:11:15.840 officially unidentified flying objects UFOs more often than not, Uh, 0:11:15.880 --> 0:11:20.920 they are attributed to being alien as an extraterrestrial in nature, 0:11:21.600 --> 0:11:26.720 Area fifty one features heavily and tons of different alien stories, 0:11:26.840 --> 0:11:30.240 both both the kind that we see on the big screen, 0:11:30.480 --> 0:11:34.600 like Independence Day, the famous sequence where they go down 0:11:34.640 --> 0:11:38.520 to Area fifty one where they have uh, not just aliens, 0:11:38.600 --> 0:11:42.360 but they're they're hardware that has been studied for years, 0:11:42.400 --> 0:11:45.520 and you know, it's revealed that a lot of technology 0:11:45.559 --> 0:11:48.320 we depend upon today has been reverse engineered from this 0:11:48.640 --> 0:11:52.319 alien technology. Still can't build a decent spaceship though, no, 0:11:53.040 --> 0:11:55.440 we can't build a decent spaceship. However, we have figured 0:11:55.480 --> 0:11:57.720 out that you can introduce a computer virus as long 0:11:57.760 --> 0:12:03.800 as you have an Apple MacBook laptop, which to this day, 0:12:04.040 --> 0:12:07.079 to this day, my friend, that's still that's still bothered me. 0:12:07.760 --> 0:12:11.240 Uh yeah, spoiler alert again, guys. But but yeah, so 0:12:11.240 --> 0:12:16.120 so people people started seeing UFOs, and it is correct 0:12:16.120 --> 0:12:19.520 to call them that because I think there's one of 0:12:19.559 --> 0:12:24.160 the distinctions that we're about to make, right. A UFO 0:12:24.360 --> 0:12:28.120 unidentified flying object is simply that. Yeah, it just means 0:12:28.160 --> 0:12:31.440 that you personally cannot identify what that object is. It 0:12:31.480 --> 0:12:35.040 doesn't mean it's unidentify a ball. It may very well, 0:12:35.080 --> 0:12:37.320 be that there's a small group of people who know 0:12:37.440 --> 0:12:39.880 exactly what that object is, like the like the stealth 0:12:39.920 --> 0:12:43.040 technology we were just talking about. Those stealth programs when 0:12:43.080 --> 0:12:47.120 they were under development were strict secrets and only a 0:12:47.160 --> 0:12:51.160 few people, relatively few people knew about them. Anyone outside 0:12:51.240 --> 0:12:53.160 that who would have seen one of these aircraft flying 0:12:53.200 --> 0:12:56.160 around naturally, they would not be able to identify it. 0:12:56.200 --> 0:12:59.840 There was no correlative they could say, oh, this looked 0:12:59.840 --> 0:13:03.079 like a such and such. These things look really crazy. 0:13:03.160 --> 0:13:07.360 So calling it a UFO is perfectly fine. You cannot 0:13:07.400 --> 0:13:11.280 identify it. Calling making the leap from UFO to alien 0:13:11.440 --> 0:13:15.320 is a little bit of a problem. So this brings 0:13:15.440 --> 0:13:21.240 us to probably the most famous alien uh incident in 0:13:21.280 --> 0:13:24.920 all of the United States history, something that that factors 0:13:24.920 --> 0:13:28.800 into numerous, I'd say dozens, if not hundreds, of different 0:13:28.840 --> 0:13:36.360 conspiracy theories, the Roswell Incident. Now, Roswell is in New Mexico, which, 0:13:36.600 --> 0:13:38.720 for those of you who are not in the United States, 0:13:39.240 --> 0:13:43.880 is a completely separate state from Nevada. It's in a 0:13:43.960 --> 0:13:48.280 completely different place. And you know, sometimes there's a pet 0:13:48.320 --> 0:13:52.679 peeve of mind, Jonathan, is that people often conflate Area 0:13:52.800 --> 0:13:56.520 fifty one or Groom Lake and the incident in Roswell. Right, 0:13:56.559 --> 0:14:00.920 and so two things that these are incidents separated both 0:14:00.960 --> 0:14:06.240 in space and time. Right, Roswell, New Mexico is hundreds 0:14:06.400 --> 0:14:10.880 of miles away from Area fifty one, like almost a 0:14:10.920 --> 0:14:13.199 thousand miles away. I think it's somewhere around eight hundred 0:14:13.280 --> 0:14:17.880 miles away. Eight actually one thousand, four hundred sixteen kilometers 0:14:18.360 --> 0:14:21.000 according to Google Maps. Thank you Google Maps for letting 0:14:21.000 --> 0:14:23.400 me know how far apart Roswell, New Mexico an Area 0:14:23.440 --> 0:14:27.480 fifty one are. That's exactly it. Uh So, By the way, 0:14:27.640 --> 0:14:30.640 don't don't rely upon Google Maps for turn by turn 0:14:30.720 --> 0:14:32.920 directions to Area fifty one. You know you'll just end 0:14:33.000 --> 0:14:35.200 up in Las Vegas? Did you? Did you do it 0:14:35.240 --> 0:14:39.000 by d I did it by by driving, although walking 0:14:39.000 --> 0:14:41.720 would have been hilarious. Walking would have been like, at 0:14:41.720 --> 0:14:43.760 this point people are going to ask you to turn around? 0:14:44.360 --> 0:14:47.680 Uh so, or at this point you've probably died of dehydration. 0:14:48.080 --> 0:14:50.480 So the other thing I said was that they're separated 0:14:50.520 --> 0:14:55.120 by time. The Roswell instant happened on July two, nine seven. 0:14:55.240 --> 0:14:57.360 So for those of you who listened to our first 0:14:57.640 --> 0:15:00.400 episode about Area fifty one, you were in member that 0:15:00.440 --> 0:15:04.240 it was the mid nineteen fifties when the CIA settled 0:15:04.280 --> 0:15:08.200 on Groom Lake as the the the future home of 0:15:08.280 --> 0:15:12.520 VERYA fifty one. It was like when construction began. So 0:15:12.960 --> 0:15:16.760 this is almost a decade apart when of these two events. 0:15:16.880 --> 0:15:19.640 So then you have the The actual story of the 0:15:19.720 --> 0:15:22.160 Roswell incident is that some people in Roswell, New Mexico, 0:15:22.800 --> 0:15:25.280 I saw some strange floating objects that they could not 0:15:25.400 --> 0:15:29.520 identify on identified flying objects. Sometimes they're referred to as 0:15:29.560 --> 0:15:32.880 being kind of disc shaped. Part of the problem is 0:15:32.920 --> 0:15:36.280 that we're so far distanced from the initial event that 0:15:36.520 --> 0:15:40.400 the story has not remained consistent through all the different retellings. Yeah, 0:15:40.440 --> 0:15:42.160 and I can speak to a little bit of that 0:15:42.240 --> 0:15:47.080 because we have we have some copies of the newspaper 0:15:47.200 --> 0:15:51.680 articles that changed and because they changed. Uh, there's a 0:15:51.760 --> 0:15:54.960 very interesting thing here. It's the interpretation of that. Uh, 0:15:55.200 --> 0:15:58.360 people who believed that there was some sort of extra 0:15:58.480 --> 0:16:03.480 terrestrial incident. Somebody somebody managed to drive a spacecraft well 0:16:03.600 --> 0:16:05.880 enough to get to Earth but not well enough to 0:16:05.960 --> 0:16:10.600 stay above Earth, right, and then uh, the news found 0:16:10.600 --> 0:16:13.120 out about it and they got shut down there to 0:16:13.200 --> 0:16:17.600 change their story or did they just correct the reporting 0:16:17.640 --> 0:16:20.200 when they had more information, Right, that's a that's a 0:16:20.200 --> 0:16:24.320 good question, like did did some gentlemen wearing black suits 0:16:24.320 --> 0:16:27.440 and sunglasses show up at the newspaper and say you 0:16:27.480 --> 0:16:30.480 need to you need to address this, I mean, and Jonathan, 0:16:30.560 --> 0:16:34.200 that's possible. But if it happened, it wasn't because of aliens, 0:16:34.240 --> 0:16:37.240 That's right. So get moving on. We're talking about the crash. 0:16:38.000 --> 0:16:40.400 Just sputting these objects in the air wasn't the only 0:16:40.400 --> 0:16:43.440 thing that happened with Roswell incident. What specifically went on 0:16:43.520 --> 0:16:45.840 from there was that some people found debris on the 0:16:45.880 --> 0:16:50.400 ground and it was described as being shiny and metallic 0:16:50.440 --> 0:16:52.920 in nature. No one was really sure what it was 0:16:52.920 --> 0:16:56.480 actually made of at the time. Um. And so this 0:16:56.480 --> 0:17:02.360 this incident started to become embellished upon over time. In fact, 0:17:02.400 --> 0:17:05.840 there's some versions of the story where they didn't just 0:17:06.000 --> 0:17:11.600 find physical debris from some flying object, but also bodies. 0:17:11.720 --> 0:17:14.159 And this is where we get into the alien stuff, 0:17:14.200 --> 0:17:17.640 where supposedly there were these bodies of creatures that had 0:17:17.720 --> 0:17:22.800 unusual features and they were whisked away by the government. Uh. 0:17:22.840 --> 0:17:25.639 And ultimately some people say that that's they went to 0:17:25.680 --> 0:17:31.080 Area fifty one, the area purpose was not to study 0:17:31.119 --> 0:17:34.520 strange materials, although we did eventually get some Soviet aircraft 0:17:34.720 --> 0:17:37.240 at Area fifty one where they were tested like the bigs. 0:17:37.840 --> 0:17:41.360 But it's not meant to be a scientific laboratory. That's 0:17:41.359 --> 0:17:43.080 not the purpose of Every fifty one, So it would 0:17:43.119 --> 0:17:47.040 make no sense to send any kind of extraterrestrials there. 0:17:47.200 --> 0:17:49.560 It also doesn't make sense to send extra terrestrial bodies 0:17:49.600 --> 0:17:52.280 to a place that hasn't been built yet. Right, That's 0:17:52.440 --> 0:17:54.840 that's a big one. That's a it's a bump in 0:17:54.840 --> 0:17:56.960 the road. Yeah, it's a little bit of a little 0:17:57.000 --> 0:18:01.639 bit of a problem with the story. Now what the 0:18:01.720 --> 0:18:05.600 official story from the government was that the debris came 0:18:05.640 --> 0:18:08.600 from weather balloons and that there were no bodies. In fact, 0:18:08.640 --> 0:18:11.560 that we should say right now, there's no evidence at 0:18:11.560 --> 0:18:14.439 all that anyone ever came across a body. That was 0:18:14.520 --> 0:18:18.159 something that was added to this story over time. Yeah, sorry, guys. 0:18:18.280 --> 0:18:25.880 That autopsy on YouTube is most likely a hope. It's 0:18:25.960 --> 0:18:30.440 it's yeah, there there are special effects uh experts who 0:18:30.440 --> 0:18:34.560 have actually commented on it and somewhat derisively. So we're like, like, 0:18:34.680 --> 0:18:36.119 they should have hired me. I could have done a 0:18:36.200 --> 0:18:40.000 much be there is there there is no no hard 0:18:40.040 --> 0:18:44.959 evidence that there was, even from the debris they found 0:18:45.640 --> 0:18:48.160 when they were looking at it, because there really was debris, right, 0:18:48.240 --> 0:18:51.720 and they really did find it, but they didn't find 0:18:51.880 --> 0:18:55.960 enough to have built an entire thing. Yeah, Carson, you 0:18:56.000 --> 0:18:58.679 know this. So the official story from the government was 0:18:58.720 --> 0:19:03.440 at these were weather balloons. They were meant specifically to, uh, 0:19:03.440 --> 0:19:06.320 to study the weather at high altitudes. Now, as it 0:19:06.359 --> 0:19:09.000 turns out, that's not the real story, but we will 0:19:09.040 --> 0:19:19.879 get to there in a second. So, uh, this was 0:19:19.920 --> 0:19:22.080 one of those things where people were saying, it doesn't 0:19:22.080 --> 0:19:24.359 look like any weather balloon I've ever seen, which is true. 0:19:24.440 --> 0:19:27.840 It didn't. I've seen both balloons and the weathers. Yeah, 0:19:28.000 --> 0:19:31.840 this is neither of those two things. So moving on 0:19:31.920 --> 0:19:36.119 to the the you know, kind of looking at the 0:19:36.160 --> 0:19:38.879 story another way. One version of this that I was 0:19:38.920 --> 0:19:42.600 not aware of until a friend of the show, Nate Lenkson, 0:19:42.760 --> 0:19:47.280 he's the editor of Wired, dot Code dot UK. Uh. 0:19:47.440 --> 0:19:49.920 He he turned beyond to this. I had never heard 0:19:49.920 --> 0:19:54.399 about this. It's a book written by Annie Jacobson called 0:19:54.440 --> 0:19:58.120 Area fifty one and Uncensored History of America's top secret 0:19:58.160 --> 0:20:00.920 military base. Now full disclosure here. I have not read 0:20:00.920 --> 0:20:03.920 this book. Yet I read a synopsis of the book 0:20:03.920 --> 0:20:05.880 and a synopsis of the story we're about the cover, 0:20:06.720 --> 0:20:10.760 so this may not actually be accurate to the book itself. 0:20:10.800 --> 0:20:14.119 I want to make that clear. I've also heard that 0:20:14.240 --> 0:20:16.760 most of the book is pretty much what we covered 0:20:16.760 --> 0:20:18.880 in our first two episodes of the podcast, a very 0:20:18.920 --> 0:20:22.000 thorough description of the history of Every fifty one. But 0:20:22.840 --> 0:20:27.240 there's a section apparently devoted to the Roswell incident and 0:20:27.680 --> 0:20:31.199 Every fifty one supposed involvement in that, in which the 0:20:31.280 --> 0:20:35.240 story gets even weirder, I think than aliens. And this 0:20:35.280 --> 0:20:39.440 story involves Nazis and communists, so you know, it's only 0:20:39.520 --> 0:20:44.640 missing Indiana Jones to make it really a Hollywood film. 0:20:44.720 --> 0:20:48.800 So the story that she tells according to a source, 0:20:48.880 --> 0:20:51.840 I don't know what her source was a source. I 0:20:51.880 --> 0:20:54.359 don't know if she names the source in the book. 0:20:55.160 --> 0:20:57.560 The synopsis, I said, said anonymous. But again I haven't 0:20:57.600 --> 0:21:01.200 read the book. But according to the synopsis, the story 0:21:01.320 --> 0:21:05.399 is that a Nazi doctor, Joseph Mingola, actually the s 0:21:05.400 --> 0:21:10.680 S officer who survived the World War two and then 0:21:10.880 --> 0:21:14.560 and then eventually escaped to South America. The Mingola had 0:21:14.600 --> 0:21:20.520 worked on behalf of Joseph Stalin doing these horrific procedures 0:21:20.520 --> 0:21:25.120 on children, resulting in children around the age of twelve 0:21:25.560 --> 0:21:29.640 with abnormally shaped heads, large eyes that are of an 0:21:29.640 --> 0:21:32.479 odd shape, and that the whole idea was that they 0:21:32.480 --> 0:21:36.560 were going to pilot some simple aircraft to fly around 0:21:36.560 --> 0:21:40.320 the United States and land and essentially star crap up 0:21:41.200 --> 0:21:45.639 scare people. Yeah, exactly, this idea that they would this 0:21:45.720 --> 0:21:49.960 idea that they would fake aliens, Yeah, in order to 0:21:50.080 --> 0:21:53.720 create a panic, essentially doing a war of the World's 0:21:53.760 --> 0:21:58.240 type event. Uh, one step closer to reality or of 0:21:58.280 --> 0:22:01.040 the world's For those who don't remember or don't know 0:22:01.119 --> 0:22:05.120 what this is, um, it was a an Orson Wells project, 0:22:05.480 --> 0:22:09.400 a radio program that was portrayed in such a way 0:22:09.440 --> 0:22:12.359 that people who tuned in without knowing that it was 0:22:12.400 --> 0:22:16.400 actually a fictionalized radio program, began to think that there 0:22:16.480 --> 0:22:20.439 was actually, uh, an alien invasion happening. It was this 0:22:20.880 --> 0:22:25.280 sort of famous little blip on the radar of of 0:22:25.520 --> 0:22:29.879 people freaking out because they weren't aware that, in fact, 0:22:29.920 --> 0:22:32.800 it was a fictional account. Uh, something that we still 0:22:32.800 --> 0:22:36.720 see today, uh with things like Mermaids. At any rate. 0:22:36.840 --> 0:22:40.760 That's enough commentary on that, But yeah, the Uh, the 0:22:41.560 --> 0:22:44.800 story that she relays is that Mingola had done these 0:22:44.840 --> 0:22:49.439 these horror, horrific procedures and that the bodies found at 0:22:49.440 --> 0:22:52.800 the Roswal incidant, which remember there was never any evidence 0:22:52.840 --> 0:22:56.600 that bodies were found were in fact human children that 0:22:56.680 --> 0:23:00.200 then were whisked away. I think there's some big problem 0:23:00.320 --> 0:23:04.600 with this particular story. Problem Number one, Mingola was on 0:23:04.680 --> 0:23:07.600 the run from the Soviets. He did not, I mean, 0:23:07.640 --> 0:23:10.560 the Soviets were the ones who were who were approaching 0:23:10.720 --> 0:23:14.479 when Hitler committed suicide, right, they'd rather than be captured 0:23:14.480 --> 0:23:19.879 by the Soviets. Um. Hitler committed suicide, and Mingola was 0:23:20.480 --> 0:23:23.760 trying to escape with records that he had, uh, he 0:23:23.800 --> 0:23:29.160 had created at Auschwitz. UM. So he eventually escaped Germany. 0:23:29.320 --> 0:23:32.920 He did at one point go back into Soviet occupied 0:23:33.040 --> 0:23:36.399 territory in order to retrieve some of these documents, but 0:23:36.480 --> 0:23:41.399 he evaded capture and eventually escaped to South America and 0:23:41.440 --> 0:23:45.400 then moved around quite a bit while Uh yeah, yeah, 0:23:45.400 --> 0:23:47.920 he was being he was being pursued by agents both 0:23:47.920 --> 0:23:52.760 Soviet and American, and so it's unlikely that he would 0:23:52.800 --> 0:23:57.520 have collaborated with Joseph Stalin and certainly unlikely that he 0:23:57.560 --> 0:24:03.400 would have been allowed to escape. Yeah, well, um, so 0:24:03.760 --> 0:24:07.600 that already is a problem. Secondly, it would be a 0:24:07.640 --> 0:24:12.400 real problem the idea of people being fooled long enough 0:24:12.440 --> 0:24:16.000 to not realize these were humans, right Yeah. And then 0:24:16.040 --> 0:24:18.719 there's the other there's the other question. Why would they 0:24:18.720 --> 0:24:22.840 crash there and not in a more occupied place. Why 0:24:22.840 --> 0:24:25.920 not New York City or something like that. Why, um, 0:24:26.240 --> 0:24:29.280 you know, they probably get spotted. But then also, and 0:24:29.400 --> 0:24:33.520 this this is a cruel thing to say, but why 0:24:33.520 --> 0:24:38.399 would you specifically need that one very evil man to 0:24:38.600 --> 0:24:42.200 do that sort of operation? Right? Right? Exactly, It's not 0:24:42.280 --> 0:24:44.359 like if you're going to if you're going to do 0:24:44.440 --> 0:24:51.440 something so inhuman, uh is there I mean, narratively it's 0:24:51.480 --> 0:24:54.160 a great story in the sense that there only one 0:24:54.320 --> 0:24:57.199 person is this twisted to pull this off? But in 0:24:57.240 --> 0:24:59.919 reality we know, unfortunately that's not the case that if 0:25:00.040 --> 0:25:03.399 you really did have the the will to do something 0:25:03.480 --> 0:25:07.480 this horrible, you could probably do it without having to 0:25:07.480 --> 0:25:11.000 to go after the devil himself. Right, I mean, the 0:25:11.040 --> 0:25:15.720 whole story is is meant to appeal to our dark imaginations, 0:25:16.160 --> 0:25:17.800 and it's a terrible thing, but it's also one of 0:25:17.840 --> 0:25:19.879 those things that you could say, yeah, I can imagine 0:25:19.920 --> 0:25:24.359 this actually playing out in some way. Ultimately, you also 0:25:24.400 --> 0:25:26.840 have to ask the question, what's the effect you're going for. 0:25:27.040 --> 0:25:29.119 If the effect you're going for is to cause a panic, 0:25:29.440 --> 0:25:31.280 I can't think of anything that would have caused a 0:25:31.320 --> 0:25:34.960 bigger panic than having Soviet airmen being able to land 0:25:35.000 --> 0:25:40.200 in US territory without any alien cover story. You don't 0:25:40.280 --> 0:25:45.280 need that to cause a scare. There's really no benefit here, 0:25:45.760 --> 0:25:49.720 Like the the the entire operation does not seem to 0:25:49.760 --> 0:25:54.120 have an actual return on investments, so it doesn't make 0:25:54.160 --> 0:25:57.879 sense from that perspective either. So the Nazis that were 0:25:57.920 --> 0:26:01.040 involved in in some other con piracy theories about every 0:26:01.119 --> 0:26:05.440 fifty one, like the the UFOs that are seeing our 0:26:06.280 --> 0:26:10.040 product of you know, Nazi experiments towards the close of 0:26:10.080 --> 0:26:14.240 the war. And a lot of that comes from a 0:26:14.400 --> 0:26:18.080 very real, uh and kind of frightening thing that the 0:26:18.160 --> 0:26:21.760 United States did with Operation paper Clip, which you know 0:26:21.800 --> 0:26:26.120 about when they brought over some surviving scientists from Germany 0:26:26.240 --> 0:26:29.040 right right right when you're when you're when you get 0:26:29.040 --> 0:26:33.119 the rockets scientists specifically who worked over in Germany to 0:26:33.240 --> 0:26:36.280 then come to the United States and continue their work 0:26:36.320 --> 0:26:40.760 in science and and rocketry and specifically, but now they're 0:26:40.800 --> 0:26:43.000 working for a different boss. They're working with the United 0:26:43.040 --> 0:26:46.560 States government, uh and partly because they're getting guarantees from 0:26:46.560 --> 0:26:48.520 the U. S Government that they won't be tried as 0:26:48.520 --> 0:26:52.280 criminals for their work for the Nazi regime. So yeah, 0:26:52.280 --> 0:26:55.360 there's certain real, real things that were happening in history 0:26:56.000 --> 0:27:00.080 that we're probably enough to help fuel this kind of 0:27:00.680 --> 0:27:05.000 conspiracy here in the United States. But you know, you 0:27:05.040 --> 0:27:08.679 didn't have to look far to see real instances of 0:27:09.320 --> 0:27:13.679 some pretty shady dealings on both sides, uh, but without 0:27:13.680 --> 0:27:17.920 having to make stuff up right and now, Also one 0:27:17.960 --> 0:27:21.760 thing that didn't help the government's case, and as far 0:27:21.800 --> 0:27:25.080 as their official story goes, is that it turned out 0:27:25.480 --> 0:27:29.320 they they were telling the truth, but telling it slant, 0:27:29.359 --> 0:27:31.920 as Emily Dickinson would say, right, they were. They were 0:27:31.960 --> 0:27:36.440 not weather balloons that were being uh deployed out over 0:27:36.440 --> 0:27:39.159 in New Mexico. There were balloons though, Yeah, there were 0:27:39.160 --> 0:27:42.680 balloons that were part of a spy program called Project Mogul, 0:27:43.000 --> 0:27:46.960 which was a top secret experiment using high altitude balloons 0:27:46.960 --> 0:27:50.600 that were carrying microphones, and the idea was the microphones 0:27:50.640 --> 0:27:54.880 would be able to detect sounds from Soviet nuclear tests, 0:27:55.359 --> 0:27:58.000 so that we in the United States would have a 0:27:58.040 --> 0:28:00.440 clue when that was going on, and we that would 0:28:00.440 --> 0:28:03.400 help us kind of know how far along the Soviets 0:28:03.400 --> 0:28:07.879 were with their nuclear program compared to our own nuclear program. 0:28:07.920 --> 0:28:10.639 So there was again this need for secrecy. We didn't 0:28:10.640 --> 0:28:12.960 want the Soviets to know that we, in fact had 0:28:13.000 --> 0:28:17.160 developed this technology to listen out for uh, these these 0:28:17.200 --> 0:28:20.600 sound waves, um, because we didn't want them to try 0:28:20.600 --> 0:28:22.920 and come up with different ways of testing their nuclear 0:28:23.040 --> 0:28:26.959 arms and therefore hiding it from us, soeering it and 0:28:26.960 --> 0:28:30.400 hearing what we're doing exactly. That's also another another good point. 0:28:30.480 --> 0:28:33.920 So the cover story of weather balloons was necessary to 0:28:33.960 --> 0:28:36.920 protect the secrecy of the spy program, but it had 0:28:36.920 --> 0:28:38.920 nothing to do with aliens. It had everything to do 0:28:39.000 --> 0:28:42.040 with spying it. Maybe it might have even been to 0:28:42.080 --> 0:28:45.200 the government's benefit that people were latching on to the 0:28:45.240 --> 0:28:48.160 aliens story because it took attention away from what it 0:28:48.240 --> 0:28:51.560 was really meant to do. So there's not a whole 0:28:51.720 --> 0:28:55.400 lot of incentive upon the government's part to come out 0:28:55.440 --> 0:28:59.720 and say specifically, guys, no, it's not aliens, because it 0:29:00.280 --> 0:29:02.400 keep the attention away. But you don't want it to 0:29:02.760 --> 0:29:04.960 you don't want that story to run rampant either, because 0:29:05.000 --> 0:29:09.080 it could legitimately start causing either a panic or just 0:29:09.160 --> 0:29:12.760 a growing distrust in the government itself. Sure, and they 0:29:12.760 --> 0:29:17.240 don't need any help. That's regardless of what what what 0:29:17.400 --> 0:29:22.200 your political beliefs are. We speaking of beliefs, this is 0:29:22.760 --> 0:29:25.440 going to be a lot of fun for me personally, 0:29:25.480 --> 0:29:29.040 I think for you too, because one thing that always 0:29:29.200 --> 0:29:33.160 keeps the area fifty one Legends alive is that there. 0:29:33.200 --> 0:29:36.240 It seems like every year there's someone who comes out 0:29:36.480 --> 0:29:41.440 and says, well, I was person exit place wide, I 0:29:41.480 --> 0:29:45.880 know the truth, right, and now I will finally reveal it. 0:29:46.600 --> 0:29:50.680 And you're thinking of someone specific in this case, right, 0:29:51.240 --> 0:29:55.920 and specifically thinking of Bob Lazar, Yeah, Robert Lazar or 0:29:56.000 --> 0:29:59.280 Bob Lazar, who claimed to have worked on a project 0:29:59.280 --> 0:30:01.600 in which the military area had come into possession of 0:30:01.680 --> 0:30:06.000 alien technology and his job was to reverse engineer that 0:30:06.040 --> 0:30:08.760 alien technology to learn how it works so we could 0:30:08.800 --> 0:30:11.520 take advantage of that tech here on Earth and thus 0:30:11.760 --> 0:30:15.040 kind of leap forward what would normally be the process 0:30:15.160 --> 0:30:19.360 of developing tech. So instead of you know, constantly testing 0:30:19.440 --> 0:30:23.400 and improving and refining, we could jump straight ahead and 0:30:23.440 --> 0:30:27.360 you know, skip eight steps in that process and jump 0:30:27.440 --> 0:30:31.040 straight to you know, miraculous smartphones that react to our touch, 0:30:31.240 --> 0:30:33.400 that kind of thing. And so he claimed that he 0:30:33.440 --> 0:30:35.680 had worked at a facility that was near Groom Lake, 0:30:35.920 --> 0:30:39.320 so not technically at area fifty one, but adjacent to it. 0:30:39.320 --> 0:30:42.240 It was the real secret place. It's called S four. Yeah, 0:30:42.240 --> 0:30:44.600 it's it's so secret that it didn't even get a 0:30:44.600 --> 0:30:47.160 full name. Um, it just gets a letter and a 0:30:47.240 --> 0:30:50.280 number of designation. And it's he said that it housed 0:30:50.360 --> 0:30:54.200 no fewer than nine spacecraft. Uh, here's the thing that 0:30:54.360 --> 0:30:58.040 a lot of his his claims to his background don't 0:30:58.240 --> 0:31:02.760 check out, right, Like he claims to have advanced degrees 0:31:03.280 --> 0:31:05.520 from M I. T and from cal Tech, but there's 0:31:05.520 --> 0:31:07.880 no record of him there. Now, granted, some people say 0:31:07.920 --> 0:31:11.880 that that's evidence of the conspiracy. Yeah, that in fact, 0:31:12.080 --> 0:31:15.160 this shows that the government was so interested in keeping 0:31:15.160 --> 0:31:17.880 it a secret that they have white clean his background. 0:31:17.880 --> 0:31:20.080 Although to do that you would also have to white 0:31:20.120 --> 0:31:24.160 clean the memories of every professor and every student who 0:31:24.200 --> 0:31:28.080 would have also attended. And you see that this this 0:31:28.160 --> 0:31:31.120 kind of domino effect, How how wide those ripples would 0:31:31.160 --> 0:31:33.120 have to go in order for this to remain an 0:31:33.120 --> 0:31:38.520 effective secret, it becomes unmanageable at some point, wouldn't it 0:31:38.680 --> 0:31:42.440 be easier at this point? My question would be for 0:31:42.640 --> 0:31:45.920 many of these cases is why did someone go to 0:31:46.080 --> 0:31:50.720 so such great links to keep you alive? Because from 0:31:50.760 --> 0:31:54.600 from a government's perspective, we know that if they're picking 0:31:54.680 --> 0:31:57.560 one kind of skull degree, they'll pick the easier one, 0:31:57.600 --> 0:32:00.920 which is usually an assisted fall all off a building 0:32:01.400 --> 0:32:04.040 or something like that. You know, assassination is just off 0:32:04.040 --> 0:32:07.640 the table, right, that can never be done, Like, yeah, 0:32:07.680 --> 0:32:10.800 how do you how do you? Uh? If it did 0:32:10.880 --> 0:32:14.960 come down to there's this one person who has tons 0:32:15.000 --> 0:32:20.120 of information, like it's essentially Snowden. Yeah, there's Edward Snowden 0:32:20.200 --> 0:32:22.840 of Area fifty one, who is ready, he has access 0:32:22.880 --> 0:32:26.560 to all the information, he's ready to spill the beans. Um, 0:32:26.680 --> 0:32:29.600 and you want to discredit him, you don't go to 0:32:29.680 --> 0:32:34.320 every single person in his past. Don't tell anybody about this, right, Yeah, 0:32:34.360 --> 0:32:37.120 it's just it's just not practical, right, It's it's it 0:32:37.160 --> 0:32:40.800 would be a monumental task. So essentially, what we're getting 0:32:40.840 --> 0:32:45.360 round too is that Lazar's um, his claims to his 0:32:45.360 --> 0:32:50.040 his credentials are suspect, right, and that that is a 0:32:50.120 --> 0:32:53.240 very diplomatic way to put it. Of course, you know, 0:32:53.320 --> 0:32:55.480 we're also showing that his side of it is that 0:32:55.800 --> 0:32:58.880 someone is a racing passed to discredit him, as as 0:32:58.880 --> 0:33:03.600 you said, you know, Jonathan, recently, Mr Lazar in the 0:33:03.640 --> 0:33:08.320 past few years went back into the public eye now 0:33:08.600 --> 0:33:10.880 I mean, I guess more into the mainstream public eye. 0:33:11.240 --> 0:33:16.680 And he was asked to react to the CIA's official 0:33:16.800 --> 0:33:20.840 admittance uh of Area fifty ones existence, which as we know, 0:33:20.840 --> 0:33:23.640 it didn't happen for a little while. And uh he 0:33:23.680 --> 0:33:26.760 said he was not impressed because this was a very 0:33:26.800 --> 0:33:30.440 tiny baby step forward. I think that's the quote he used. 0:33:30.720 --> 0:33:35.280 And uh he was waiting for them to reveal S four, 0:33:35.520 --> 0:33:38.040 which is the site he says he worked at reverse 0:33:38.120 --> 0:33:43.560 engineering these things. Now, he has many, many claims. Uh. 0:33:43.800 --> 0:33:50.720 He speaks at length about interspecial politics, about injuries he 0:33:50.880 --> 0:33:56.160 suffered by technology that we won't hear about for several decades. Uh. 0:33:56.240 --> 0:34:00.840 But I I really like the point you made that. Um. 0:34:00.880 --> 0:34:03.840 One of the other things people who believe him see 0:34:03.840 --> 0:34:08.360 his proof is um what they perceive as a inexplicable 0:34:08.480 --> 0:34:12.000 jump in technology, right right, Well, the truth is that 0:34:12.040 --> 0:34:14.600 if you look at any technology closely enough, you will 0:34:14.640 --> 0:34:19.719 see incremental improvements. It's very very rare that we have 0:34:20.320 --> 0:34:23.160 someone come out with a brand new piece of technology 0:34:23.200 --> 0:34:27.920 that has no precedent to it, right, yeah, exactly, Television, 0:34:27.960 --> 0:34:30.279 perfect example. So yeah, you look at these things like 0:34:30.360 --> 0:34:33.759 television was really building upon the developments of radio, and 0:34:33.800 --> 0:34:36.239 you think, okay, well what about Tesla and Marconi, Well 0:34:36.239 --> 0:34:40.040 they were working on research that had preceded them as well. 0:34:40.880 --> 0:34:43.479 These are all if you if you really dig down 0:34:43.680 --> 0:34:45.560 into it, you know, you look at the invention of 0:34:45.600 --> 0:34:47.279 the light bulb. You look at all of these sort 0:34:47.320 --> 0:34:50.759 of inventions that we we take for granted. We like 0:34:50.920 --> 0:34:53.920 the stories that say this inventor came up with this 0:34:54.000 --> 0:34:57.480 idea and implemented it, and now it exists and before 0:34:57.520 --> 0:35:00.759 it never did. Usually the truth is much more complicated, 0:35:00.800 --> 0:35:05.040 with lots of different things leading into that invention, including 0:35:05.280 --> 0:35:09.400 earlier inventions that may not have been practical but showed 0:35:09.440 --> 0:35:12.600 a working concept, and then this other inventor like Thomas 0:35:12.719 --> 0:35:16.160 Edison comes along and takes that takes that concept and 0:35:16.280 --> 0:35:19.160 makes it practical. So now it's something that we can 0:35:19.200 --> 0:35:22.400 actually use as opposed to just a cool idea, but 0:35:22.440 --> 0:35:26.000 we didn't know how to to you know, capitalize on it. So, 0:35:27.000 --> 0:35:29.760 you know, I think most of these advances we've seen 0:35:30.200 --> 0:35:33.200 have over the over the decades have been examples of 0:35:33.239 --> 0:35:36.880 this where people have made incremental improvements and maybe grab 0:35:36.960 --> 0:35:41.840 together multiple pieces of technology and then and then package 0:35:41.880 --> 0:35:44.040 them in such a way that it's a really compelling 0:35:44.080 --> 0:35:47.040 piece of tech. But if you break it down component 0:35:47.080 --> 0:35:51.520 by component, you start to see the actual process of 0:35:52.000 --> 0:35:56.479 this creating something, refining it, tweaking and putting it out again, 0:35:56.560 --> 0:36:00.440 refining it again. I don't see any annoy or miss 0:36:00.520 --> 0:36:05.319 leaps where someone has jumped well ahead of everywhere else. 0:36:05.360 --> 0:36:09.040 Maybe Claude Shannon and his uh his computer science with 0:36:10.000 --> 0:36:14.800 using binary logic, his approach to computer science was pretty 0:36:14.880 --> 0:36:16.960 much fully formed. But that's kind of similar to Albert 0:36:16.960 --> 0:36:20.759 Einstein and his theories of relativity. These were ideas that 0:36:21.080 --> 0:36:24.600 both men had developed over years, and then they presented 0:36:24.640 --> 0:36:28.520 them as complete pictures. So to us the outsiders, it 0:36:28.560 --> 0:36:32.680 looks like a person just came up with a brilliant process, 0:36:32.760 --> 0:36:36.160 fully formed instantaneously. The truth is it actually took several 0:36:36.239 --> 0:36:38.319 years to build that up, and even then they were 0:36:38.320 --> 0:36:43.839 building on previous thoughts and knowledge. They were just incorporating 0:36:43.920 --> 0:36:47.520 it in a new way. Yeah, but what about the lasers. Okay, 0:36:47.560 --> 0:36:49.880 so lasers are an issue, right, um I'm glad you 0:36:49.880 --> 0:36:53.120 brought up lasers. One of the things that have has 0:36:53.200 --> 0:36:57.920 often been attributed to Area fifty one is energy weapons. 0:36:57.960 --> 0:37:02.720 So this ties into the strategic Defense initiative, often referred 0:37:02.719 --> 0:37:06.600 to derisively as wars. Yeah, this was the program in 0:37:06.600 --> 0:37:09.400 the nineteen eighties, and I promise that I will do 0:37:09.480 --> 0:37:13.160 an episode about the Star Wars program that will go 0:37:13.200 --> 0:37:16.200 into full detail. I know, I've got a lot of 0:37:16.200 --> 0:37:17.799 listeners who have asked me to do it, and I 0:37:17.920 --> 0:37:19.799 really want to at some point, but it's gonna be 0:37:19.800 --> 0:37:22.080 a little bit further down the road. But it's um 0:37:22.320 --> 0:37:23.560 you know. The whole idea was that it was going 0:37:23.600 --> 0:37:26.200 to be a system that would shoot down incoming i 0:37:26.320 --> 0:37:29.719 c b m s intercontinental ballistic missiles. This was the 0:37:29.719 --> 0:37:32.879 height of the Cold War nineteen eighties. I mean, propaganda 0:37:32.960 --> 0:37:36.040 was ridiculous in both the Soviet Union and the United States. 0:37:36.120 --> 0:37:38.799 I grew up in that era and I remember like 0:37:38.840 --> 0:37:41.560 the Russians being the bad guys all the time, you know, 0:37:41.719 --> 0:37:45.720 from from uh everything from Red Dawn to Rocky four. 0:37:45.960 --> 0:37:49.160 So anyway, um or was it three. It might have 0:37:49.200 --> 0:37:53.040 been three rocky three at any rate. The the idea 0:37:53.200 --> 0:37:56.080 here was that the energy weapons that would shoot down 0:37:56.080 --> 0:37:59.080 these missiles were supposedly under development at Area fifty one. 0:37:59.120 --> 0:38:02.320 Again not really the purpose for Area fifty one. I 0:38:02.360 --> 0:38:05.879 mean you could you could understand them, uh, testing such 0:38:05.920 --> 0:38:08.600 a device, because that is kind of what they were doing. 0:38:08.640 --> 0:38:12.280 But they were mostly testing airborne things, not not ground 0:38:12.320 --> 0:38:16.799 to air technology. It was mostly aircraft that they were 0:38:16.880 --> 0:38:21.280 really focusing on, and not offensive aircraft, just spycraft. Yeah, 0:38:21.400 --> 0:38:23.680 I mean there's some of the drones they worked on 0:38:23.719 --> 0:38:26.200 probably had offensive kick, but yeah, it was it was 0:38:26.239 --> 0:38:29.920 mostly again, it was mostly reconnaissance type stuff. We have 0:38:30.000 --> 0:38:32.040 a bit more to say about the mythology of Area 0:38:32.120 --> 0:38:34.440 fifty one. Hope you're enjoying the episode so far, and 0:38:34.440 --> 0:38:37.080 now we're going to take a quick break to thank 0:38:37.120 --> 0:38:47.600 our sponsor. So first of all, we don't have any 0:38:47.640 --> 0:38:51.080 technology powerful enough to control the weather. Weather is an 0:38:51.120 --> 0:38:54.480 incredibly chaotic system that we do not fully understand it. 0:38:54.520 --> 0:38:56.839 Before you can under before you can really control something, 0:38:56.880 --> 0:39:00.160 you have to at least have some understanding of how 0:39:00.200 --> 0:39:05.360 it works. Now, people have conducted experiments with weather manipulation 0:39:05.880 --> 0:39:09.160 things like influence it like seeding clouds, that kind of thing. 0:39:09.480 --> 0:39:13.120 But even this, we can't be fully sure how effective 0:39:13.120 --> 0:39:15.400 they are, right, because here's the problem is that you 0:39:15.440 --> 0:39:19.880 can't you can't have a scientific consensus on whether or 0:39:19.920 --> 0:39:22.799 not something is effective unless you're able to have a 0:39:22.800 --> 0:39:25.560 control group. And you can't really have a control group 0:39:25.560 --> 0:39:27.919 with weather. I mean you can you can have as 0:39:28.000 --> 0:39:32.840 close to the same uh kind of elements in play 0:39:33.440 --> 0:39:36.200 in two different and two different instances, and one you 0:39:36.280 --> 0:39:38.120 seed the cloud, in one you don't, and then you 0:39:38.160 --> 0:39:41.520 see how much rain it results. But even then again, 0:39:41.560 --> 0:39:43.920 whether it's such a complex system that you can't you 0:39:43.960 --> 0:39:49.799 can't be completely certain that the seeding is the effective agent, right. 0:39:49.920 --> 0:39:52.200 And you know the problem with whether is it's a 0:39:52.320 --> 0:39:57.160 chaotic system that is one massive cluster of systems. So 0:39:57.280 --> 0:40:01.720 any two points you pick are ultimately in this same system. 0:40:01.800 --> 0:40:04.720 So are they really is there a control? It's stuff. 0:40:04.760 --> 0:40:07.200 And then on top of that, you know things like HARP, 0:40:07.400 --> 0:40:10.080 which I'm sure you guys have talked about, which was 0:40:10.120 --> 0:40:14.920 designed to to actually look at interactions in the ionosphere. Now, 0:40:14.960 --> 0:40:19.239 the ionosphere around Earth can conduct electricity. In fact, when 0:40:19.239 --> 0:40:21.640 we get a big electrical impulse in there from something 0:40:21.680 --> 0:40:24.960 like a solar flare or coronal mass ejection. It can 0:40:25.000 --> 0:40:30.000 make the auroras at the polls really active because that's 0:40:30.040 --> 0:40:33.600 that's kind of the convergence point for this electric field. 0:40:34.160 --> 0:40:37.680 And UH, and so there's certainly things that interact with 0:40:37.880 --> 0:40:43.600 atmospheric um phenomena, but we still can't control the weather there. Now. 0:40:43.719 --> 0:40:45.920 It doesn't help, I'm just gonna be honest with you, Jonathan, 0:40:46.239 --> 0:40:51.280 does not help UH to dispel any of the speculation 0:40:51.680 --> 0:40:54.440 about places like HARP, you know, when it was an operation, 0:40:55.280 --> 0:40:59.880 because the descriptions from from the government and from HARP 0:40:59.880 --> 0:41:03.840 about what they were doing we're just cartoonously vague in 0:41:03.880 --> 0:41:07.000 some ways. So, yeah, it's a high frequency active auroral 0:41:07.120 --> 0:41:11.200 research program, which already you're you're thinking they're at least 0:41:11.239 --> 0:41:13.200 a couple of words in there that I'm not entirely 0:41:13.239 --> 0:41:15.840 sure what they're supposed to be UM. And it really 0:41:15.880 --> 0:41:20.279 was about beaming energy into the ionosphere too. The goal 0:41:20.440 --> 0:41:22.520 for HARP, at least on the government side, that the 0:41:22.600 --> 0:41:26.080 military funded side, was can we use the ionosphere as 0:41:26.120 --> 0:41:29.640 a conduit through which we can communicate with distant vehicles 0:41:29.719 --> 0:41:32.200 like submarines that are under the water. I mean they 0:41:32.320 --> 0:41:34.960 really were hoping that this would be a way of 0:41:35.040 --> 0:41:38.239 doing that. The scientists at HARP were mostly thinking, if 0:41:38.280 --> 0:41:40.680 we can keep getting funding for what we want to do, 0:41:40.840 --> 0:41:43.960 which is to study the ionosphere, then we should try 0:41:44.040 --> 0:41:46.400 and keep that door open for the possibility that this 0:41:46.480 --> 0:41:50.239 could be a communications tool, even if we don't think 0:41:50.320 --> 0:41:54.279 it will really work. So, um, which happens. Yeah, that's 0:41:54.400 --> 0:41:56.279 that's essentially what happened with HARP. And then eventually the 0:41:56.320 --> 0:41:58.959 military said, you know what, we're done, and they pulled 0:41:59.000 --> 0:42:02.120 the funding. So that was the story of HARP. Well, 0:42:02.120 --> 0:42:05.520 a lot of those same stories apply to Area fifty one, 0:42:06.040 --> 0:42:09.800 but there's no evidence that there were any weather control 0:42:09.880 --> 0:42:13.319 systems under development. There's certainly no evidence that anything ever 0:42:13.880 --> 0:42:18.239 did any actual weather manipulation. So uh, yeah, that just 0:42:18.440 --> 0:42:21.800 doesn't that doesn't really fly. Um. And then if there's 0:42:22.239 --> 0:42:24.640 a piece of tech and science fiction, there's a chance 0:42:24.680 --> 0:42:27.080 that there's at least some story out there that there's 0:42:27.400 --> 0:42:30.200 something like that underdevelopment at Area fifty one, you know, 0:42:30.320 --> 0:42:34.400 warp coils, teleporters, phasers, whatever you want to think about. 0:42:34.880 --> 0:42:37.480 I realized I was focusing mainly on Star Trek there, 0:42:37.520 --> 0:42:40.120 but really all of that has at some time or 0:42:40.120 --> 0:42:48.520 another been attributed to AREAE warp drives, uh, teleportation devices, lightsabers. Yeah, okay, 0:42:48.600 --> 0:42:50.839 thank you. You know we've got st you know we've 0:42:50.840 --> 0:42:55.480 got there. So moving on another another host of conspiracy 0:42:55.520 --> 0:42:58.320 theories around Area fifty one don't have so much to 0:42:58.440 --> 0:43:01.120 do with what was act going on at the facility, 0:43:01.200 --> 0:43:06.719 but rather the mysterious shadowy organizations that were behind it all. Yeah, 0:43:06.840 --> 0:43:11.640 like the real life Smoking Man exactly. Yeah. So a 0:43:11.760 --> 0:43:15.360 lot of these conspiracy theories involve organizations that have no 0:43:15.560 --> 0:43:20.560 official um uh designation or they don't they aren't officially 0:43:20.719 --> 0:43:23.880 acknowledged by the government, right, So some of them have 0:43:24.160 --> 0:43:27.040 a designation, but they're not you know, they're they're not 0:43:27.200 --> 0:43:30.080 in any government files because that's how secret they are 0:43:30.239 --> 0:43:35.360 in alleged designation. Yeah. So here the big one for 0:43:35.520 --> 0:43:39.240 Area fifty one at least is the Majestic twelve. Majestic 0:43:39.320 --> 0:43:43.720 twelve is a group that existed many years ago, according 0:43:43.760 --> 0:43:47.440 to the conspiracy lore, and included people like President Truman 0:43:47.920 --> 0:43:50.320 as well as the head of CIA and also like 0:43:50.480 --> 0:43:54.160 top businessmen, like essentially the most powerful people in the 0:43:54.280 --> 0:43:57.160 United States at that time, and that their purpose was 0:43:57.239 --> 0:44:01.279 to solidify power and control worldwide, right like this was 0:44:01.320 --> 0:44:05.000 gonna be like. The Trilateral Commission was often referred to 0:44:05.120 --> 0:44:07.560 as being the secret organization for these sort of purposes, 0:44:07.600 --> 0:44:10.600 which is not what it was for um Uh. There 0:44:10.640 --> 0:44:14.120 are other organizations that are meant to be like think 0:44:14.160 --> 0:44:16.879 tanks that have often been kind of compared to this source. 0:44:17.880 --> 0:44:21.160 The Majestic twelve, however, is one that appears to have 0:44:21.400 --> 0:44:25.640 been completely fabricated. Uh. There was a UFO enthusiast named 0:44:25.680 --> 0:44:28.920 William L. Moore who produced papers that he claimed proved 0:44:29.040 --> 0:44:32.880 the group's existence, but a lot of people who have 0:44:32.960 --> 0:44:35.239 looked at these papers have said that they don't hold 0:44:35.320 --> 0:44:38.160 up to scrutiny, that the signatures that are there appeared 0:44:38.200 --> 0:44:41.040 to have been copied from other documents and then pasted 0:44:41.160 --> 0:44:45.359 into them into the Majestic twelve, the MJ twelve papers, uh, 0:44:45.480 --> 0:44:47.560 and that there does not appear to be any sort 0:44:47.600 --> 0:44:51.360 of evidence supporting the existence of such an organization. So 0:44:51.920 --> 0:44:55.279 if your organization isn't real, then chances are it's not 0:44:55.400 --> 0:45:00.399 actually the secret one behind area. But that's of fun. 0:45:00.880 --> 0:45:05.800 So the so the the the idea that has become 0:45:06.000 --> 0:45:08.080 you know, common currency in a lot of these beliefs 0:45:08.200 --> 0:45:12.560 is that in J twelve, uh did exist, but was 0:45:12.920 --> 0:45:17.200 had its world rocked when news of the extraterrestrial crash 0:45:17.280 --> 0:45:20.759 in hit them. And then they've they've spent the next 0:45:20.840 --> 0:45:24.719 few decades. Um, you know what, more and more I 0:45:24.760 --> 0:45:27.880 think maybe X files was inspired by some of these well, 0:45:27.960 --> 0:45:30.080 you know, and it's very like m J twelve shares 0:45:30.120 --> 0:45:33.880 a lot of the same kind of traits as other shadowy, 0:45:34.719 --> 0:45:40.480 conspiratorial uh most likely fictional organization. It's a trope. It's 0:45:40.560 --> 0:45:43.799 right up there with things like the Illuminati for example. Uh. 0:45:44.040 --> 0:45:47.920 Then you have some real people who really do exist 0:45:48.080 --> 0:45:51.439 that have kind of helped fuel the mystique around Area 0:45:51.480 --> 0:45:54.800 fifty one, not necessarily, you know, purposefully setting out to 0:45:55.040 --> 0:45:57.359 define the mystique, but they're part of it. And those 0:45:57.360 --> 0:46:01.120 are the Camo dudes. That's that's what the folks in 0:46:01.200 --> 0:46:04.520 the Area fifty one U biz. The people who like 0:46:04.640 --> 0:46:06.440 to watch Area fifty one, not the ones who are 0:46:06.440 --> 0:46:09.000 actually working there. What they referred to these guys as 0:46:09.160 --> 0:46:12.840 Camo dudes because they tend to be wearing a desert 0:46:12.920 --> 0:46:16.239 camouflage outfits. You know, they're on Nevada, so they're wearing 0:46:16.280 --> 0:46:20.760 these these kind of desert cam outfits. They travel in pairs, 0:46:21.960 --> 0:46:25.480 usually in in four wheel drive vehicles, and they are 0:46:26.160 --> 0:46:29.480 uh the perimeter guards essentially is what they serve as. 0:46:29.600 --> 0:46:32.880 So if someone starts to come close to the area 0:46:32.960 --> 0:46:37.239 fifty one borders, then they may end up encountering a 0:46:37.320 --> 0:46:41.280 pair of these camo dudes who tend to not appear 0:46:41.320 --> 0:46:44.239 to be military. The best guess is, in fact, they 0:46:44.280 --> 0:46:47.880 are probably part of some contract group that ends up 0:46:47.960 --> 0:46:51.719 doing security for things like military installations. So not not 0:46:52.239 --> 0:46:57.200 official military personnel, but rather private citizens who are part 0:46:57.280 --> 0:47:01.600 of a contractor, and they're job is to um to 0:47:01.840 --> 0:47:06.240 firmly suggest to people that they should go somewhere else 0:47:06.800 --> 0:47:10.400 rather than than try and get footage of the area. 0:47:10.680 --> 0:47:13.880 I have a quotation for you from an incident. This 0:47:14.080 --> 0:47:17.680 is published in the Huffington Post. A UFO conspiracy film 0:47:17.760 --> 0:47:20.560 crew was detained at gunpoint at the Air fifty one 0:47:20.680 --> 0:47:24.719 Gate UH in two thousand twelve. H Here's here's the quotation. 0:47:25.200 --> 0:47:29.320 According to a crew member, a camouflage dress guard carrying 0:47:29.360 --> 0:47:32.279 an M sixteen told a member of this team, we 0:47:32.360 --> 0:47:35.680 could make you disappear and your body will never be found. Uh. 0:47:36.280 --> 0:47:39.040 I'm gonna go ahead and say maybe they're playing it up. 0:47:39.239 --> 0:47:43.320 But the point is that, yes, you're not supposed to 0:47:43.360 --> 0:47:46.279 be there. As we said in the first PEW podcast, 0:47:46.680 --> 0:47:49.440 don't don't try to go you guys. Yeah, most of 0:47:49.520 --> 0:47:53.560 the most of the reports I've read didn't have a 0:47:53.719 --> 0:47:58.240 point where the the Camo dudes were actively aiming weapons 0:47:58.360 --> 0:48:01.800 in their direction, but rather they were they were visibly armed, 0:48:02.680 --> 0:48:04.759 So that's one thing, you know, it was certainly they 0:48:04.800 --> 0:48:07.520 were armed, but they weren't I don't remember reading a 0:48:07.560 --> 0:48:10.160 whole lot of them either brandishing their weapons, like as 0:48:10.200 --> 0:48:12.799 far as I recall, most of the incidents involved their 0:48:12.840 --> 0:48:17.040 weapons being holstered, but they have in the past, according 0:48:17.080 --> 0:48:20.880 to a lot of reports, confiscated film back when film 0:48:21.000 --> 0:48:25.480 was a thing, or demanded to have various equipment turned 0:48:25.640 --> 0:48:29.320 over to them. Because again, the facility is all about 0:48:29.760 --> 0:48:34.439 spy aircraft, so you don't want footage leaking of either 0:48:34.520 --> 0:48:38.120 the facility or the aircraft that are under development there. Um. 0:48:38.280 --> 0:48:40.640 So it's not necessarily that big of a mystery, but 0:48:40.760 --> 0:48:42.320 the fact that you have these guys who are not 0:48:42.440 --> 0:48:47.040 easily identifiable as belonging to a specific United States government organization, 0:48:47.800 --> 0:48:51.640 that definitely adds to that mystery. And they're not identifying 0:48:51.719 --> 0:48:57.280 themselves and also to be candid in in some cases 0:48:57.360 --> 0:49:00.400 not all, but in some cases, if you were making 0:49:00.520 --> 0:49:04.080 a film, then you want to have that sort of conflict. 0:49:04.640 --> 0:49:08.480 So it it's also possible that in some cases easier 0:49:09.239 --> 0:49:13.040 the threat as it is as it is is um embellished, 0:49:13.280 --> 0:49:19.120 or it's possible that people are purposefully agitating the guards. Yeah, 0:49:19.120 --> 0:49:22.120 it's it's definitely without being there, we can't say for sure, 0:49:22.200 --> 0:49:25.880 but that but but both scenarios seem to be plausible 0:49:25.960 --> 0:49:29.360 to me, Right, I don't know what really unfolded. It 0:49:29.480 --> 0:49:31.640 may be that the truth is somewhere in between those 0:49:31.719 --> 0:49:35.480 two those two scenarios, right, But you can't accidentally end 0:49:35.560 --> 0:49:38.640 up there, you know, you purposefully we're trying to get there. 0:49:38.680 --> 0:49:41.440 And this is clearly an area that is off limits. 0:49:42.120 --> 0:49:45.600 Uh and is you know, is legally off limits. Some 0:49:45.760 --> 0:49:48.120 people are and you know, we talked about that in 0:49:48.200 --> 0:49:51.360 the second episode of the history about how Area fifty 0:49:51.400 --> 0:49:55.719 one gets a whole lot of legal leeway um in 0:49:56.600 --> 0:49:59.120 ways that other places in the United States simply do not, 0:50:00.200 --> 0:50:03.680 and that that also adds to this curiosity we have 0:50:04.000 --> 0:50:06.759 of Area fifty one. I think we've really covered kind 0:50:06.840 --> 0:50:10.239 of what drives that the fact that you know, human 0:50:10.280 --> 0:50:13.960 beings are curious, right, we want to know things. When 0:50:14.040 --> 0:50:17.319 we see something that we do not understand, often one 0:50:17.400 --> 0:50:20.759 of our earliest responses is how does that work? Or 0:50:20.920 --> 0:50:24.560 what is going on here? What's really happening? Unless it's 0:50:24.600 --> 0:50:27.560 really scary, and which is where's the closest exit? And 0:50:27.640 --> 0:50:30.879 can I run faster than ben um? Because you don't 0:50:30.920 --> 0:50:33.640 have to run the fastest, just faster than the slowest person. 0:50:34.680 --> 0:50:37.000 As long as I'm not the slowest person in the office, 0:50:37.680 --> 0:50:41.600 I'm still got a chance. Yeah, So I can certainly 0:50:41.680 --> 0:50:45.040 see and I feel it too. I mean, I certainly 0:50:45.120 --> 0:50:48.960 have this curiosity about Area fifty one. Heck, just just 0:50:49.120 --> 0:50:53.080 going from the baseline most mundane description of what's going 0:50:53.160 --> 0:50:56.800 on there, there's still so many questions like how do 0:50:56.920 --> 0:50:59.440 they how do they really maintain that level of secrecy, 0:50:59.560 --> 0:51:02.520 how much which does the typical worker at Area fifty 0:51:02.560 --> 0:51:05.839 one know about what's going on? How do they make 0:51:05.920 --> 0:51:09.880 sure that people working on one project remain oblivious to 0:51:10.040 --> 0:51:13.520 everything else that's happening, how do they schedule these things? 0:51:13.600 --> 0:51:16.640 What is it like being a pilot for one of 0:51:16.719 --> 0:51:18.600 these aircraft? I mean, there are a lot of questions 0:51:18.640 --> 0:51:21.920 that we don't have the answers too, so I think, uh, 0:51:22.160 --> 0:51:24.040 you know, it was a lot of fun tackling this 0:51:24.280 --> 0:51:26.279 this subject, and I think it really did merit the 0:51:26.360 --> 0:51:29.960 three episodes because it is such a touchstone for everything 0:51:30.160 --> 0:51:35.920 from the political ideology from the nineteen shiftees forward to 0:51:36.480 --> 0:51:40.880 just a pop culture you know, touchstone, right, It's it's like, 0:51:41.040 --> 0:51:43.200 that's that's the go to for science fiction. Now, I 0:51:43.280 --> 0:51:46.800 have a question for you. Absolutely when and now that 0:51:47.000 --> 0:51:50.120 we have, along with the rest of the tech stuff 0:51:50.160 --> 0:51:55.719 audience explored still discerned the the ideas and the reality 0:51:55.800 --> 0:51:58.239 and the mist very fifty one, I have to ask you, 0:51:58.880 --> 0:52:01.560 what would you do if one of the you know, 0:52:01.600 --> 0:52:04.360 if one of the strangest things turned out to be true? 0:52:05.360 --> 0:52:08.239 You know, I like to I would like to think 0:52:08.560 --> 0:52:11.759 that I'm the type of skeptic who, when presented with 0:52:12.120 --> 0:52:16.560 incontrovertible evidence that something I believe to be true is 0:52:16.600 --> 0:52:19.880 in fact not true, and that's something I thought was 0:52:20.719 --> 0:52:23.719 just purely made up is in fact the truth, that 0:52:23.840 --> 0:52:26.680 I would be able to accept it. Saying that and 0:52:26.880 --> 0:52:29.600 actually doing it are two different things, right, I don't 0:52:29.719 --> 0:52:32.360 know if that's how I would truly react. I'd like 0:52:32.480 --> 0:52:37.080 to think that if suddenly there was just pure evidence 0:52:37.160 --> 0:52:40.320 that in fact the Roswal incident involved aliens, and that 0:52:40.400 --> 0:52:42.800 the aliens were in fact Holstad area fifty one, and 0:52:42.880 --> 0:52:46.320 all of these crazy conspiracy theories were actually true. I 0:52:46.719 --> 0:52:48.440 like to believe that I would be able to say, 0:52:48.520 --> 0:52:51.840 you know what, I never would have bought into this, 0:52:52.040 --> 0:52:54.120 but it turns out it was right and I was wrong. 0:52:54.200 --> 0:52:55.960 I'd like to think I could do that. I think 0:52:56.000 --> 0:52:59.480 you would. I like, okay, incontrovertible evidence then would have 0:52:59.600 --> 0:53:04.400 to be thing like aliens landing at your house and 0:53:04.719 --> 0:53:07.600 saying like, hey, guys, have you seen our buddies? They 0:53:07.800 --> 0:53:10.759 showed up maybe I don't know, you know, seventy earth 0:53:10.880 --> 0:53:13.960 years ago something around there. Yeah, they checked their watch 0:53:14.080 --> 0:53:17.560 for seventy year years ago, and they're big fans of 0:53:17.640 --> 0:53:20.160 text stuff, and so they heard that we had done 0:53:20.200 --> 0:53:23.160 an episode. Yeah, I feel like you're the kind of 0:53:23.200 --> 0:53:27.440 guy would go, huh, well, yeah, okay, I guess let 0:53:27.480 --> 0:53:29.200 me let me call my boss. I would be like, 0:53:29.320 --> 0:53:31.960 some of um, all right, well, it turns out I 0:53:32.080 --> 0:53:34.440 was a big fat head and I was wrong about everything. 0:53:35.000 --> 0:53:37.120 That's not everything. But also, yeah, it is true that 0:53:37.200 --> 0:53:41.879 there is at least. There are several conspiracies that we're 0:53:41.960 --> 0:53:44.960 at work at Area fifty one, and we've we've explored those, 0:53:45.239 --> 0:53:49.080 and I guess what what I would want people to 0:53:49.200 --> 0:53:52.720 take away from this is that there really is amazing strange, 0:53:53.120 --> 0:53:57.200 science fiction, action thriller movie level stuff there. It just 0:53:57.360 --> 0:54:00.480 may not be what people are claiming it is. That 0:54:00.560 --> 0:54:03.279 doesn't mean it's you know, not interesting. It certainly is, 0:54:03.440 --> 0:54:07.799 and it's uh, it's really again an evidence of human 0:54:07.840 --> 0:54:11.400 achievement for both an engineering side and just a secrecy 0:54:11.560 --> 0:54:14.640 keeping side, because it's really hard to keep those secrets. 0:54:15.040 --> 0:54:18.160 So I do suspect that they do that by managing 0:54:18.239 --> 0:54:20.719 how many people are allowed to know any one thing 0:54:20.800 --> 0:54:25.839 at any one time, otherwise you know, loose lips. Well, 0:54:25.920 --> 0:54:29.439 that wraps up our classic episode, the Mythology of Area 0:54:29.560 --> 0:54:32.920 fifty one. Like I said, I really enjoyed researching and 0:54:33.040 --> 0:54:34.960 talking about that with then so many years ago. I 0:54:35.360 --> 0:54:38.160 remember when I first got the assignment to write How 0:54:38.280 --> 0:54:41.920 Area fifty one works shortly after I was hired at 0:54:41.960 --> 0:54:43.879 How Stuff Works, and it was one of the most 0:54:44.080 --> 0:54:47.759 enjoyable research experiences I've ever had. It's just fun to 0:54:47.960 --> 0:54:51.160 learn about what actually happened. What people thought happened, what 0:54:51.320 --> 0:54:54.560 people still say are is happening there. It's a really 0:54:54.640 --> 0:54:59.960 fascinating look into not just military secrets, but human psychology. 0:55:00.200 --> 0:55:03.520 I hope you guys enjoyed this classic episode, and we'll 0:55:03.560 --> 0:55:06.360 be back soon with a brand new episode of tech Stuff. 0:55:06.360 --> 0:55:09.400 If you have any suggestions for future episodes, why not 0:55:09.640 --> 0:55:11.839 let me know. Send me an email the addresses tech 0:55:11.880 --> 0:55:14.040 Stuff at how stuff works dot com, or drop me 0:55:14.120 --> 0:55:16.920 a line on Twitter or Facebook. To handle both of 0:55:17.000 --> 0:55:19.759 those is tech Stuff hs W. Don't forget to follow 0:55:19.880 --> 0:55:23.600 us on Instagram and I'll talk to you again really soon. 0:55:29.400 --> 0:55:31.840 For more on this and thousands of other topics. Is 0:55:31.880 --> 0:55:33.120 it how stuff works dot com.