Area 51 (atau lebih dikenal sebagai US Air Force Flight Test Center, Detachment 3 dan juga samaran-samaran lain Dreamland, Watertown Strip, Paradise Ranch, The Farm, The Box, Groom Lake, dan juga The Directorate for Development Plans Area) merupakan sebuah daerah terisolasi di bahagian
selatan Nevada, yang dimiliki oleh pemerintah Amerika Syarikat, digunakan sebagai pusat pembangunan rahsia dan ujian pesawat - pesawat tempur generasi baru. Kawasan ini juga sangat terkenal kerana diduga kuat sebagai pusat penelitian UFO yang sehingga sekarang dianggap sebagai salah satu teori konspirasi yang belum terungkap.
Area 51
The original rectangular base of 6 by 10 miles (9.7 by 16.1 km) is now part of the so-called "Groom box", a rectangular area measuring 23 by 25 miles (37 by 40 km), of restricted airspace.
The area is connected to the internal Nevada Test Site (NTS) road network, with paved roads leading south to Mercury and west to Yucca Flat. Leading northeast from the lake, the wide and well-maintained Groom Lake Road runs through a pass in the Jumbled Hills.
The road formerly led to mines in the Groom basin, but has been improved since their closure. Its winding course runs past a security checkpoint, but the restricted area around the base extends further east. After leaving the restricted area, Groom Lake Road descends eastward to the floor of the Tikaboo Valley, passing the dirt-road entrances to several small ranches, before converging with State Route 375, the "Extraterrestrial Highway", south of Rachel.
Area 51 shares a border with the Yucca Flat region of the Nevada Test Site, the location of 739 of the 928 nuclear tests conducted by the United States Department of Energy at NTS.The Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository is 44 miles (71 km) southwest of Groom Lake.
Groom Lake
Groom Lake is a salt flat in Nevada used for runways of the Nellis Bombing Range Test Site airport (KXTA) on the north of the Area 51 USAF military installation. The lake at 4,409 ft (1,344 m) elevation is approximately 3.7 miles (6.0 km) from north to south and 3 miles (4.8 km) from east to west at its widest point. Located within the namesake Groom Lake Valley portion of the Tonopah Basin, the lake is 25 mi (40 km) south of Rachel, Nevada.
History
The origin of the Area 51 name is unclear. The most accepted comes from a grid numbering system of the area by the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC); while Area 51 isn't part of this system it is adjacent to Area 15. Another explanation is that 51 was used because it was unlikely that the AEC would use the number.-SCM
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