Area 51 by Annie Jacobsen (book review).
Annie Jacobsen is an investigative American journalist examining the history of Area 51 — less secret these days, but still secretive enough to keep people away from the development of stealth and other aircraft in Nevada. This book’s subtitle, ‘An Uncensored History Of America’s Top Secret Military Base’, tells it all, or at least what has come out of the place under the Freedom of Information Act. The main reason it has never been moved is because of the ideal conditions for natural concealment, and the means to protect the base still cannot be beaten. I doubt a book released 15 years ago is going to change much of the information here.
The fact that Jacobsen interviewed 87 individuals for this book, around 30 of whom worked there, means some broke their oath never to talk about their place of work or what little they knew. When you consider that some 280,000 people worked on Manhattan Project in surrounding areas developing the atomic bomb — and kept it secret — that is telling. Even so, you do have to wonder how such secrecy can be maintained for so long. The opening chapter, with its descriptions of softball teams and other on-site activities, suggests there is a core group who actually live there.
We’ve all heard of some of Adolf Hitler’s missing projects, including aircraft designs that looked like flying saucers by the Horten brothers, Walter and Reimar. Then there is Roswell Incident, with reports of Russian writing on the debris raising warning signs. You do have to wonder why the Russians produced only one prototype. If they didn’t know how damaged the crashed craft in the USA was, they may have decided not to pursue that path. I’ll come back to this later.
In the meantime, there was the matter of the Russians developing their own nuclear bomb, and the necessary surveillance, often falling under the authority of the CIA rather than the United States Air Force, allowing for deniability. Much of this is familiar from other books, but less so how it intersected with UFO observations. Considering the Lockheed U-2 flew at 70,000 feet, you do wonder how anyone could see it at all, although of all sightings, only about 150 were attributed to it.
Naturally, much of the focus is on stealth technology, meaning Lockheed Skunk Works. Jacobsen also examines the upper management, the CIA, who runs things, and the need to monitor Russian activity in Cuba. The purpose of keeping Area 51 secret shifted from hiding it from the Russians — who likely knew it existed — to keeping it hidden from curious Americans. Considering nearby “areas” were used for nuclear tests, albeit not immediately accessible, you have to wonder if that also served as a deterrent.
I was always puzzled about the difference between the Lockheed A-12 Oxcart and the Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird Mach 3 aircraft, beyond crew numbers. Apparently, there isn’t much difference, aside from ownership — CIA or USAF. There is some mention of UFOs, but mainly in terms of the USAF being unable to identify unusual radar traces.
The North American X-15 and MiG projects also fell under Area 51’s remit. I do find it odd that Jacobsen missed pointing out that some MiG designs reportedly incorporated basic technology to survive nearby nuclear blasts without instruments being fried.
Although not directly part of Area 51, the surrounding regions have been used for nuclear tests, mostly underground since 1963 due to the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. Jacobsen suggests the United States Atomic Energy Commission may have conducted its own cover-ups, possibly even keeping information from presidents under strict need-to-know rules. Her chapter “Meltdown” should be required reading. Not to mention the number of B-52 Stratofortress incidents involving nuclear weapons. There’s even mention of a nuclear-powered spacecraft propelled by detonating small nuclear charges behind it. The treaty effectively ended that idea, especially given the catastrophic fallout risk if anything went wrong. The same concern would apply to any system relying on speculative quantum-based fuels.
The final chapters return to the Roswell incident. I checked online for corroboration, but Jacobsen appears to be alone in suggesting Russian involvement alongside German scientists. So it’s worth examining that angle. If it were a Russian response to U-2 flights over their territory, why stop at one attempt, or allow it to crash? Kelly Johnson at Lockheed did explore circular aircraft designs but found them unstable. If the aim was to build on American paranoia sparked by War of the Worlds radio broadcast, it hardly worked. Many UFO sightings cannot be explained by American stealth aircraft. Incidents such as the USS Nimitz UFO incident suggest craft without obvious stability issues. Russia also has several sites equivalent to Area 51, yet much of its aircraft development has relied on espionage from the West. If their technology were so advanced, you would expect more of it to appear in their air force.
I’ve often wondered how work at Area 51 and similar sites could remain secret for so long. Much of it comes down to rigorous security vetting, strict compartmentalisation, and a need-to-know culture. Information emerging now largely comes via the Freedom of Information Act. Even then, Jacobsen’s material only runs to around 2007 and is far from full disclosure, involving extensive file analysis.
This book will fill in a great deal about what has emerged from Area 51 — though certainly not everything. There’s not even a reference to the Aurora Project. Jacobsen sticks to verified Freedom of Information sources, and even one of her interviewees admitted she had access to only a fraction of the data. I agree with her that there is considerable misdirection about who is responsible for what. It’s perhaps most remarkable that all these groups can work together in one place. Still, it remains a useful and engaging read.
GF Willmetts
April 2026
(pub: Orion, 2012 from 2011 release. 521 page paperback. Price: varies. ISBN: 978-1-4091-3686-6)
