Area 51 No Longer (Officially) a Secret 115
schnell writes "The first-ever declassified story of Area 51's origin is now available, thanks to a Freedom of Information Act filed years ago by George Washington University's National Security Archive. The (only lightly redacted) document is actually primarily a history of the U-2 and A-12 ("Oxcart") spy plane programs from the Cold War, but is remarkable for being the first-ever official unclassified acknowledgment of Area 51's purpose and its role in the program. Interesting tidbits include that the U-2 program was kicked off with a CIA check mailed personally to Lockheed Skunk Works chief Kelly Johnson for $1.25M; a U-2 was launched off an aircraft carrier to spy on French nuclear tests; and the U-2 delivery program itself was actually done under budget, a rarity for secret government programs then or now."
False documents (Score:5, Funny)
The entire thing must be completely fake.
I refuse to acknowledge as possible the finalization of a secret government program under budget.
Re:False documents (Score:5, Interesting)
kelly johnson was an engineering god and he didn't run the projects to just pump money out of government. of course back then the guys were probably actually motivated, that they felt a real need to build u2, a12 etc.. and their plan to pump more money out of government was to keep churning out cool stuff instead of extending one project to last their entire professional career.
"Um.. it'll work if we build it out of titanium! what do you mean we'll have to invent the machinery to make it happen? do it already!"
14 rules for saving cash:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelly_Johnson_(engineer)#Kelly_Johnson.27s_14_Rules_of_Management [wikipedia.org]
"Because only a few people will be used in engineering and most other areas, ways must be provided to reward good performance by pay not based on the number of personnel supervised."
Re:False documents (Score:5, Funny)
Of course, that was all part of the plan. The alien rumours were a start, but by creating a project that genuinely came in under budget - completely impossible, but irrefutable because it was true - they ensured that nobody would ever believe anything that was said about Area 51.
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It's not surprising. It did happen under Eisenhower's stewardship and he saw a significant reduction in deficits. Given certain other views he expressed...
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Not to mention that part of the budget is for a fleet of high-performance chase cars:
https://www.google.com/search?q=U2+air+force+chase+cars [google.com]
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Rule 15 is interesting as well
Note that Kelly had a 15th rule that he passed on by word of mouth. According to the book "Skunk Works" the 15th rule is: "Starve before doing business with the damned Navy. They don't know what the hell they want and will drive you up a wall before they break either your heart or a more exposed part of your anatomy."
I know that feeling.
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Johnson's biography [amazon.com] is quite a good read--not going to win a Nobel prize in literature any time soon, but the content is a delight for aerospace engineers like me. Johnson WAS Skunk Works, for many many years.
Funny note about Rule 4: He's advocating version control for engineering projects. If he was alive today, I suspect Mercurial would give him a hard-on.
Rule 4: A very simple drawing and drawing release system with great flexibility for making changes must be provided.
Last point: It's funny how many of the 14 Rules are anathema to modern management practice, particularly as implemented by the dominant aerospace firms
Re:False documents (Score:5, Informative)
> "Um.. it'll work if we build it out of titanium! what do you mean we'll have to invent the machinery to make it happen? do it already!"
Completely false. They tried less exotic, more conventional materials before turning to titanium. They also wrestled with how to deal with thermal expansion - and the state of metallurgy at the time was such that the best way they could come up with to deal with it was to have gaps in the fuselage (including the fuel tanks!) at normal temperatures, which caused the tanks to leak until the fuselage came up to operating temperature. This is why after a Blackbird/Oxcart/etc. takes off they would immediately go supersonic to heat up the airframe so the designed-in leaks would seal up, then they would meet up with a tanker to refuel. The A-12/YF-12A/SR-71 was absolutely b;eeding edge at the time, and remained so in many ways even to this day. The only manned air-breathing aircraft which could match the "official" top speed of the Blackbird was the MiG-25, and such a sprint in that bird requires an immediate overhaul or replacement of the engines. The SR-71 could CRUISE up to and well past the published speed because it was constructed largely of titanium throughout.
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I was always amazed that the evasive maneuver employed by the SR-71 in the event of a ground-air missile launch was to simply accelerate away. That is seriously badass. Granted, if you are at 80k feet you will have some time before said missile even gets close.
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Re:False documents (Score:4, Informative)
Why the U2 was a bitch to fly: The difference between the stall speed and VNE on a U2 was 29 miles per hour. On most aircraft it's usually at least 100 miles per hour (a 747 has a stall speed of about 120 miles per hour, and a max speed (VNE) over 600 miles per hour, so the difference is more than 455 miles per hour). In a U2, there is little room to "accelerate to get away from the missile" --if you are doing 1 mile per hour faster than the stall speed, you can safely go 28 miles per hour faster.
The 747 has the same characteristics if you go high enough. See "Coffin Corner". As altitude increases in any aircraft, the stall speed approaches the maximum maneuvering speed.
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Let's not forget that they crashed one in Russia.
Re:False documents (Score:5, Funny)
Let's not forget that they crashed one in Russia.
It was shot down, and the Russian's had proof .. they paraded the pilot out after all the denials and he said "In Soviet Russia denials shout U2!"
Re:False documents (Score:5, Funny)
Art Bell says it's fake. Why would I not believe him.
(this post itself is fake)
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Art Bell is an alien himself.
You heard it here first.
So is Rush Limbaugh, that's not lard, it is actually him hiding his tentacles in his costume.
Kang or Kodos - You decide.
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Abortions for some, miniature American flags for others!
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Re:False documents (Score:5, Funny)
Nah the key words were "only lightly redacted"
so This project was Under [strike]the the oversight of our alien overloads, who financed it by extracting gold from asteroids, in exchange for our compliance which helped hide our[/strike] Budget
Re: False documents (Score:2)
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Actually, of all of the facts in the summary, that one I knew. Lockheed used to mention that a lot back in the 1960's (the skunkworks wasn't a secret, just most of what they did).
You don't say! (Score:1)
> "The (only lightly redacted)documentis actually primarily a history of
> the U-2 and A-12 ("Oxcart") spy plane programs from the Cold War,"
Of course it's only lightly redacted -- they made the whole thing up. Light redaction is how we know they're lying. Give it up feds! >:-(
Give us the LGM BEM SAUCERS NAO!
Re:Sounds like some of the story (Score:5, Informative)
And what has it been doing for the last 20 years? then again i didnt RTFA
F-117, B-2, remote sensing gear for arms control/inspection, The Predator and global hawk drones, NERVA Rockets and probably those fancy stealth modified Black Hawks from Neptune Spear and comms and radar gear.
Just your average run-of-the-mill secret aerospace stuff.
Re: Sounds like some of the story (Score:5, Interesting)
Exactly. I bet there are current yet unheard of planes there still.
A UFO is an unidentified flying object. The average person is an idiot and can't tell the difference between a fly and a bird under certain conditions.
For me a couple of weeks ago I got caught in the middle of a coast guard search and rescue. They were dropping parachute flares for hours bright enough to light up miles and miles if open water. It took us 20 minutes to figure out they were parachute flares and not boats. You couldn't hear the planes unless they were close. It was surreal for a little while as they didn't fall very fast. And sometimes took sharp changes in course.
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I live near a military base and near the flight path of a municipal airport. I've seen plenty of aircraft that I can or can't recognize over my place {no aliens}. A couple months ago something came awfully close to the house in the late evening while I was kicked back on the deck couldn't say what it was {other than probably military} but it was dead silent until it passed by and startled me good. What ever it was it was moving fast and rattled the house.
I think the only other time I've been startled like t
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In some cases if a plane is high enough and fast enough, the sound from it wont have time to travel that far ahead of it and thus it and the sound of it arrive pretty close together.
I've seen it with fighter jets, it's completely silent, then just as the thing passes over or near you you get that awesome engine sound. Not a sonic boom, mind you, but still loud as fuck if they're low enough.
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I usually don't pay to much attention and to them cause they are usually a lot higher and a lot less noisy, but this one caught me by surprise.
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You kind of hit on it, but altitude has little-to-nothing to do with it (except if it's high enough, you will never hear it).
it.
But it kind of does, remember that the speed of sound (depending on temperature, pressure and moisture in the air, of course) is about 340.29 m/s, so if the plane is, let's say, 680.58 meters up in the air, the sound will take 2 seconds to reach you, now if the plane is moving, let's say, 300 m/s it'll have passed you before the sound actually makes it to you, despite not actually being supersonic.
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No more like ... Bird of Prey ..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_Bird_of_Prey
Kelly Johson was a genius (Score:5, Interesting)
If you look at the aircraft that came out of the skunk works you'll know what I mean. He and his organization came up with the P-38, the U-2, the C-130, and the SR-71; to name only a few achievements. It makes most people in tech look like little kiddies playing in a sandbox.
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Indeed.
I don't fancy the U-2 or C-130 much, but the P-38 and SR-71 are two of the most aesthetically pleasing aircraft ever to have graced the skies. In fact, the SR-71 is probably the most beautiful plane ever to have flown. That it's also still the current speed record holder (air-breathing manned aircraft, record set in 1976) despite being retired since 1998 is just icing on the cake.
I'm quite grateful that I managed to squeeze in a trip to the Udvar-Hazy Center at Dulles last time I was in DC so I could
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What I want to know is when the US government is going to declassify the REAL top speed of the SR-71. (that is, the fastest speed it was ever recorded as being flown at rather than the fastest speed it was rated to fly at, the fastest speed it was designed by Lockheed to fly at or the fastest speed the air force allowed its pilots to fly it at or the fastest speed the air force is willing to admit it flies at)
Re:Kelly Johson was a genius (Score:5, Interesting)
From wikipedia [wikipedia.org]:
The Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird holds the official Air Speed Record for a manned airbreathing jet aircraft with a speed of 3,530 km/h (2,193 mph). It was capable of taking off and landing unassisted on conventional runways. The record was set on 28 July 1976 by Eldon W. Joersz and George T. Morgan Jr. near Beale Air Force Base, California, US
There's non-official (e.g. Brian Shul's book Sled Driver) reports of speeds up to Mach 3.5 (4,200 kph or 2,600 mph), but those aren't official. Different official and unofficial analyses of the materials and production techniques of the SR-71 strongly suggest that it was incapable of reaching much more than Mach 3.5 (among other things the pressure wave from the nose would enter the engine intake and unstart the engine; also the metal divider on the windshield got so hot at those speeds it threatened the integrity of the windshield).
So yeah, official word would be great, but there is little doubt the SR-71 was capable of Mach 3.5 but not much more than that.
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But what a truck! Rugged, forgiving, able to land on airfields with poor surface, high angle landing, rato pods.... It is the Unimog of aircraft.
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Back when I was living in Wichita, Kansas, one of the few nice things about the area was the Cosmosphere [cosmo.org], a shockingly out of place top-notch aerospace museum in nearby retirement town Hutchinson. It has a decommissioned SR-71 [sr-71.org] hanging from the ceiling in the lobby. I'm not by any means an aircraft geek, but even I have to stop and mumble "that is a gorgeous plane".
Prettiest planes (Score:2)
the SR-71 is probably the most beautiful plane ever to have flown.
The SR-71 is undeniably a gorgeous plane and I agree that the P-38 is striking as well. But for my money I love the look of the YF-23 if we are talking about jets and the P-51 Mustang if we are talking about prop planes. Just my own preferences of course. I like the U2 just because it is SO simple in design. Basically a powered glider. Simple, elegant and still functional to this day.
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Oh, let's talk beautiful planes :)
WWII-era: Me 262 takes the top spot with its shark-like fuselage and sleek lines, the P-38 as mentioned looks simultaneously both powerful and really, really graceful, the Westland Whirlwind is also gorgeously aggressive with its propellers sticking out in front, and of course the old stalwarts the Spitfire and the Mustang are magnificent designs. Then there's the striking utilitarianism of the Me-109 and the robust stubbiness of the early Fw-190, and the impressive gaping
Re:national geographic channel (Score:5, Informative)
It's been a widely open secret for a long time. Everyone who wasn't a UFO kook has known that the place was used for testing experimental aircraft for decades now. A bunch of workers from there even sued the government a while back for medical conditions related to exposure to toxic chemicals (they were ordered to burn all kinds of experimental jet fuels and other nasty stuff while they worked there).
Information already out in the open (Score:2)
Also, Ben Rich (Kelly Johnson's successor) wrote this up in his book Skunk Works. He didn't mention "Area 51" by name, but some of its other nicknames such as "Dreamland" or "Paradise Ranch" were mentioned.
I think the most impressive thing about the Blackbirds were that they were designed in an era when computers were quite primitive and engineers usually used slide rules.
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In fact, the Government's motion to dismiss that lawsuit was (I believe) the first public acknowledgement that the base existed.
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It's been a widely open secret for a long time. Everyone who wasn't a UFO kook has known that the place was used for testing experimental aircraft for decades now.
The UFO kooks say the same, only that the experimental aircraft are based on alien technology from Roswell and/or other contact/cooperation with aliens. Nobody except the US government denies that part.
Space Aliens (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Space Aliens (Score:5, Funny)
So where is the part about the captured Space Aliens and their ship?
Lightly redacted.
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Didn't you watch Star Trek: Deep Space Nine? The captured aliens and their ship returned to the 24th century thanks to the energy of a US atomic bomb test... (The episode in question was broadcast on TV here last night :)
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forgetting something (Score:2)
Re:forgetting something (Score:5, Funny)
Oh, the aliens aren't *that* secret: They have a large office building and a place where they meet in Washington DC with a really nice rotunda. There are tours and everything!
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No they don't, that's ridiculous. You see them on TV all the time, and sometimes even in person if you go looking for them.
In case you misunderstood, here's a photo of their meeting building [wikimedia.org].
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Wait, what? (Score:4, Funny)
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Skunkworks (Score:5, Interesting)
I highly recommend the memoir, "Skunkworks" by Ben Rich, who was Kelly Johnson's successor. He tells a great story of the building of the U-2 program, and also later projects including the SR-71 Blackbird, and the F-117 stealth fighter. Amazing stories.
According to Ben Rich, it was Dick Chaney who ultimately got the SR-71 canceled, and instructed them to destroy all the plans, tooling, and parts for building the aircraft. Ostensibly this was to prevent any other nation from ever learning its secrets. And all this was because Chaney's cronies owned companies who made spy satellites. Even though a lot of analysts argued we still needed aircraft for some surveillance, they decided to go with satellites. Which of course other nations know where they are and when they go overhead. And since then the U-2 has still flown because there are missions that only an aircraft can perform.
Even as recent as the gulf war (yes I'm old enough to consider 1991 as recent) these aging spy planes were pressed into action because they were all we had, and they performed their task very well. Have to admire how well the military does being yanked around so much by politics (and of course they dish the politics right back... sequester and all that). But with all the abuses revealed of late by Private Manning, perhaps it's only fitting that the military is in decline, along with the nation, and has had its toys taken away.
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F-14's with TARPS pods did most of this, I think a few RF-4's were still in service then as well.
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Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
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I don't think any state or nation has ever had an FOIA which trumped things like Secret classification or commercial priviledge. Where on Earth did you get the impression that it was supposed to provide access to things like NSA files?
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People like Edward Snowden, Bradley Manning and Julian Asssange
Snowden leaked evidence of wrongdoing. Manning leaked everything he could get his hands on, whether it showed wrongdoing or not. Assange is a middleman, he's an information broker whose only motivation is to make the US look bad (his words, not mine). The three are nothing alike and should not be referred to as if they are.
Re:If Snowden was alive back then (Score:5, Insightful)
He would have told the French we were spying on their nuclear tests.
To which they would probably have replied, 'Yeah, we guessed they would be'.
of course there are no aliens (Score:5, Funny)
Wow (Score:2)
While everyone else is making jokes about aliens and the budget, I'm still trying to wrap my head around what it would take to launch a U2 (103-ft wingspan) [wikipedia.org] from a carrier. Besides the width, I didn't think it was optimized for short takesoffs, and it looks like the wings would snap off if you launched it with a catapult. [wikipedia.org]
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Looks like landing is all about catching the tailhook, and planes are very strong for certain stress. The takeoffs look like maybe they put just enough power into the catapult to get it in the air? I can't tell if there is a catapult there...but I would assume there has to be.
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They had U2s at Utapao when I was stationed there in 1974, and those things wouldn't need a catapult. Those crazy long wings make it so it doesn't need much room to take off, huge amounts of lift. As to landing, almost any plane landing on a carrier will need a tailhook.
An SR71, now, I doubt they could launch from a boat. Not much wing but fantastically humungous engines. Their runways were about a mile long, they'd thunder down the runway with the ground shaking a mile away, do a wheelie, and take off stra
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While everyone else is making jokes about aliens and the budget, I'm still trying to wrap my head around what it would take to launch a U2 (103-ft wingspan) [wikipedia.org] from a carrier. Besides the width, I didn't think it was optimized for short takesoffs, and it looks like the wings would snap off if you launched it with a catapult. [wikipedia.org]
Considering that downward visibility is so piss-poor that landing it on a regular runway involves another pilot in a car driving along the runway talking the aircraft down, landing on an aircraft carrier must have been an... exhilarating experience.
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the width part not a problem (assuming pilot with brass cajones), the U2's had widths from 80' 2" to 104' 9".....C130 with 133' wingspans can land and take off from carriers.
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Well, bigger wings make the takeoffs shorter. I always tought the U2 was so big because it needed a huge operational range, but takeoff distance is at least a nice siede effect (if not the actual reason for them).
How would anyone know? (Score:2)
and the U-2 delivery program itself was actually done under budget, a rarity for secret government programs then or now."
All of this stuff is obfuscated.
First declassified documents? (Score:5, Informative)
I guess all those documents from two years ago don't count, then?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1389591/A-sneak-peek-inside-Area-51-Declassified-documents-offer-rare-glimpse-secretive-site-Earth.html [dailymail.co.uk]
In other (more secret) news (Score:2)
The DoD just finished moving the UFOs to another location.
Aliens must be dead? (Score:2)
All the aliens must have died. No need to keep it secret anymore... :(
I don't know about you, but I miss them already...