'Truth' behind Area 51 UFO conspiracies unveiled in bombshell US report
A bombshell US Government report has shone new light on Area 51 conspiracy theories after decades of UFO sightings. Believers have long claimed that extra-terrestrial life is being hidden at the high-security base in Nevada, with fantastical stories of alien autopsies and secret otherworldly technology fuelled by repeated sightings of unexplained flying objects.
The US government has always maintained the Area 51 is merely a flight testing facility. Now, a new review from a US Department of Defense taskforce has revealed that both the Pentagon and the Justice Department deliberately fuelled UFO conspiracy theories - including those about Area 51 - to conceal Cold War -era military projects, such as stealth fighter jets.
According to The Wall Street Journal, the report states that an Air Force colonel was sent on a mission to spread false information about Area 51 in the early 1980s.
This included visiting a nearby bar and handing owner fake photos of flying saucers, sparking a new frenzy of rumours about the base.
The since-retired colonel later told Pentagon investigators that the purpose of mission had been to distract the public from the development of the then-secret F-117 Nighthawk stealth aircraft.
Officials hoped this would help shield the project from surveillance by the USSR, he said.
Sean Kirkpatrick, a former head of Pentagon's UFO office who now heads the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) taskforce, trawled through decades of military reports on unidentified aerial phenomena for the new report.
He found that on several occasions, alien conspiracy theories were planted by the Pentagon themselves.
This included a bogus alien-hunting squad, known as 'Yankee Blue', which recruited serving members of the Air Force through a hazing ritual.
Candidates for the project were shown pictures of flying saucers and told they would be helping to 'reverse-engineering alien aircraft' while being sworn to secrecy.
Servicemen involved in the programme would only find out it was fake decades later when it was officially declassified in 2023.
Mr Kirkpatrick's review also evaluated one famous incident from 1967 involving former US Air Force captain Robert Salas, who described seeing a 'UFO' disable ten nuclear missiles at a base in Utah. Mr Salas said he was ordered to stay silent about the incident.
But the report found that the technical issues likely resulted from a secret electromagnetic pulse (EMP) test used to gauge the base's resilience to interference, which Mr Salas and his colleagues had not been told about.
Some parts of the AARO's first public report were withheld last year at the request of the US Air Force, with a full follow-up containing all redacted details expected to be released later this year.
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