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Rachel Kalb // Individual

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I thought an appropriate first post would be the photo behind Area 51. August 1st 1955 the first U-2 was test flown for the first time over the remote location we now know as Area 51. Tony LeVier flew the plane and failed to land it on his first attempt do to lack of markings to distinguish height. Now why Area 51? The location was chosen primarily for the dried lake bed that could handle the landing of a plane, and the remote location. The strip of wasteland was known at the time by its map location: Area 51.  Clarence Johnson , remaned the location “Paradise Ranch,” and most of the employees called themselves "ranch hands". A C-124 would move parts of a U-2 aircraft, which were built in Burbank, California, then taken apart and moved to Watertown for reassembly and testing.

Connection

With everything you learn about there is always facts and opinions that create the lesson you're learning. The photo below is the only real truth we know behind Area 51. The photo below is the reason behind the creation of Area 51, this is the U-2 Dragon Lady and the cause of the first conspiracies around Area 51. This photo can connect to the Unexplained because the secrecy behind this plane and locationed caused people to fill in the blanks with their own ideas. Since the government would not even admit to the existence of Area 51 people had no way of knowing what this magical lights in the sky were. In 1938 a radio show read "War of The Worlds" by H.G. Wells and set the state of New Jersey on fire with alien attack rumours. Then in 1947 it was said that a UFO crashes in the backyard of a Roswell handyman and said to be taken by the government is set to Area 51 a few years after it was created. When you apply the critical thinking process and skepticism to the rumors around Area 51, and the dates that come with each event, testing new military fighter planes in a remote location unknown to the Soviet Union makes sense. The lights in the sky moving and unbelievable speeds and explosions in the distance, all make sense. Emotional Connection is another reason for belief since the rumors of UFO's and Area 51 overlapped with the end of World War Two. There is no limitation with what the human mind can put together to explain the unexplained. When going back to our first lecture related to paranormal watch list, we see quite clearly the deliberate mystery created around Area 51 by the government.

https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/research/a24152/area-51-history/

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The photo below is an actual newspaper article written on Tuesday July 8th of 1947. The newspaper article claims that a Roswell hardware man and his wife came in possession of a 'flying saucer'. Though it is a major headline in the New Mexico newspaper the actual article says that there is no more information then they found a UFO and it was possibly just a weather balloon. In 1947 news outlets were limited as well and science and technology advancements. The newspaper is where everyone went to get their current events and learn about things happening in their area.

Connection

"It all started in July 1947, when the Roswell Daily Record front-page headline screamed "RAAF Captures Flying Saucer On Ranch in Roswell Region." The U.S. military claimed the unidentified crashing object was just a weather balloon; conspiracy theorists insisted it was an alien spacecraft which was then taken from the Roswell ranch property to Area 51 for reverse-engineering." For this post I had to apply major skepticism, this is a real newspaper with the days posted right on the cover, 1947. The issue when reading this is that Area 51 was not a facility until 1955, or so people think. The reason for belie here could be a couple of things, Perception and Observation is the major one that comes to mind personally. This man and his wife find a object that they have never seen before crash land in their backyard, but the government claims it was just a weather balloon. The weather balloon was first created in 1986, but the technology did not actually take off until the early 1900's. Weather balloons can also be up to 16 feet in diameter, and to someone who has never seen this huge object before, could be seen as a UFO. Which ties into my next reason for belief, Unexplained. In the 1940's, computers, smartphones and social media were not even a thought in peoples head, so people believed what they heard on the radio and rea in the newspaper. Applying critical thinking and skepticism to the sighting and crash of this apparent UFO, it is understandable why these people believed it was a UFO, but where is the proof? The newspaper below includes photographic images but no photos to support the front page headline. The flaw with this paper is that it gives very little information about anything related to the crash, and bolds the words "Flying Saucer" instead of an unidentified flying object (UFO).

https://www.livescience.com/60916-strange-facts-about-area-51.html

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The photo below is a overhead view of the location of area 51. I actually took this photo from google maps while I was conducting my research for this assignment. I was amazed with how much secrecy there is around area 51 and how easy it was to find access points and other photos displaying this much information around the site. The photo shows the 5000 foot airstrip located by a salt flat, which happens to be Groom Lake. Groom lake is located near the Atomic Energy Commissions Nevada Proving Ground. This was used in World War Two as a gun range for Army pilots.

Connection

The photo below does not look like much, but this is the actual ground layout of Area 51 today. I added this photo do to the conspierice around the idea Area 51 is not a real place. When I was conducting my research around this facility I either read that believe did not believe the existence of this facility at all, or that Area 51 was a strictly alien research base. The location of Area 51 was chosen do to a couple of factors, first this size was actually used during World War Two and had a distinct airstrip already on the site. The second reason was do to the soil, the dry desert on its own was strong enough to support any aircraft. The red flag of alien research on this facility can relate directly to Confirmation Bias. People will take any information they here and believe it, if it supports their ideas. When the government only releases very little information about anything and does not explain the 'UFO' sightings, when conspiracies are released, people will cling onto the information. Critical thinking and skepticism for all three photos is hard to pull, but the stories around each photo can be broken down and explained using the scientific process. For this photo the Unexplained reason for belief is also very relevant since the government did not formally release any information around the existence of Area 51 until 2013. People were forced to form their own opinions around the facility and what was going on in this area. The limitations behind this specific photo and Area 51 is the fact that this is the only photo of the facility in recent years that you can find. This is of course on purpose since the secrecy around the facility is still very real. The flaws in these stories are also quite apparent by the government not actually acknowledging the facility until over 50 years later.

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The National Geographic video below is a short but in depth explanation of how Area 51 became what it is today. The video explains the layout of the original area 51 base and  the intent security from day one of their projects. The base began construction in 1955 and explained how the location was perfect for aircraft testing against the Soviet Union. The video outlines why the remote location was perfect for the said use of the site, even if that meant supporting the weight of a unidentified flying object. Area 51 was and still is technically an active war zone resulting in light burst and consperinces around these light formations.

Connection

This video created by National Geographic is a video attempting to debunk conspiracies and trying to explain to the public what Area 51 is actually about. I really liked this video because even though it comes from a reliable source, there is always questions behind the facts, are the telling me the whole truth? Like I have mentioned before Emotional Connection is a huge reason for beliefs when you are talking about a place the Area 51. Many families were torn apart over apparent misconduct taking place at Area 51 that resulted in multiple deaths. When the families tried to sue the facility they cases needed to be drop do to lack of evidence, you can't sue a facility that before 2013, did not officially exist.  To connect to our paranormal watchlist lecture it is very easy to point out results can’t be reproduced or verified and deliberately creates mystery in anything revolving around Area 51. Though the results can be reproduced they cannot be verified, and even if they could be, they have not. The government holds this information and and had so for well over 50 years, which has deliberately created mystery around the topic of Area 51. It is said the site was used for test flying new military planes to hide from the Soviet Union, but the site is still active today, so what is happening there now? Thinking about diseases such as Lyme Disease that was a man made disease from Plum island in the process of trying to create biological warfare. The limitations with this video is the length and the information that is talked about, people can support their confirmation bias with short video like this and definitely twist the words or misinterpret the information. I believe it is important for reliable sources to make videos like this to bring to light the mysteries that are around Area 51, but I also believe they need to be careful on how they put them together. The flaws with videos like this are the lack of proof when developing opinions and facts around the facility.

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It's 1955 and the conctruction of America's secret base begins. Where did they hide a 5000 foot long runway?

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In this class we talk about paranormal and pseudoscience. Area 51 is very much a real location in Nevada, but what actually takes place there is a mystery that only few really know. I think it is important to include videos like this, this team are basically ghost hunters but for UFO's. This video is the remastered version of the original and at the beginning of the video he thanks the police officers for not ticketing them, or worse. This team camps out around Area 51 in order to capture UFO sightings.

Connection

The next two videos are more related to our course then most of the other post, these net two videos really dig into UFO hunting and paranormal phenomenons. This is a actual team and registered company how makes videos looking for proof of UFOs. Jumping straight into the pseudoscience watchlist, where money is definitely involved. It is very obvious that big youtubers make a ridiculous amount of money, and if you find the right stuff to talk about, you could do it too. This team is dedicated to making UFO youtube videos and sharing their found information to the public. I believe the red flag in this case is confirmation bias to the viewers. This type of video and team is dangerous to the public since they share their own found information that is not fact checked or scientifically proven.  When you really think about the people who watches videos dealing with UFO haunting, people are often looking for confirmation for their own thoughts, called Confirmation Bias.  The confirmation bias helps people who truly believe UFOs find 'facts' that support their ideology. I feel like something that is also very prominent in this long video is proof by verbosity. They are saying a lot of things but have no proof to support what they are saying. All these videos relate to the suppression of information by authorities which leads people to fill in the gaps of the unexplained ideas they have. Then we can look at the flaws behind the video like this, like I mentioned before the lack of physical that this team provides with their UFO huntings. A lot of what this team says in this video can actually be debunked by other post on this board, and by easier conducting a google search about the random burst of light people claim to be UFO's or there lack of evidence over anything they mention in the video besides the fact there is high security which you can see in the video.

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AREA 51 Wants This Video Banned! - Anniversary Edition

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This video is a PBS show that researches topics such as Area 51. The show is meant to be light hearted and jokes are made about aliens in movies and video games. They mention Bob Lazar, and other former workers from area 51, and how and disputes or lawsuits against Area 51 couldn't be followed through because there was no real proof that Area 51 even existed at this time.
This show also brings the real facts to light, debunking UFO sightings at Area 51. In the area of the facility people were unaware it was an active war game zone, where there was active bombing nightly. This video will take you as close as you will ever be able to Area 51.

Connection

Much like the video above yet very different, this video dives into the conspiracy and the construction of Area 51. This video was actually aired on TV for the purpose of debunking and also poking fun at people who believe in aliens. In this episode a man goes down to the Area 51 border and talks about his own personal encounters with the man who actually wrote the handbook on Area 51. Quite obviously there is money to be made here but there is also nothing to lose for making this show based on anything they want too. The opening scene is a play on Men In Black the movie, where they hunt for alien creatures. This could anger some people but also lead people to believe that Area 51 is a joke or not even real. In this video the man behind the Area 51 handbook explains the first time he saw the lights around Area 51, the issue was the lights were far beyond the facility. He then goes back the next day to witness the same burst of light from the day before, he was standing next to a real active war zone. This can actually be tied to Confusion of Correlation with Causation, just because their are planes in the sky does not relate to UFO sightings or abductions. People will see these lights in the sky that are just planes or, burning magnesium in this case, and believe it is a UFO sighting. This can also relate to confirmation bias just like many of the other post on here. The reason this reason for belief relates to this video and the burning magnesium is because people will ignore the facts, that these lights are not aliens or UFOs. The major flaw with this video is the amount of joking that takes place, obviously Area 51 is a very real place but when a serious programs refuses to look at just the plain facts and not take a short documentary like this seriously, their own reputation can be but at risk as well as the reputation of the facility and down play the realness of what is actually going on at Area 51.

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The website below is a Washington Post written in December 18 2017. The website talks about when the Pentagon released information talking about a $22 million dollar government program. "to collect and analyze “anomalous aerospace threats”" as the official statement said. This website also has links related to every topic talked about to give the reader all the information they need and all the links to create a solid opinion instead of basing it off of only this website. They mention the fact that there is a lot of conseripies based around the topic of Area 51, and are well aware that any information put out around the topic  will always be questioned no matter who puts it out.

Connection

This website connected to the ideology reason for belief, the reason for this is because the article is written by a random journalist who only source of information is what has been released to the public. As we know Area 51 is a very secret facility and no journalist would be given any more information then what is already known to the public. In result of this, the journalist must fill in the blanks with his own opinion based around the only public information out there. When applying the critical thinking process we are able to see right through the said facts and see that this journalist is applying his own thoughts about Area 51 one instead of using the facts he has researched.

"Statements to the contrary, official-sounding people cautioned, were probably the musings of crackpots in tinfoil hats. Well, score one for the crackpots."

One with a message to share about the facility would not use language such as "creakpots"
Though he has posted many link throughout his article the reliability behind these links and sources are questionable. I also believe proof by verbosity is involved with this website since there is a lot of words by not really a lot of information around Area 51. A major flaw with this website is that information is repeated and also has many opinions involved in this article. This could lead someone to use confirmation bias to support their ideas they are not necessarily true.

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December 18, 2017
For decades, Americans were told that Area 51 didn't really exist and that the U.S. government had no official interest in aliens or UFOs. Statements to the contrary, official-sounding people cautioned, were probably the musings of crackpots in tinfoil hats.

Well, score one for the crackpots.

The Pentagon has officially confirmed that there was, in fact, a $22 million government program to collect and analyze "anomalous aerospace threats" - government-speak for UFOs.
Listen to this story on "Retropod": For more forgotten stories from history, subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Stitcher | Amazon Echo | Google Home and more
As The Washington Post's Joby Warrick reported, the Advanced Aviation Threat Identification Program was a rare instance of continued government investigations into a UFO phenomenon that was the subject of multiple official inquiries in the 1950s and 1960s.

For a specific segment of the population that doesn't need to Google the terms " Paradise Ranch" and " Cheshire cat airstrip," it was a eureka moment - the first (of presumably many) alien-related secrets that have slipped out of the clenched jaws of the government.

The non-Googlers have it easy, it seems: The admission - and the fact that the government spent $22 million on UFO research - gives any out-there theory a patina of credibility.

But what about the rest of us who have not fully jumped onto the tinfoil-hat bandwagon? What are we to make of 70 years of bizarre stories centered on a secret government base an hour's drive from the Las Vegas Strip?

In 1955, President Dwight D. Eisenhower "approved the addition of this strip of wasteland, known by its map designation as Area 51, to the Nevada Test Site," according to a CIA history of a spy plane declassified in 2013. The area was near the Atomic Energy Commission's vast, desolate proving grounds and was used to test the high-altitude U-2 reconnaissance plane.

A parade of top-secret aircraft was tested in the area, according to Reuters, including the A-12 aircraft, a spy plane that flew faster than the speed of sound, and the angular F-117 stealth ground-attack jet.

But Area 51 quickly became a wire frame for not-quite-verifiable musings about alien life, secret technology and supernatural behavior.

Gaping holes in out-there theories had an easy explanation: The government is working diligently to keep the real story under wraps.

The biggest working (conspiracy) theory is that Area 51 is where the U.S. government stored aliens and spacecraft that crash-landed on Earth, particularly the unidentifiable debris discovered by William "Mac" Brazel.

Brazel, a farmer, discovered metallic rods, pieces of plastic and silvery paper scraps in Roswell, N.M., in 1947. He called the sheriff, who called the military, who carted the debris off in armored vehicles. But the secret was out, and it captured the imagination of the American public.

The government, the theories go, experimented on the aliens and tried to harness the technology in their ship to manufacture interstellar spacecraft and produce powerful energy weapons. Lab-coated Area 51 scientists also were said to be mulling ways to manipulate or weaponize the weather, travel through time and teleport.

For decades, people reported seeing strange lights in the desert around Area 51 - presumably alien aircraft taking off or being tested at the government facility.

Adding fuel to the alien theories, Ray Santilli released a video in 1995 that purported to show an alien autopsy after the Roswell crash.

The crowd that believed something wasn't quite right at Area 51 was buoyed by a lawsuit filed by workers at the facility. They reported rashes, respiratory ailments and even deaths related to their jobs.
[Area 51: Secrets under the sun]
Of course, the alien aspects of those theories have crumbled under decades of scrutiny. Some have been explained away by declassified documents; other theories have been outright fabrications.

The debris Brazel found on his farm was part of a government coverup, for example. It just didn't involve aliens.

The Air Force claimed it was using high-altitude balloons to try to detect Soviet nuclear tests. The Air Force said as much, about 50 years after the debris was found, in a 231-page report. Other officials have speculated that the debris came from a crashed nuclear bomber that had broken up over New Mexico. Roswell was, after all, the home of the 509th Composite Group, the atomic weapons unit that bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.

"We do believe that something did happen at Roswell," one source close to the investigation told The Post's Jack Anderson and Michael Binstein in 1995. "Something big. We don't know if it was a plane that crashed with a nuclear device on it . . . or if it was some other experimental situation. But everything we've seen so far points to an attempt on the part of the Air Force to lead anybody that looks at this down another track."

Santilli's autopsy footage was easier to debunk. He admitted that it was a fake (though he maintains that it was based on actual footage).

And the space around Area 51 was where the United States tested several of its more experimental aircraft as the Cold War raged, adding to its mystery.

Incidents such as the crash on Brazwell's farm or the sighting of several bright lights were shrouded in secrecy and half-baked excuses that became fodder for people who believe " the truth is out there."

The experimental aircraft may have had something to do with the injuries suffered by the workers, as The Post's Richard Leiby reported in 1997. They claimed materials, including anti-radar coating and other classified substances, had been burned in open pits on the base.

Filmmakers took notice of the intrigue. Over the past 70 years, Area 51 has been cemented as a popular science fiction trope.

Experiments on aliens and their spacecraft was an important plot point in the 1996 summer blockbuster "Independence Day," in which a U.S. resistance force converges on Area 51 to launch a final battle.

In the movie "Super 8," the train crash that motors the plot involves material being transported from Area 51.

But in the real world, government employees had been poring over their own film, captured by fighter pilots, of possible UFOs.

Chris Mellon, a former deputy assistant secretary of defense for intelligence who once worked for the Advanced Aviation Threat Identification Program, said investigators had interviewed pilots who claimed they saw weird things in the air.

Mellon, who now works with UFODATA, a private organization, described one video of an encounter with an unidentified object to Politico:

"It is white, oblong, some 40 feet long and perhaps 12 feet thick. . . . The pilots are astonished to see the object suddenly reorient itself toward the approaching F/A-18.

"In a series of discreet tumbling maneuvers that seem to defy the laws of physics, the object takes a position directly behind the approaching F/A-18. The pilots capture gun camera footage and infrared imagery of the object. They are outmatched by a technology they've never seen."

The Advanced Aviation Threat Identification Program generated at least one report, a 490-page volume that describes alleged UFO sightings in the United States and numerous other countries over multiple decades.
Read more: Scientists have identified the 50-foot creature that washed up on an Indonesian beach This ancient shark with a snake head and 300 teeth is why we should just say nope to the ocean Researchers think they know where Amelia Earhart died - days after a photo suggested she lived A lobster boat captain said a freak storm killed his crew. Then doctors found drugs in his system.

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The government admits it studies UFOs. So about those Area 51 conspiracy theories ...

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December 18, 2017 For decades, Americans were told that Area 51 didn't really exist and that the U.S. government had no official interest in aliens or UFOs. Statements to the contrary, official-sounding people cautioned, were probably the musings of crackpots in tinfoil hats. Well, score one for the crackpots.

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This website and the contents it talks about is some of the best information on this wall. Bob Lazar is a former employee of Area 51 and did an anonymous interview claiming that he’d studied captured alien technology at a site called S-4 near the desert test facility in Nevada. The interview took place in 1987, but the government did not admit to the existence of Area 51 until 2013 when the CIA released a document about the active testing site. The website breaks down the interview and ties recent information back to what Bob Lazar claimed many years ago in his anonymous interview.

Connection

This website is what is wrong with the secrecy behind Area 51 and conspiracies. This website is supporting unproven claims from a man who is claiming to have worked at Area 51 and releasing secrets about the facility. This website supports multiple reasons for belief including; Simplicity, Patternicity, Ideology, Unexplained, and Emotional Connection. The reason this website connects to simplicity is do to the fact that this is the only man who has come forward and created a platform for himself to share this story, people believe it because it is simple to believe the only information that is out over such a big topic, and not question it. Patternicity because if you look to see what Bob Lazar is actually saying about what happened while he worked at the facility, you can see it is everyone's stories combined. The patter relates to the fact that you see the same in everyones stories, then in Bob Lazar's version, confirms to everyone else what they claimed to have happened. This makes their claims seem real even if they never actually happened. Ideology because this man believes in aliens and i creating this story to share his own personal ideology with the public in order to get others on board with the idea of aliens and the government suppressing information from the public. This story could lead many to lose trust in the government which could have major lasting effects when the government attempts to go forward with something that needs the public's trust. Then we move on to something a little more self explanatory, the unexplained. "we don't know what we don't know", was a quote from one of our lectures and when we are confronted with the unknown we try to explained it to ourselves, and when we are confronted with information that explains things for us we hold on to that information and let that explain the unexplained. and last but not least, the emotional connection reason for belief, which I believe has a use part in what this man has to say about his experiences. I believe that Bob Lazar had something against the facility or the government which led him to leak this aleadage story around Area 51. If the security is as intense as we know it is, and secrecy is as real as everyone makes it out to be, this man would be in prison for leaking government secrets.

Asked whether it bothers him that he’s widely disbelieved he says: “What else can I say? I have better things to do than come up with this. I could make up a better lie, but I have no motivation to lie.”

My claim is that he never even worked for the facility or around the facility. The reason I believe this is because if Bob Lazar worked for the facility for even a short amount of time, he would have been asked to sign an agreement to say he will never share what he saw or worked on at the facility. Since he has shared all this top secret information and not been jailed or sued for doing this, then I believe he never actually worked at the facility which would allow the government not to go after him for what he has shared.

On the other end, he released this information in 1989 and the CIA did not release the existence of the facility until 2013. This means even if what Bob Lazar was saying was true, the government could not actually do anything about it because then people would find out this secret facility was actually real and people would start asking questions.

The major flaw with this website is the lack of sources and evidence actually provided from Bob Lazar himself or the website writing about this story.

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A new documentary about so-called UFO messi has once against put the spotlight on his extraordinary claims about Area 51 - the highly secretive US base in the Nevada desert - and the existence of UFOs.

Lazar claimed to have seen test flights of nine captured UFOs. In a TV interview in 1989, the American also said he'd worked as an engineer on the alien spacecrafts, according to a report in The Sun.

Bob Lazar: Area 51 and Flying Saucers looks into the American's theories and where he is now. It also reveals that he's been the subject of a raid by the FBI.

In 1989, Lazar put Area 51 on the world map in an anonymous interview claiming that he'd studied captured alien technology at a site called S-4 near the desert test facility in Nevada.

At S-4 he claimed to work on UFOs with small alien seats that were made out of a material called Element 115. He said nine disks "of extraterrestrial origin" were tested and studied. He also insisted that he had "no idea how the government got their hands on these spaceships and that his life had been threatened over this information", says The Daily Beast.

The US government denied the existence of Area 51 until a CIA document released in 2013 listed it as an aviation test site.

In the documentary, Lazar claims the FBI raided his lab. He said: "At the risk of sounding paranoid, I do always have a suspicion that someone is monitoring me - it's something that is difficult to get out of my mind."

Lazar's main gripes with the US government are "consistent with the concerns he shared decades ago: that people are not just being robbed of the truth about extraterrestrial life, but of awesome technology that has the power to shift 'the entire world economy'", says The Daily Beast.

In the on-camera interview, Lazar describes how he recalls technology that produces and controls gravity, and uses it for propulsion. The American claims that this is a "reaction-less craft" and that instead of expelling something - like air or exhaust - it creates "a distortion in space and time in front of it, where space actually bends".

Lazar says this technology couldn't possibly have been human-made. "There's another civilization in existence that's intelligent that we know about, and we actually have artifacts from them," he insists. "The science and the technology can change us dramatically."

Crucially, in Bob Lazar: Area 51 and Flying Saucers Lazar "stops short of claiming that he ever saw aliens at the site", says the tech website Motherboard. He does say that the seats in the saucers were small and almost child-sized. There was a nickname for aliens around the facility: "the kids", he added.

Asked whether it bothers him that he's widely disbelieved he says: "What else can I say? I have better things to do than come up with this. I could make up a better lie, but I have no motivation to lie."

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A new documentary about so-called UFO messi has once against put the spotlight on his extraordinary claims about Area 51 - the highly secretive US base in the Nevada desert - and the existence of UFOs. Lazar claimed to have seen test flights of nine captured UFOs.

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This website talks more about the release of documents after the CIA released information confirming Area 51 was in fact real in 2013. I added this website because one of the first things it mentioned is about a Las Vegas man claiming he worked at the facility. This man is Bob Lazar who I mentioned above, they claim he was the one who put Area 51 on on the map before any official information was released on the facility. This website mentioned only the true facts about the facility and never mentioned any information about consperiences which led me to base a lot of my research around this website and its own sources.

Connection

"U-2 and later OXCART [the SR-71 development program] flights accounted for more than one-half of all UFO reports during the late 1950s and most of the 1960s," according to the CIA."

The website below is a break down of what Area 51 is today, was in the past and will be in the future. This website also gives you access to the 355 page document that the CIA released when first mentioning the existence of the facility. I believe this website strongly connects to the Unexplained reason for belief as well as the proof by verbosity since it gives a break down of the 355 page document. The man who wrote this article also claims to have talked to many high ranked U.S. military to gather his information, but why him, and why not the the public? Many journalist claim to easily gather this information from high ranked CIA and military officials, as an audience we need to ask ourselves how reliable these said sources and secret information really is. Which leads us to the critical thinking process and skepticism we must apply while reading these websites and putting our trust in these sources. We must evaluate all sources linked to each website we read and follow up on links posted with these websites. We must also look at what proof of their information they are providing us with when making these claim about knowing so much about the top secret facility. Whiling digging deeper into the information provided we can see other reasons for belief linked to this website. This can include; emotional connections, and confirmation bias, as many people have dedicated their lives to break down the history of Area 51 and the government secrecy linked behind the facility. While I was conducting my research for this assignment I decided to familiarise myself with how dedicated some people really are, and my finds were shocking. It is not right to be able to release information about the government that is not fact checked, as well as having websites like this were any journalist can post whatever story they want as long as it is the right number of words. It is very easy to make up false information around a topic where there is very little information to begin with. A flaw with this website is there where is no proof to back up the claims being made by this journalist, and no way of finding out for ourselves. A limitation within this website is that they can post whatever they believe will attract readers and gain more views on their website.

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Area 51 is a touchstone of America's cultural mythology. It rose to notoriety in 1989, when a Las Vegas man claimed he had worked at the secret facility to discover the secrets of crashed alien hardware, spawning two decades of conspiracy theories and speculation about little green men. But the facility's history - and the history of the strange, secret aircraft that were developed there - extends back to 1955. Since its inception, the government has obliquely acknowledged its existence only a handful of times, and even the CIA's 1996 declassified history of the OXCART program - the development of the SR-71 Blackbird at the secret site - refers only to tests conducted in "the Nevada desert." The government has never publicly discussed the specific facility ... until now.

On Thursday, the National Security Archive reported that it had gotten its hands on a newly declassified CIA history of the development of the U-2 spy plane. The report, obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, contains the CIA's secret record of how Area 51 came to be.

In 1955, CIA Special Assistant for Planning and Coordination Richard Bissell, Col. Osmund Ritland, an Air Force officer working on the U-2 project, and Lockheed aircraft designer Kelly Johnson began looking for a location in California or Nevada to test the U-2 prototype. The location had to be remote - far from the view of the public (or potential Soviet spies). On April 12, 1955, they were scouting locations from the air with the help of Lockheed test pilot Tony LeVier. While flying over the Groom Lake salt flat, they noticed an airstrip that had been abandoned after being used by the Army Air Corps during World War II. The CIA history describes their first encounter with the site:

After debating about landing on the old airstrip, LeVier set the plan down on the lakebed, and all four walked over to examine the strip.... From the air the strip appeared to be paved, but on closer inspection it turned out to have originally been fashioned from compacted earth that had turned into ankle-deep dust after more than a decade of disuse. If LeVier had attempted to land on the airstrip, the plane would probably have nosed over when the wheels sank into the loose soil, killing or injuring all of the key figures in the U-2 project.

The salt flat and old airstrip were added to the Atomic Energy Commission's Nevada Test Site, which the land abutted. On the AEC maps, like the one above, the area was designated "Area 51." For the U-2 developers, it went by a different name. Johnson, the plane's lead designer, called the facility Paradise Ranch, and it came to be informally know as "the Ranch" - or "Watertown Strip," after bouts of flooding. The site became operational three months later, in July 1955, and testing of the spy plane was underway by the end of the month.

The UFO sightings began almost immediately. The U-2's operating altitude of 60,000 feet was higher than any other aircraft at the time - higher than some people even thought possible. "[I]f a U-2 was airborne in the vicinity of the airliner [during twilight hours] ... its silver wings would catch and reflect the rays of the sun and appear to the airliner pilot, 40,000 feet below, to be fiery objects," the CIA history notes. These sightings were reported to air-traffic controllers and the Air Force, and were compiled in the Air Force's Operation BLUE BOOK, another subject of decades of alien conspiracy theories. "U-2 and later OXCART [the SR-71 development program] flights accounted for more than one-half of all UFO reports during the late 1950s and most of the 1960s," according to the CIA.

The Ranch was evacuated in June 1957 for a series of nuclear tests "whose fallout was expected to contaminate the Groom Lake facility," the report notes, but by September 1959 the CIA was back, using the site to develop the A-12, the forerunner to the SR-71. Over the next year, flights shuttled work crews to and from Area 51; the runway was lengthened, new hangars and 100 surplus Navy housing buildings were installed, and 18 miles of highway to the site were resurfaced. The facility seems to have remained in operation since.

The latest declassified documents aren't exactly new revelations for Area 51 scholars - much of this is known from interviews and inferences. In researching this article, I spoke to Bill Sweetman, an expert on secret U.S. military projects, who recounted the story of Bissell, Ritland, Johnson, and LeVier finding the site in the same detail as the declassified history. Sweetman directed me to the work of Chris Pocock, who has been reading between the lines of the CIA's redactions for decades. But the new report, all 355 pages of which you can read here, does tell a fascinating story about the origins of one of America's great mysteries.

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Declassified: The CIA's Secret History of Area 51

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Area 51 is a touchstone of America's cultural mythology. It rose to notoriety in 1989, when a Las Vegas man claimed he had worked at the secret facility to discover the secrets of crashed alien hardware, spawning two decades of conspiracy theories and speculation about little green men.

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Post Eleven. One : Reflective Responses //  1 - 3

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Post Eleven. One : Reflective Responses //  1 - 3

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1. What surprised me the most about what I learned about conducting the research for this this project was how serious people are about finding out what is happening inside Area 51. I watched many videos, documentaries and read many websites regarding the conperices around the facility and the thousand of hours people have documented from their own experiences. I have seen websites and videos of people risking their lives to find out what is happening, or appearing to have risked their lives. The worst part is never actually knowing what is real and what is a elaborate scheme to make money and share false information.

2. For years I have had the painful conversation about these little green guys with black eyes and they magically talk our language. I wanted to conduct the research I needed to defend what I already knew and be able to tell people why they are not correct about their bizarre claims. I am not one to ignore others opinions over anything, but it is very hard to talk to someone old enough to pay a mortgage ad drive a car, when they think ET is walking among us. Area 51 is a military facility first designed to test top secret military planes, and to hide their new technology from the Soviet Union after World War Two ended.

3. The research I found the most interesting was involving Bob Lazar and his outrageous claims about what took place in Area 51 while he supposedly worked there. In the 1980's Lazar came forward and claimed to have worked on alien technology in a lab ran by Area 51, he claimed technology from UFOs that crash landed in the United States. While conducting my general research the security around the facility is what stood out the most. The reason this is so important is because Bob Lazar was never charged, even after 2013, with breach of contract of the wrongful release of government information. Anyone with common sense, or knows how to google search, can clearly see that Bob Lazar would have been taken out in some sort of way for the release of this information.

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Post Eleven . Two : Reflective Responses // 4 & 5 

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Post Eleven . Two : Reflective Responses // 4 & 5 

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4. When conducting my research specifically for this project I know the thing I am most likely to remember is the true upcoming story of Area 51. I have learned about the U-2 fighter jet that started the whole idea of the facility and has created over 50 years of conspiracies do the test flying of this military plane. As well as why they actually picked Area 51 to be the site where all these test flights would be taken place. They chose an abandoned World War One amory which had a 5000 foot long runway they had been buried in dust from the year of being unused.

Over the last 13 weeks what I will remember the most will to be apply critical thinking to anything you read or anything you hear throughout your life. Though it is becoming easier to find out when something is no true, it is not always that easy. Take the false medical document released about vaccinations and how now thousands of children will suffer from the hands of their parents and the lack of common sense and critical thinking applied.

5. Most Harmful: The most harmful pseudoscience is easily anything revolving alternative medical treatments. The connects to 'anti-vaxxers', Autism denial and home childbirth. The reason that all of these are the most harmful is because they can all lead to serious illnesses and complications or even death in serious cases. Not only are these pseudosciences harmful to your children, but also to children around you and the deaths of others by your hands.

Least Harmful: I believe the least harmful pseudoscience is the practices and belief of Astrology. Astrology is the belief that humans are affected by the position of the celestial bodies. I believe this is the least harmful because there is nothing you can really do about it even when you do believe in it. When we were going through our lecture about Astrology, the most you can really do to act on it is read your horoscope and act accordingly, most horoscopes are fairly light hearted and general statements about one's life that could happen whether you did believe in horoscopes or not.

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Post Eleven . Three : Reflective Responses // 6

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Post Eleven . Three : Reflective Responses // 6

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6. Though I tell my family each week what I have learned from this class and show them most post from each week, the thing that I would continue to pass on is the critical thinking process and skepticism. This was taken from week two lecture and has continued to help us each week and with each assignment. We first talk about defining the problem and what is the extraordinary claim being made, and what is the next step in solving this problem? Step two is gathering the information we need about the problem / extraordinary claim, this is what we did with all of are assignments and what I did with each link posted above. By gathering information we can see where the flaws are in the claim being made. Step three is to now evaluate the evidence we found and if it is reliable enough to be considered evidence. This forces you to find enough sources claiming the same thing and providing why their claims are true. Step four is to recognize assumptions, emotions, and biases . This applied strongly with my Area 51 topic and I needed to apply significant critical thinking to everything I came by and every link I decided to click on and add to my assignment 2 post. Step five is to find the alternatives, there should always be an alternative solutions to your answers and they should always be included while you're applying your critical thinking method.  Step six is the last step and that is to pick the best alternative to your problem and extraordinary claim. The reason why I believe this is the best thing to pass on is because it can apply to anything and everything, unlike my knowledge of Astrology. The critical thinking process can save lives and remind yourself to use common sense when hearing something you never heard before.