14 DAY TRIAL // Newly declassified documents obtained by the CIA are acknowledging the existence of the elusive Area 51 in the Nevada desert.
The documentation has been obtained by researcher Jeffrey Richelson and it describes the area as used in the U2 program, Sky News reports. It has been on record at the George Washington University's National Security Archive, but it could not be viewed by the public.
“They decided that they could not call the project aircraft a bomber, fighter, or transport plane, and they did not want anyone to know that the new plane was for reconnaissance, so [Air Force officers] Geary and Culbertson decided that it should come under the utility aircraft category,” the U2 is described.
Much to the disappointment of UFO aficionados, the secluded, top-secret area is said to have been used for testing spy planes.
The documents make no reference to alien research or any form of investigation of the Roswell incident.
"The outlines of Area 51 are shown on current unclassified maps as a small rectangular area adjoining the northeast corner of the much larger Nevada Test Site. To make the new facility in the middle of nowhere sound more attractive to his workers, Kelly Johnson called it the Paradise Ranch, which was soon shortened to the Ranch," Richelson discusses.
He also mentions the document, which discusses an addition to a strip of wasteland being approved by President Eisenhower. The location is then defined on the map as Area 51.
"It marks an end of official secrecy about the facts of Area 51. [...] It opens up the possibility that future accounts of this and other aerial projects will be less redacted, more fully explained in terms of their presence in Area 51," Richelson has commented.