Existence of Area 51 Confirmed
The National Security Archive has released documents that prove the existence of Area 51, a secret place in the Nevada desert. Up to now the American intelligence agency CIA has denied the existence of such a facility and has not allowed the public to access special documents.
The documents that have now been released state that President Eisenhower authorized the purchase of the area. In the first years it was used to test U2 spy planes. Such planes flew at a height of 20,000 meters and collected information over Communist countries during the Cold War.
The government and the CIA have been keeping Area 51 a big secret. Over the past 50 years the facility has been used as a testing site for new weapons.
Area 51 has also been connected with UFO sightings over the past 60 years. In the 1950s inhabitants of the area reported sightings of unidentified flying objects. What they probably saw were U2 planes flying at very high altitudes.
In the past few years books and other publications have been looking into the mystery of Area 51. With the release of the new documents journalists and researchers hope that the CIA will release more information on such secret places.
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Words
- access = see, look at
- altitude = height
- authorize = officially allow
- Cold War = unfriendly relationship between the USA and the Soviet Union between the end of World War II and the collapse of Communism in 1990
- deny = to say that something is not true
- existence = the situation of existing
- facility = place that serves a certain purpose
- government = people who rule a country
- inhabitant = a person who lives in an area
- intelligence = collecting information
- look into = examine, look closer at
- National Security Archive = organisation that publishes government documents that are not thought to be secret any more
- prove = show facts
- public = people in general
- publication = document
- purchase = to buy something
- release = open to the people
- researcher = a person who looks for special information about a certain topic
- secret = not known to many people
- sighting = to see something
- site = place
- spy = to collect secret information
- state = prove, to say that’s something is true
- weapons = objects an army needs to fight a war