Original subtitles

NARRATOR: A short flight from Las Vegas,

deep in the Nevada desert, lies Area 51

the CIA's secret.

A giant clandestine base that remained unacknowledged

and disavowed by the U.S. government

for almost sixty years.

But in August of 2013,

the CIA finally admits this place is real,

and today, Richard Coe, a former U.S. Air Force pilot,

is heading straight toward it.

RICHARD "TEX" COE: They just picked us up back on radar.

They lost us for a little while because of the terrain.

NARRATOR: Coe is providing a legal tour

of the perimeter of Area 51,

some of the most heavily restricted airspace on Earth,

and he's being tracked by the Air Force.

COE: They obviously want to keep an eye on us,

because anytime civilians are operating so close to restricted airspace

they prefer to obviously know where we are, and what our intentions are.

NARRATOR: Located at Groom Lake,

Area 51 is surrounded by restricted airspace,

covering 440 square miles.

COE: But as we get closer and closer,

I anticipate they're gonna get more and more curious

about what we're doing over there.

NARRATOR: He's 12 miles out, and at 10,000 feet,

America's heavily guarded secret base comes into view.

TOWER (over radio): 8, 6, 2 Kilo Juliet say destination.

Are you familiar with restricted airspace?

NARRATOR: Entering any controlled airspace in the U.S.

post-9/11 is high risk.

But out here, security is tighter than almost anywhere else in the country.

The box that surrounds America's top secret base

is designated 4-8-0-8 north.

And the tower now issues an explicit order

for the pilot to change course.

TOWER (over radio): Skyline 6 Kilo Juliet, turn North immediately,

sir, for restricted airspace.

NARRATOR: But it's not just the airspace around Area 51

that's heavily guarded.

Aerospace historian Peter Merlin

has been researching Area 51 for the last 30 years.

PETER MERLIN: Not just anyone can get into Area 51.

It's surrounded by harsh desert,

but also restricted military land.

There is no fence.

There are just orange posts marking the border,

and they're hard to see.

NARRATOR: Area 51 is obscured from the road by mountains,

and is protected by a security cordon

radiating at least ten miles from the hidden base.

Even on public land,

activity here is monitored by the military.

MERLIN: Any vehicles driving down

the Groom Lake road are detected by magnetic sensors.

Each one sends an electronic signal to the guard-house,

alerting them so that they know where you're coming from,

and how fast you're making progress down the road.

NARRATOR: 13 miles past this point

is one of these security outposts.

MERLIN: So this is the boundary of Area 51.

We've got security guards watching us from the hilltop.

Warning signs telling us not to go any further.

There are orange posts that mark the boundary itself.

No fences, no gates, and cameras watching us from the hilltops.

We don't want to cross this line.

If we do, we'll be arrested.

NARRATOR: But according to one former Area 51 security guard,

trespassers in the past faced a worse outcome.

FRED DUNHAM: If they demonstrate

they were going to try to penetrate,

you know, they, they gave me the all clear to waste 'em.

NARRATOR: But what's going on here in the Nevada desert?

Why is the U.S. government trying so hard to keep people out?

Finally, the truth has emerged

in declassified documents just published in August 2013.

According to a report released by the CIA,

Area 51 was created in 1955

for a single purpose:

to test a top secret aircraft project,

codenamed "Aquatone."

"Aquatone" is the Cold War codename for the U-2,

an aircraft built to spy over the Soviet Union

at a time when Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev

publicly boasts about his country's nuclear capability.

TONY BEVACQUA: They were bragging about their missiles.

They were bragging about their bombers.

They were bragging about this and that,

uh, that got our government's attention.

NARRATOR: In the 1950s, U.S. reconnaissance aircraft

are vulnerable to Soviet fighters and surface to air missiles.

Flying spy missions behind enemy lines

in conventional aircraft is too risky,

so the covert "Aquatone" project

is designed to fly outside the range of Soviet air defenses.

Capable of flying at 70,000 feet,

13 miles above the Earth,

the U-2 has a range of 3,000 miles.

More than enough to operate behind enemy lines.

BEVACQUA: I did not know the name of the aircraft,

or what it looked like, but I knew one thing about it.

It's a high flyer.

NARRATOR: Tony Bevacqua joins the secret venture

in 1957 as a pilot.

BEVACQUA: Well, in this locker is a lifesaver

that we wore in the U-2

called the partial pressure suit.

The partial pressure suit kept you alive.

If you lost pressurization,

these outside hoses blow up

and squeeze these even tighter,

and that's what prevents the blood from boiling.

NARRATOR: In addition to life support systems,

the CIA's spy plane

carries 700 pounds of the latest photo imaging equipment.

With this technology, the U.S. can, in theory,

get its eyes inside the Soviet Union undetected.

But to test the new reconnaissance jet,

the CIA working with the U.S. Air Force,

needs a remote location.

MERLIN: Groom Lake was selected

because it was in a very sparsely populated area of Nevada.

It looks very much like what you see behind us.

It's a flat, featureless plain of hard packed clay.

It can support the weight of any aircraft,

so it's a perfect natural landing field.

NARRATOR: In 1955,

construction of America's secret base begins.

MERLIN: The airfield that emerged

from the primordial lake bed,

began with a 5,000-foot-long runway.

Then they needed hangars, so three hangars were built,

along with a few warehouses,

administration buildings, a chow hall,

and rudimentary accommodations for the workers,

consisting of, essentially, a trailer park.

NARRATOR: Named after a simple grid reference

on an atomic energy commission map,

the newly created Area 51

is seen here in a 3D rendering

of the earliest known high-altitude photograph

that shows the layout of the CIA's top secret base...

the place where Tony Bevacqua arrives to work on the U-2.

BEVACQUA: When I got off there at Groom Lake,

I see a runway, a little tower,

a couple hangars,

a community center-type, uh, building.

We slept in trailers,

and, uh, there were two or three of us in each one.

No TV, no radio.

It was pretty sparse.

NARRATOR: Given the secrecy of the CIA project,

all of the people selected to work at Area 51

are subject to intense scrutiny.

BEVACQUA: Security there was absolutely

very tight. Very tight.

Being informed on what you can talk about or not talk about

starts right at the very beginning.

It's just that way.

You don't talk about anything that's classified.

NARRATOR: To ensure secrecy,

and to protect the real purpose of the U-2 spy plane,

the CIA creates a cover story.

It announces that the high-flying U-2

is going to be flown out of a place called

"Watertown Strip, Nevada"

on weather observation missions.

But in the late 1950s, CIA documents confirm

that U-2 operations at Area 51

are disrupted by another top secret government program.

On the edge of the Nevada testing range,

the home of America's nuclear program,

Area 51 lies downwind of radioactive fallout.

JULES KABAT: One of the things that started bothering me

about working up there

is that it's directly northeast of weapons test.

The prevailing winds in Las Vegas are from the southwest,

and when they were doing above-ground testing,

all this radioactive dust would fly into the air,

and of course there was plenty to worry about

due to fallout.

NARRATOR: For more than two years,

as America tests nuclear warheads,

just 30 miles to the southwest,

the CIA's secret airstrip in Nevada

remains largely unoccupied,

too dangerous due to nuclear fallout.

But despite the interruptions at the base,

the CIA starts a new project:

one that will define the future of Area 51.

NARRATOR: Today, America's stealth aircraft

have a reputation for near invisibility to enemy radar.

But back in the late '50s,

the only way to achieve stealth

is flying at extreme altitude.

King of these birds is the CIA's U-2.

But on May 1st, 1960,

America's top secret spying mission

over the Soviet Union is blown

when a USSR surface to air missile

downs a high-flying U-2

piloted by Francis Gary Powers.

We now know that the CIA predicted this might happen.

MERLIN: The CIA knew that Soviet

surface to air missile technology was going to catch up

to the point where it could shoot down a high flyer like the U-2.

It was no longer enough to have an airplane

that could just fly several times the height of a normal airplane.

NARRATOR: A CIA stealth program,

codenamed "Project Rainbow,"

is green-lit to camouflage the U-2.

MERLIN: In an effort to make the U-2

less vulnerable to Soviet radar,

the test team at Area 51

applied a layer of radar absorbent material

to the fuselage of the U-2 prototype.

It consisted of a conductive grid pattern

on a flexible sheet,

which was attached to a layer of honeycomb

glued to the surface of the aircraft's skin.

The grid pattern earned the material the nickname "wallpaper."

NARRATOR: But adding "wallpaper" adds weight to the aircraft,

and reduces its ability to fly high,

making it more vulnerable to Soviet defenses.

MERLIN: Because the "wallpaper" was not a huge success,

the CIA began looking into the idea

of a successor to the U-2.

An airplane that would be able to fly higher and faster,

and be less visible to radar.

NARRATOR: Unlike the U-2,

the CIA's next aircraft project,

codenamed "Oxcart,"

has stealthy capabilities engineered into it from day one.

PETER LAW: They told us that this program was so classified

that the documents weren't even marked,

because if somebody accidentally

had a folder that blew out of their hands

and the papers went blowing down the street,

that if it said "secret" on it, everybody'd wanna know what it was.

But if it didn't have any markings whatsoever,

the people would just sweep it up

and throw it into a trash can,

and not worry about the fact that it was classified.

NARRATOR: Details of this CIA operation were top secret for decades.

But now, with the recent release of CIA documents,

it's okay for men who worked on the so-called Oxcart program

to reveal some of their experiences at Area 51.

One of them is Thornton TD Barnes.

THORNTON TD BARNES: It took me 3 months to be cleared for the project.

At that particular time,

Oxcart was the most important thing the United States was doing.

We were developing the stealth plane,

something no one else had been able to do.

They told us "we do not want you to record it."

"Do not talk about it. It doesn't exist."

NARRATOR: Secrecy is all-important,

because Project Oxcart's new jet,

called the A-12,

is equipped with state-of-the-art materials

to reduce its visibility to radar.

LAW: A-12 was the best aircraft ever built,

and it was so far ahead of anything else

that people had on the boards.

NARRATOR: Designed to fly at 90,000 feet,

and at speeds faster than a speeding bullet,

the CIA's A-12 spy-plane

is built to withstand temperatures

hundreds of degrees greater than the U-2.

Peter Law, a thermodynamic engineer at Lockheed,

worked on the high-flying aircraft

at the company's legendary Skunk Works factory

in Burbank, California.

LAW: When you're flying the speed of the U-2,

everything's too cold.

Now, when you fly the speed of the A-12,

now it's too hot.

NARRATOR: The only metal light enough and strong enough

to withstand the high temperatures

Lockheed's A-12 is exposed to is titanium--

in short supply in the United States.

Ironically, back then,

the Soviet Union is the only reliable place

to source the titanium they need.

So the CIA creates a series of dummy companies

to buy the material directly from its Cold War enemy.

LAW: Russia supplied the titanium

that made the A-12s.

Of course, they didn't know that.

That was another amazing thing for us as engineers. Wow.

We're making something out of their material

to go take pictures over their country,

and, uh, they probably wouldn't have been

too eager to sell us that titanium if they knew where it was going.

NARRATOR: Lockheed engineers design the A-12

to be difficult to spot on radar,

but to test it out, they need to evaluate its radar cross section.

MERLIN: Radar cross section is the key to stealth.

An airplane presents a certain signature to the radar,

depending on how reflective it is.

You could have a small aircraft

that's extremely reflective, and looks large on radar,

or a large aircraft that's not particularly reflective,

that looks relatively small on radar.

The key to stealth is making the radar signature

as small as possible.

NARRATOR: At Area 51, the radar signature of an aircraft

is evaluated on a pylon,

affectionately called "the pole,"

a covert facility situated

at the northeast end of the Area 51 complex.

On the top of this sixty-foot structure,

a full-scale model of the A-12

is subjected to 18 months of testing.

BARNES: We had all these radar...

Every radar known to man at the time

looking at the object we had on the pole,

and we would could record the returns

of the pattern or the signature.

We'd get the reflections off of that object,

and we could rotate it. We could tilt it,

and that's what we were doing to develop stealth.

NARRATOR: Even for those cleared to work on the A-12 project,

access to the radar facilities at Area 51

is strictly on a need-to-know basis.

BARNES: People were not allowed in my building

because we were doing things there that they had no need to know.

LAW: I didn't have the level of clearance

that the people needed to be able to deal with signatures.

That was the highest level of security,

and they didn't ask me about the thermal part of it.

Even though they needed to know an answer,

I didn't have a need to know that they existed.

That's how compartmented things were.

BARNES: It was a culture, and we thought nothing of it.

You just didn't ask.

NARRATOR: To support the CIA's top secret Oxcart project,

the development of its A-12 spy-plane,

Area 51 needs some major changes.

MERLIN: The CIA decided to invest a great deal of money

to build up the base.

That included adding a brand new runway,

8,500 feet long, made of concrete,

with a 6,000 foot extension onto the lake bed.

NARRATOR: In addition, three new hangars are built

on the north side of the base.

These are designated hangar 4, 5 and 6.

MERLIN: The A-12, Project Oxcart,

turned Area 51, which was essentially a temporary facility,

into a permanent one.

NARRATOR: By February 1962,

Area 51 is now equipped to deal with

a working prototype of the A-12,

but first, the secret plane has to get there.

The aircraft can't fly until it's been tested at Area 51,

so Lockheed and the CIA have to figure out

how to move it over 300 miles

from the factory in Burbank, California

to Area 51 in Nevada.

And they have to keep it a secret.

TOM STANKS: They put it in what they call a box.

105 feet long and 35 feet wide.

And they had the aircraft inside of it.

NARRATOR: Area 51 security guard Tom Stanks

joins the convoy of California Highway Patrol

and CIA operatives

who accompany the aircraft,

as these remarkable photographs show,

widening the road, cutting down trees,

and removing signposts, so the enormous truck can pass.

STANKS: We always parked in an area that was remote

on the sides of the roads.

The times that we stopped overnight

is when the questions would be asked.

I know at one time we had two children on bikes,

and they said, "What have you got in that thing?"

I said, "Flying saucer." (laughs)

They said, "Yeah?" I said, "Yeah, that's right.

Flying saucer." And, "I don't believe you."

I said, "Well, maybe it's not." (laughs)

NARRATOR: In total, eighteen convoys are needed

to deliver the CIA's A-12s to the test site.

Tom Stanks is no longer cleared for access to Area 51,

so today, this is as far as he can take us.

STANKS: Well, here we are.

We made it three days

from Burbank, California to here.

This is where the Nevada test site is,

and not too far down the road

is where the Nevada Highway Patrol leaves us,

and the Mercury patrol catches us,

and they take us to the Area 51 test site.

NARRATOR: 60 years ago,

57 miles down this road,

the CIA's top secret aircraft arrives at Area 51,

and so begins a new chapter

in the development of stealth.

NARRATOR: By early 1960,

America is playing technological catch-up

with its archenemy, the Soviet Union.

Intelligence gathering is the new battleground of the Cold War,

and over 50 years later,

documents now reveal

that the Central Intelligence Agency at Area 51

goes to extreme lengths to keep its A-12 airplane project,

codenamed "Oxcart," under wraps.

In 1962, Las Vegas resident Tom Stanks

works as a security guard at the test site.

His job: to make sure that only those with the right credentials

get access to the base.

STANKS: They had the planes coming in

in the morning and leaving in the afternoon.

And just like any airport or airline,

everyone had a badge.

KABAT: They took the badge away from you

so it couldn't be tampered with,

and when you came back the next day,

they would match the badge to your face.

I remember guards being very fussy about

taking it away from you before you left,

giving it back to you, comparing it every time.

NARRATOR: Jules Kabat is just 22

when he is recruited to work at Area 51.

Like everyone employed to work on special projects at the base,

he needs to be cleared for access,

a process that takes months to complete.

KABAT: Because they didn't have much in the way of computers back then,

they had to do it the old fashioned way, with legwork.

So, I remember neighbors,

friends saying they were visited by the FBI,

or some other agency,

to see whether or not I was a foreign agent.

NARRATOR: The need for this intense security

is driven by one factor.

Declassified documents released by the CIA

show that in the early 1960s,

Area 51 is focused on getting its A-12 stealth plane project,

codenamed "Oxcart,"

out of development and into operation...

a project so sensitive that even the aircraft have code names.

BARNES: We didn't call the planes "planes."

We called them "articles."

That was the terminology that we used for 'em.

Each had a different article number.

The first one was article 121.

,We had article 127, 131. Different article numbers.

NARRATOR: At every level, the A-12 program

is protected by acronyms and misinformation.

Even the identity of the A-12 pilots.

BARNES: They had pseudo names entirely.

They did not use their real names.

The CIA got the names off of gravestones in Europe,

and assigned them to the pilots.

NARRATOR: But Oxcart's need to know security

means even the "drivers" as the pilots are called,

are not cleared to know everything.

BARNES: The pilot did not even know what his mission was.

All he knew is at a certain point

along this flight, he has flipped this switch,

make this turn to this angle,

go so long, turn here, turn here,

come home, and not say anything about it.

NARRATOR: These precautions are necessary.

By the 1960s, the Soviet Union has leapfrogged the U.S.

in the Cold War battle for military espionage.

In 1957,

the Soviet Union launches Sputnik One,

becoming the first nation on Earth

to put a man-made object in space.

(beeping)

ANNOUNCER: Until two days ago,

that sound had never been heard on this Earth.

Suddenly, it has become as much a part of 20th century life

as the whir of your vacuum cleaner.

NARRATOR: The world's first artificial satellite

is an aluminum sphere about the size of a beach ball.

Inside, a battery pack and basic radio

sends out a repeating pulse.

But although it doesn't actually do very much,

it catches the world's attention,

and America, off-guard.

BARNES: When Sputnik launched,

we heard that little satellite going over.

"Beep, beep, beep, beep."

We realized we've got a problem. They're ahead of us.

We didn't know how far ahead.

NARRATOR: In the years that follow,

the Soviets launch more and more sophisticated satellites,

many of them flying over the United States,

and worryingly for those on the Oxcart program,

photographing Area 51.

BARNES: We had the A-12 prototype on the pole for 18 months.

But every time a satellite would come over,

we knew that morning

what time it would be coming over the horizon.

Our intelligence was that good,

and we would have to take it off the pole

and run it into a building until the satellite passed.

NARRATOR: But even these precautions have their limitations.

BARNES: Ironically, we learned many, many years later

that they had gotten the shape of the A-12

from the shadow, because the ground was cooler

underneath it.

We'd moved the plane; it was gone,

but they could tell that it had been sitting there

because of the difference in the heat.

NARRATOR: By the late 1960's,

Soviet satellites aren't the only things

adding new impetus to technology development at Area 51.

The Vietnam War is in full swing,

and for American fighters,

the Soviet-built MiG aircraft

is proving to be a real handful.

BARNES: We knew the Russians had come up with something

that was great.

It's, it's whacking us. This--

It's knocking our pilots out of the sky.

We thought it was a super plane.

NARRATOR: Now, the CIA dossier

published in August 2013,

lifts the lid on an Area 51 project

that's been hidden from the public for the last fifty years.

NARRATOR: Declassified CIA documents

contain a previously censored history

of why and how Area 51

grew out of the Nevada desert,

and reveal a revolving picture of the nature of the work

carried out there.

BARNES: Area 51 is not really an airbase.

It's a laboratory. It's a technological laboratory.

It's where we were exploiting enemy technology,

and analyzing the capabilities of Soviet Union.

NARRATOR: In 1968,

this "laboratory" becomes America's base of operations

for a major new initiative:

to test and evaluate its enemies' jet fighters,

a program that grows out of U.S. losses

in the early years of the Vietnam War.

For every Russian-built MiG-21

American pilots shoot down in the conflict,

nine U.S.-built F-4 fighters are being destroyed.

In 1968, the U.S. acquires a MiG-21

that has been flown to Israel by an Iraqi defector.

The CIA secretly ships it to Area 51

for evaluation testing

under the codename "Have Doughnut."

BARNES: The first time I saw this baby was in 1968.

One just like this, Groom Lake, Area 51.

We pretty well tore it down and looked at everything.

The radios, the hydraulics,

uh, the engines.

Everything about this plane, we examined it.

NARRATOR: The results of the MiG-21 evaluation

at Area 51 are clear.

It isn't the aircraft that's the problem.

BARNES: We realized it wasn't necessarily the planes.

It was our people did not know how to fight.

Simple as that.

NARRATOR: Now, Area 51 becomes the birthplace

of a new top secret initiative:

training American fighter pilots

how to defeat Soviet MiGs in a dogfight.

BARNES: We realized that it took ten missions in the war zone

for a pilot to become experienced enough that he might survive the war.

So we decided with what we learned at Area 51,

let's give these pilots those ten missions

in Nevada before we send them to the war zone.

NARRATOR: To support this new program,

Area 51 undergoes a new construction phase.

For the third time in its short life,

more facilities are added.

Five more hangars are constructed at the south end of the test site.

And to prevent any sightings of the top secret

U.S.-flown MiGs out at Groom,

the airspace directly above the range is closed...

permanently.

But despite extensive measures to ensure the secrecy of the MiG training

and combat operations at Area 51,

its cover is almost blown in 1974...

when Skylab astronauts unwittingly photograph the base from space.

The Skylab incident

marks a watershed moment in the life of Area 51.

By the mid-1970s,

the agency's U-2 and A-12 projects

are winding down at the test site.

Advances in satellite technology

make high-flying spy planes redundant.

Now, the U.S. Air Force takes control of the base.

MERLIN: That was a huge moment in the history of Area 51.

We're transitioning from use by the intelligence community

to the Department of Defense,

ushering in one of the most significant advancements

in military technology: the stealth revolution.

NARRATOR: When the U.S. Air Force

takes control of Area 51 in 1978,

it's in the middle of the most highly classified project

ever to have been through the test site.

BARNES: The most exciting plane

that I worked on at Area 51 was the Have Blue.

The prototypes when they brought that thing in,

it looked like something we'd never seen before in our lives.

NARRATOR: The flat-faceted fuselage of the Have Blue

is a revolutionary design.

And it needs to be.

The experimental jet is designed with one goal in mind:

stealth.

Unlike the A-12, which can be seen on radar

but compensates by flying in the stratosphere

at supersonic speeds,

the Have Blue, a sub-sonic jet,

is designed to be virtually invisible to radar.

LAW: When it took its radar tests,

the people that were inside that weren't cleared

were looking at the radar and said,

"Well, your, your model must have fallen off the, uh,

off that, uh, pole out there,

because there's nothing up there anymore."

NARRATOR: Not bad for an aircraft 38 feet long,

and with a wingspan of 22.

This success sees the U.S. Air Force

green-light production of an operational aircraft,

designated the F-117.

But creating the world's first aircraft

virtually invisible to radar

has an impact on those who work at Area 51.

Some employees claim

the disposal of anti-radar coatings

used on the jet harms their health,

an allegation that forces the president of the United States to take action.

NARRATOR: Area 51.

Since its creation in 1955,

the exotic nature of the CIA aircraft tested here

break aviation records,

flying higher and faster than any aircraft before.

During the Cold War,

these clandestine jets

flying from the secretive base

fuel a raft of UFO sightings,

firing the imagination of Americans

already steeped in '50s UFO culture.

MILITARY OFFICER: The recent sightings

are in no way connected

with any secret developments

by any agency of the Unites States.

NARRATOR: But denials that Area 51

is at the heart of a UFO conspiracy

fuels speculation,

and in the 1980s,

it reaches fever pitch with the extraordinary claims

of this man.

BOB LAZAR: Hi. I'm Bob Lazar.

During late 1988 and early '89,

I worked on the propulsions systems of extra-terrestrial vehicles

for the United States government.

NARRATOR: Lazar's claims about Area 51

makes the base one of the most talked about locations

in the world.

But the unwanted attention can't come at a worse time

for the U.S. Air Force.

Area 51 is right at the heart

of its most highly classified project yet:

stealth.

MERLIN: The level of secrecy surrounding stealth

is considered to be comparable to or exceeding

that of the Manhattan Project: development of the atomic bomb.

Stealth was absolutely vital

to the future of military technology.

NARRATOR: The creation of what becomes the F-117 stealth bomber

takes Area 51 into new era of stealth technology.

In particular, the development of radar absorbing materials,

or RAM.

MERLIN: The concept of RAM is not classified,

but its composition

was one of the hottest secrets at all of the era.

To this day,

the Defense Department considers RAM to be top secret.

NARRATOR: Radar absorbing material,

as the name suggests,

is a class of materials used to disguise a vehicle,

or structure, from radar.

Experts surmise that the F-117's RAM

is made up of sheets about the thickness of linoleum,

and a paint containing tiny spheres coated with iron ferrite,

which vibrate when hit by radar waves.

The exact make-up of this radar absorbent material

is still top secret,

but according to this man,

RAM is the reason he's dying.

DUNHAM: Well, these pills here are, uh, vitamin D-3 pills,

which are supposed to be very good for

stimulating, uh, cell growth in the, the lungs and things like that.

The doctors told me that I might live to be 64.

That means I only have a year left.

NARRATOR: Fred Dunham, a former Area 51 security guard,

suffers from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease,

a condition he says he developed

overseeing the disposal of barrels of RAM

in burn pits at Area 51 in the 1980s.

DUNHAM: The drums contained carbon fiber resin,

and sealants for making the wings,

uh, and different parts of the aircraft,

that were very hazardous when they were burned.

NARRATOR: No satellite images of Area 51

that show these burn pits are known to exist,

but according to Dunham's description,

it is possible to plot them onto a map of the base.

DUNHAM: They were just west of the south gate control point.

There was at least six, maybe seven burn pits

that were right within 300 yards

of the base population.

NARRATOR: According to Dunham, each burn lasts 24 hours,

and happens twice a week

for a three-year period through the mid-'80s,

exposing him to clouds of toxic fumes.

DUNHAM: It was like someone had burned

a bunch of rubber tires.

Uh, the soot that was in the air was unbelievable.

NARRATOR: Dunham believes his breathing problems

come from the soot and the fumes.

DUNHAM, I'm a non-smoker,

and the doctor told me that my lungs look like

the lungs of an 80-year-old man

who had smoked four packs of cigarettes every day.

NARRATOR: In the '90s,

the former security guard, along with others,

brings a case against the state for medical compensation.

But the case is rejected when President Clinton signs a determination

which excludes Groom Lake from any investigation,

on the grounds of national security.

NARRATOR: For nearly 60 years,

the true story of Area 51 was hidden from the public.

But the release of CIA documents in 2013

helps change that.

MERLIN: These documents from various government agencies,

finally declassified,

confirm the existence of Area 51 as an official entity,

and we can at last begin to unravel its secrets.

NARRATOR: Those documents, along with satellite imagery,

are now helping to map

how top secret programs at Area 51

have changed the base,

a place we now know continuously evolves

in line with national priorities,

and with each program that comes along.

MERLIN: If you looked at the aerial

and satellite photographs taken over the years,

you can see the changes.

New runways. New hangars. More infrastructure.

It's constantly growing and changing and building.

This is not a static facility.

It's extremely dynamic.

NARRATOR: As Area 51 has changed,

so, too, has its role.

BARNES: Area 51 is not really in the common sense, an airbase.

Area 51 is the proving ground.

That's where we can say it works, or it doesn't work.

You know, a lot of the missions will not touch down there.

They will just fly over the base,

and we can evaluate what they have come up with.

It's a proof of concept facility.

It's where we prove this will work or this will not work.

NARRATOR: Created in the '50s to test the U-2,

the CIA's secret base has given the U.S.

the edge over its enemies

for more than half a century.

MERLIN: Area 51 is the place

where we have developed all of our stealth technologies,

from the early advances of the A-12 through the modern era.

Every U.S. stealth aircraft

has been tested at Area 51 in one way or another.

NARRATOR: These programs include

the B-2, advanced cruise missile systems,

the Air Force's latest operational strike aircraft,

the Raptor, and drones,

now commonplace in combat zones across the world.

The Raptor, unlike the F-117,

is still an operational aircraft.

But it, like all of the U.S. Air Force stealth programs

carried out at Groom Lake in the 1980s and 1990s,

remains highly classified.

MERLIN: Today we know about the programs like the U-2,

Oxcart, the stealth fighter,

and other demonstrators have come since then. Tacit Blue. The Bird of Prey.

But there are so many other projects, both manned and unmanned,

that we may not hear about for decades.

BARNES: Area 51 is light years ahead.

There's no one even coming close to the technology

we have developed out there.

And it will continue, but that's the only way

that we can remain free, safe,

and be superior, is Area 51.

NARRATOR: It's clear that the CIA story of Area 51

has played a key role in keeping America safe from its enemies.

Beginning with the U-2 and A-12 projects,

America's secret base saved lives in Vietnam.

BARNES: The "Have Doughnut" program

completely turned around the kill ratio in Vietnam

from 9 to 1 against us.

We'd lost over 8,000 helicopters alone,

knocked down by the MiGs,

and we completely turned that around

to the point today we hadn't lost a plane to

air to air combat in several wars. Not years, but wars.

NARRATOR: And it's a trend that continues with the F-117,

an aircraft that fought successfully in not one,

but two wars in Iraq,

with no losses.

LAW: When you start off with an experimental program,

you have to cross your fingers that everybody knows what they're doing,

and it's gonna work out right.

And of course, we were amazed

that it could do so well with bullets flying through the air,

and missiles and everything coming up.

We were all wondering, "Oh, my God.

How can anything survive all that stuff in the air?"

NARRATOR: Now, nearly 60 years after its creation,

Area 51 is still at the forefront of military technology development.

We may not know what projects are being developed there,

but for those who have played a part in its story,

the need for these secret projects is still as great as ever.

LAW: I'm sure that there's something else going on out there.

I'm glad that we're doing it, and I don't have a need to know about it,

but I'm glad somebody's going to the next step.

We did our best.

Now somebody else has the project that's gonna be

doing something in the future,

and I'm glad this country is doing things that we don't know about.

Just like we were doing things that they didn't know about.

Captioned by Point.360