All language subtitles for Americas.Book.Of.Secrets.S01E04_English

[narrator] It is one of the most covert
military bases on American soil,

protecting the nation's most confidential
research and development.

You didn't have a need to know,
and you just didn't ask.

[narrator] But could Area 51
also be holding secrets?

Secrets so incredible...

Congress hasn't the slightest idea
what's going on in these facilities,

and couldn't get in if they wanted to.

[narrator] ...so shocking...

Some of the material
from the Roswell crash

went to the area known as Area 51.

[narrator] ...so terrifying...

Inside each hangar
was a flying saucer.

[narrator] ...that they must be
kept hidden from the public?

[Jim Marrs]
If indeed they have alien bodies

or, whoa, live aliens,

then that secret is world-shaking.

[narrator] There are those who believe
in the existence of a book.

A book that contains
the most highly guarded secrets

of the United States of America.

A book whose very existence

is known to only a select few.

But if such a book exists,
what would it contain?

Secret histories?

Secret plans?

Secret lies?

Does there really exist
America's Book of Secrets?

Just 83 miles north
from the bright lights of Las Vegas,

in the middle of the Nevada high desert,

lies the most well-known
secret location in America:

Area 51.

Area 51 is sort of the citadel of secrecy.
It's the Mount Olympus of secrecy.

It is the location of choice
for more than 55 years

for our government's deepest,
darkest secrets, our blackest projects.

Popular Mechanics once styled it
as the place

where the U.S. government
goes to be alone.

It's the one place in the United States,
in this land of freedom and democracy,

that nobody can go to.

[narrator]
Strange lights in the night sky,

unidentified flying objects,

and the impenetrable security
surrounding the mysterious facility

have helped fuel
speculation and curiosity

about what really goes on at Area 51.

For decades,
the military base has been shrouded

with dark and sinister
conspiracy theories.

But is there any truth
to the fantastic tales

told by so many over the years
about Area 51?

Or might there be
an extravagant government cover-up

to obscure the real and highly classified
activities of the base?

Is the truth about the activities
at Area 51

even stranger than fiction?

Officials insist the secrecy
surrounding sites like Area 51

is essential for national security,

and the covert technology
created and tested there

has saved
countless American lives.

You need places like Area 51.

It's a place to test
our most secret stuff.

And I think
that it is no exaggeration

to say the Cold War
was won at Area 51.

It's an area of the Nevada desert
that, during World War II,

was just a gunnery range.

Lockheed needed a place
with long, long runways

for the development
of the U-2 spy plane.

And they chose
this old gunnery range in Nevada,

which then became
Nellis Air Force Base,

Groom Lake and Papoose Lake.

[narrator]
The infamous outpost is so top secret,

it has been erased from maps
since its inception.

Back in the 1950s,
when this base was first developed,

the United States
had a lot of secret agencies

that the rest of the world
didn't know anything about.

Ironically, there were Soviet-era
satellite images of the facility

with operations going on there,

and yet on our own satellites,
it would all be digitized out.

So the Soviet Union knew that we had
super-secret programs there,

but we were still denying it
to our own citizens

that such a facility existed at all.

[narrator]
After 60 years of secret operation,

in July of 2003,

the U.S. government publicly confirmed
the existence of the military base.

Today,
Area 51 is officially described

simply as an operating location
for the development and testing

of experimental aircraft
and weapons systems.

Called The Box,

there is a strictly enforced
no-fly zone above the base.

Some claim that The Box is the nexus
of a so-called Nevada Triangle,

where thousands of planes have
mysteriously crashed and disappeared.

[Greer] Area 51 is a highly
classified airspace and base.

I mean,
this is the size of some small states.

The airspace that they control
is a huge area of classified airspace,

and that means that commercial aircraft
are routed around that area.

You cannot just fly in there
and look at what's going on.

Area 51 is ideal
for conducting secret projects.

It lies in a deep valley
surrounded by mountains,

so it's not easily observed
from the outside.

It sits in the middle
of a 625-square-mile block

of restricted airspace

where they conduct
mock combat exercises,

including air-to-air combat,
bombing and gunnery practice.

In addition, Area 51's located
right next to the Nevada Test Site,

where nearly a thousand
nuclear weapons were tested,

both above and below ground.

So it's a very remote
and forbidding place.

[narrator] A sophisticated
high-tech security system

surrounds the massive base,

ensuring that intruders
will not penetrate the perimeter.

Guards, known as Cammo Dudes,

are authorized to use deadly force,
when necessary,

to stop any and all trespassers.

Some believe the security even stretches
to public roads,

where surveillance censors may be hidden.

There are electronic sensors
that are placed along the ground.

There are censors, we're told,
that can detect your heat signature.

That's helpful at the daytime,
but it's especially helpful at night,

if you try to sneak in.

There are
very sophisticated microphones,

and they're actually hidden
in the bushes.

There are motion sensors,

small cameras
that are mounted around.

There are also snipers
working at Area 51,

and these snipers
come from Delta Force.

Delta Force snipers
are the best snipers in the entire world.

These are kill machines.

[narrator] In June 1997,

an article
in Popular Mechanics magazine

claimed that Area 51 had been
closed down and abandoned.

But many believe
the top-secret work continues

and, in fact, has expanded
in recent years.

Over the past decade,

satellite images have revealed
new runways, hangars,

buildings and radar facilities.

And every day,
secret so-called "Janet flights"

carry workers from Las Vegas
directly in and out of Area 51.

They have an EG & G terminal at McCarran
that takes you to the test site,

and you fly in a white 737,

unmarked with a red strip
down each of the fuselage sides.

It's the gateway to Area 51.

You cannot drive your car to Area 51,
but you can take their designated bus.

There's no such thing as
commuting personally

to Area 51.
It doesn't exist.

[narrator]
Before stepping foot on the base,

employees and their families
undergo an intense background check

to ensure they will maintain
complete secrecy.

But perhaps the most secure aspect
of the base

is the fact that even the workers
don't really know what goes on there.

Even though I was allowed in there,

there was things I wasn't allowed to see.

We did not talk to each other
in that sense.

You never asked,
"Just what do you do?"

'Cause once we got there,

we went our separate ways
and did our jobs.

You didn't have a need to know,
and you just didn't ask.

Workers at the base typically
have a top secret clearance,

but access within each project
is strictly compartmentalized.

It's on a need-to-know basis.

It is a base
of compartmentalized strangers.

When classified Northrop aircraft
is tested at Area 51,

people who work in
the Lockheed skunk works laboratory

are told to bring the shades down
and never to look out the window,

as the other aircraft is taxiing by,

so you can see how one doesn't
even know what the other is doing.

[narrator] The veil of secrecy
that surrounds Area 51

has fueled the conspiracy theories
about what goes on there.

Claims range from the testing of chemical
and biological warfare weapons

to time-travel machines
and even alien technology.

[Dolan]
Area 51 didn't become known

because we tested
our secret aircraft there.

It became known
because people made the claim

that there was this place called Area 51
where we tested flying saucers.

[Greer] Stories began to leak
out of that facility

of people who had seen
unusual things going on there,

related to so-called reverse engineering
of extraterrestrial vehicles

and to new research
and to our aerospace programs.

[narrator] Could the secret research
and development at Area 51

include extraterrestrial technology?

If so, just what, or perhaps who,

is being hidden at Area 51?

[narrator] February, 1980.

Air Force Major Jesse Marcel

made headlines
across the country

after giving
a controversial interview

about his eyewitness account

of the infamous Roswell incident.

Marcel claimed
the military covered up

the recovery of alien spaceships

that crashed near Roswell,
New Mexico, on July 8, 1947.

Many speculate that the material
recovered from the crash

was taken to Area 51.

The story broke and then
it got carried around the world.

It sort of opened Pandora's box.

[Marrs] 500 people are now
in the public record

that said I was there
and there's alien bodies,

and they recovered
a crashed flying saucer

exactly as the original press release

from the Roswell Army Airfield
stated.

If you were to recover something like
a downed flying saucer,

where would you take it?
You'd take it to Area 51.

It is the location of choice
for testing and developing black projects.

It's the place where you know
you can keep a secret.

[narrator] November, 1989.

In a sensational interview with
investigative reporter George Knapp,

physicist Bob Lazar
reveals shocking details

about his work in Area 51.

[Knapp] We did a live interview with Bob.
We blacked out his face.

He used a pseudonym, Dennis,

which was actually
a first name of the guy

he said was his boss at Area 51.

[narrator] Having worked at the base
from 1988 to 1989,

Lazar claimed to have seen
nine mysterious discs

in an area of the facility
called Sector Four or S4.

And he told this incredible story.

He said that he had been hired
by the U.S. Navy

to work at a place called S4,

south of Area 51
on the Papoose dry lake bed.

That a facility had been built
into the mountains,

a series of hangars,
and inside each of these hangars,

which were designed
to look like the desert,

inside each hangar was a flying saucer.

Lazar said the craft looked unusual

in the sense there were nor rivets
or bolts or anything like that

that you would see
on a regular aircraft.

It was almost like
they'd come out of a mold.

They just seemed to be like
a melted and, you know, sealed,

solid, solidified device

where you couldn't really see
how they'd been put together.

He said that the craft were powered
by an antimatter reactor,

that the fuel was something called
element 115.

He says at one point he saw one
being test-flown over the dry lake bed.

That it glowed blue
and floated as if by magic.

After that story began to circulate,
was in the news,

Area 51 became a Mecca
for UFO enthusiasts.

[camera shutter clicking]

'Cause part of what was going on
was that Bob Lazar said

that he knew when UFOs were
flying over the Nevada desert,

and so folks came from all over
the United States

and all over the world,
descending upon Area 51,

looking for UFOs.

[camera shutter clicking]

For a while, there were tourists

on the hilltops
pretty much 24 hours a day,

seven days a week.

And so the Air Force seized

an additional
5,000 acres of public land

to take away these hilltops.

[narrator]
In 2004, biologist Dan Burisch

corroborated the sensational claims
of Bob Lazar.

As a scientist who had also worked
at Sector Four,

Burisch said
the super-secret facility

housed not only
nine extraterrestrial vehicles,

but also an alien being.

Now, what he has claimed
is that he's a microbiologist

who has done work
inside the Groom Lake facility,

dealing with alien biology;
ET biology.

He's claimed furthermore
that he was selected for his work

because he was able to have
some kind of telepathic connection

with the primary being he dealt with,
which he called J-Rod.

[Birnes] And J-Rod was kept
in a kind of quasi-captivity,

working with a select group
of Americans,

scientists, but also part

of a civilian
and government community.

[Marrs] If indeed
they are retro-engineering UFOs,

and particularly if they have alien
bodies or, whoa, live aliens,

then that is a secret
that is world-shaking.

[narrator] Had Lazar and Burisch

actually witnessed extraterrestrial
technology at Sector Four?

And if so, was there a link

to the mysterious crash
at Roswell in 1947?

In response
to the extraterrestrial claims,

the Air Force released
an official report in 1994

stating the debris found
and recovered at Roswell

came from a top secret experiment
called Project Mogul.

The report claimed
that accounts of alien aircraft

were simply misidentified
crashed military balloons

that were used to detect radiation
in the upper atmosphere.

[Dolan]
And so what the Air Force said

is that the materials
that were recovered

and that you can see in the famous
photograph of Jesse Marcel

holding the balloon,
material, whatever,

they said, "This is clearly
the Mogul balloon apparatus."

[narrator]
Just a few years later in 1997,

the Air Force issued another report,

explaining that the alleged alien bodies

were, in fact, dummies
attached to parachutes

as part of the high-altitude experiment.

[Redfern] So, in other words,
the Air Force has presented four theories,

which surely begs the question,
there's got to be more going on

if you consistently
have to keep changing your story.

There have been a lot of explanations,
none of which make sense,

and there's a lot of evidence

that, in fact, we did retrieve
an extraterrestrial vehicle there.

Many of these conspiracy theories
and UFO sightings

probably help to hide the operations
of the secret base,

because if people see something strange
and report it as a UFO,

they're not taken seriously.

It acts as a perfect cover story.

While people
are distracted with theories

of extraterrestrials
and alien spaceships,

the government is actually
accomplishing a great deal of work

with real down-to-earth hardware.

[narrator]
Was the so-called alien spaceship

really just a high-altitude balloon

designed to detect radiation
from Soviet nuclear tests?

Or are the government reports

a smoke screen
for an even bigger secret,

one concerning
covert military operations

at Area 51?

[narrator]
Groom Lake, Nevada.

Scoring the floor of the salt flat

is what has become known as one
of the longest airstrips in the world,

measuring more than four miles
from end to end.

And if there were an
American Book of Secrets,

it would most likely
contain information

about hundreds of military aircraft

tested on the runways at Area 51.

There's absolutely no doubt,
if we look back into the history

of what we can verify has gone on
at Area 51 since the early 1950s,

much of it has focused upon
the design and deployment

and test flying
of highly-advanced radical aircraft.

[narrator]
In recently declassified documents,

the U.S. Air Force revealed
that they had used the Groom Lake Site

for a variety of classified activities.

Many believe that this is an admission
that the government used Area 51

to conduct top secret tests
on the U-2 spy plane.

First taking flight on August 1, 1955,

it was capable of soaring
as high as 70,000 feet,

beyond the reach
of Soviet technology.

It also had groundbreaking cameras
and optics

designed to take invaluable pictures
of facilities,

weapons and technology

being developed by the enemy
during the Cold War.

[Schratt] The U-2 spy plane
was a special aircraft,

because it was very lightweight,
had very high-altitude capability,

and very long range and nothing
could shoot it down.

For years
they were very successful.

Then finally, they were shot down,

so that's the reason why
they had to go to the next one,

which was at least three times
to four times faster

and much higher capability.

[narrator] Seven years after creating
and launching the U-2 at Area 51,

Lockheed began testing

their next reconnaissance aircraft
at the base

in April, 1962.

Top secret and referred
to only by its codename "Oxcart"

for more than 40 years,

program details only became
available in 2007.

[Barnes]
We flew 2,850 missions

out of Groom Lake with the A-12...

which flies faster than a bullet
and up to 90,000 feet.

And it's just the perfect place
that we could fly in and out,

and no one should be able to see us.

It was the first Mach-3 spy plane,

and everything had to be invented
about it.

[Merlin] Stealth technology
was essentially developed at Area 51.

The beginnings took place
during the Oxcart Program.

But in the 1970s,
this was expanded.

A project called Have Blue developed
two technology demonstrators.

They were faceted like diamonds,
very unaerodynamic shape,

but very resistant
to being tracked by radar.

This led to the development
of the F-117A stealth fighter,

which was highly successful
during Operation Desert Storm,

able to fly through
Iraqi air defenses,

which were heavily defended,
without being hit once.

[narrator] Many also believe
that Area 51

is home to the top secret research

of various unmanned aerial vehicles,
or UAVs.

[Barnes]
We tested the first UAVs in the '60s.

We had what we called the D-21,

and it was a drone that we were
designing to fly over China.

That's who was needing to spy on
at the moment, at that time.

And we would launch it off
of a modified A-12.

In other words, we'd launch it
at 90,000 feet at Mach 3.

And it was a stealth,
just like the mother ship.

And then it would
take its photographs,

and then it'd drop
them off at sea.

And then it would disintegrate itself.

[narrator]
In September, 1995,

President Bill Clinton issued
a presidential determination,

exempting Area 51
from environmental disclosure laws.

The order came following a lawsuit
filed by former Area 51 workers

who alleged they had become ill

after being exposed
to toxic fumes at the base.

Nothing could leave Area 51.

Not a computer,
not a piece of trash, nothing.

Everything
had to be destroyed there.

So, they would dig these
great big trenches,

throw all this stuff in the trench,

douse it with jet fuel,
and set it on fire.

And these gigantic clouds

of toxic muck
would float over the base.

Everybody who worked out there
breathed this stuff.

[narrator]
The lawsuit was dismissed,

based on the grounds
that further investigation

would breach national security.

Exactly what was destroyed
at Area 51 will remain a mystery.

But one secret has been confirmed.

Reverse engineering
has been going on at Area 51

since the 1950s.

The research was based
on foreign technology,

but not from out of this world.

We did reverse engineer

the Soviet MIGs.
We got our hands on the MIGs.

We needed to know why
they were whacking us bad in Vietnam.

The kill ratio
was nine to one against us.

We didn't know why,
so we went through a technical phase

where we tore them down
to see what made them work,

whatever they got,
radios, missiles,

ejection seats,
everything about them.

And then we went
into the tactical phase

where we actually flew them
against our planes

to see,
compare the maneuverability

and the-- figure out
what they could do that we couldn't.

The men and women
who toiled in obscurity out there,

for so many years,

who did all this work,
made so many sacrifices,

protected our security
and won the Cold War.

[narrator] The 625 square miles
of restricted skies above Area 51

is the most highly guarded
airspace in the world.

But with modern
satellite technology,

getting a bird's-eye view
of Area 51

has become as easy
as the click of a mouse.

With hangars and runways
now clearly seen in satellite photos,

is it possible a secret operation
exists below the desert surface?

As I understand it, Area 51 is built
like an upside-down ice cream cone.

You see a little bit at the very top,
including runways.

But then you go down,
and it spreads out.

And what goes on down there,
who knows?

All of the accounts from individuals

who've spoken to journalists
about Area 51,

all of them have said
this thing goes down deep.

You hear things like
10, 20 floors down.

[narrator] Could there be
secret underground facilities

20 floors below Area 51?

And if so,
why did they go so deep?

[Birnes] As the base was being
developed in the 1950s,

Eisenhower negotiated
an open skies agreement

with the Soviet Union.

And under
the open skies agreement,

we could look at their stuff,
they could look at our stuff.

So what we began doing,
very early in,

was using huge tunneling machines
to dig out the earth under Area 51,

under the whole desert complex.

[narrator]
Some researchers claim Area 51

is the central hub
of a vast underground network

connected to other top secret facilities
across the country,

allowing materials and technology

to be transported through
a subterranean government complex

by high-speed maglev trains
traveling at up to Mach 2 speed.

There are hundreds and hundreds

of admitted bases
that are completely secret.

Area 51 is the tip of the iceberg.

It's one of the most
popularized sites that is secret,

and it basically operates
as a cover for all the other sites.

The investigators all flock there,

when there's other secret sites
all around it

that have things
that are even more secret.

You can go underground
at Edwards Air Force Base

in the high desert of California

and very quickly
get transported underground

to the Nellis Area 51 facility.

I interviewed a gentleman
who worked for General Electric.

He said
that there were four connecting shafts

that connected to the shaft
that he was on,

and he said that one of those shafts

was twice as big
as the shaft that he was in.

And he said that you could put
two B-52s side by side

and still have six feet
on either wing tip.

[narrator] What might these
huge and wide shafts

have been designed
to accommodate?

And what could they be transporting?

Is it possible that they were built
to move around

some sort
of extraterrestrial technology?

Though there is little physical evidence

to prove
such a vast tunnel complex exists,

former Area 51 specialist T.D. Barnes

claims a large underground
testing facility can be found

near the Nevada Test Site.

According to Barnes,
the secret subterranean installation

was used from 1952 to 1972
to test nuclear rockets

developed under a program
called Project NERVA.

[Barnes] The NERVA project
was primarily a NASA project.

But we were developing
a nuclear rocket engine to go to Mars.

That's just one of the places.
You get the stories

that we worked
underground at Jackass Flats.

We did, we went underground.

We had the engines
test stems up above us

with a nuclear rocket
shooting a plume up into the air,

and it's, you know, nose down.

And we were underground
'cause it was so radioactive.

[Geiger counter clicking]

[narrator] This knowledge has led
some to speculate

that alien doomsday weapons,

high-tech lasers
and even teleportation devices

have also been tested
and developed

underground at Area 51,

through reverse engineering.

[Marrs]
Up until about 1950,

human knowledge and technology
advanced every 20 or 30 years.

But since 1950, it has exploded.

Fiber optics, LEDs,

computer technology,
night vision.

Well, where did all that come from?

Are we really so smart
that we can advance technology

in about a ten-year period

or did we find it
from somewhere else?

One of the areas
that the Air Force has looked into

is actually trying to find
ways to modify the weather.

And in sort of stark
and simple terms,

the idea
you can provoke earthquakes.

You could create tsunamis.

You could actually ensure
that certain parts of the world

didn't get rain anymore,
provoke drought.

What about the ultimate?
What about time travel?

Imagine a weapon so powerful

that you could send military units

back into the past to alter history.

It's the ultimate doomsday weapon.

[narrator] But is there any proof

to the controversial claims
of secret projects

based on reverse engineering
of extraterrestrial technology?

In 1984, documents emerged
from the National Archives

describing a top secret group
called the Majestic 12,

formed by President Truman
in September 1947,

in the wake of the Roswell incident.

The papers describe
the secret committee as 12 scientists,

military leaders
and government officials

ordered to investigate UFO activity.

Some speculate the Majestic 12
may have been based at Area 51.

They become known
as the MJ-12 documents

or the Majestic 12 documents.

They all discuss, in detail,
various elements of ET,

UFO reality
from a very deeply classified level.

And it was all created
after the National Security Act of 1947,

which was apparently rushed into law

just months after the Roswell incident.

[narrator] After months of investigation,
the Federal Bureau of Investigation

confiscated the documents
and declared the Majestic 12

were completely bogus.

But when the papers were released
back to the public,

they were heavily redacted.

Why? What were they hiding?

[Dolan]
Some of the UFO documents

that were yanked out
of the intelligence community

were just completely blacked out.

It's like almost nothing there,
or in some cases whited out

when they realized
that the black looked pretty ominous.

So you got
a phenomenon that's top secret

and yet you're not seeing any
of the top secret documents

pertaining to it.
So we've got a problem there.

[narrator]
Are the Majestic 12 documents

released in 1984 a smoking gun?

Could they prove
that the government was

and still is actively engaged

in reverse engineering
alien technology

at and possibly under Area 51?

And if the UFO claims are baseless,

why is the military base
cloaked in secrecy?

If the United States Air Force
did recover alien bodies,

they didn't tell me about it either,
and I want to know.

[narrator] Perhaps the most shocking
secrets covered up at Area 51

aren't from out of this world,

but instead
firmly planted on Earth.

[controller]
Five, four, three, two, one, zero.

[rocket roaring]

[narrator] July 20, 1969.

The crowning achievement
in America's epic space race

with the Soviet Union.

American astronauts
become the first humans

to land on the Earth's moon.

Apollo 11's
commander Neil Armstrong

becomes the first man
to walk on the lunar surface.

[Armstrong]
That's one small step for man,

one giant leap for mankind.

[narrator] Hundreds of millions
of people around the world

watched in amazement

as this milestone
of human engineering

was broadcast on live television.

But not all who witnessed the event
were convinced of its authenticity.

In fact, some believe
that the historic moon landing

and the many that followed

were all a sophisticated hoax
filmed at Area 51.

[Redfern]
One of the theories is

the reason why people
aren't allowed to go to Area 51

is because,
if they were to go there

and film, like, the sand dunes,
the mountains, et cetera,

that they would show land identical

to what's shown
on the moon landing pictures,

so people would know, hang on,
this is just filmed at the same place,

it's not outer space after all.

[Marrs]
The lights are particularly puzzling

because there shows backlighting

on the lunar lander
and on some of the photographs

and yet they didn't take any lighting
to the moon.

[Birnes]
They were shadows being thrown

because of motion picture lights,
klieg lights, camera lights

being set up
in the desert at Area 51

to simulate
the lunar landing at night.

[narrator] Those who believe
that the moon landings were faked

point to the American flag

as it was supposedly photographed
on the lunar surface.

The flag's movement, they say,
clearly shows the presence of wind,

impossible in a vacuum.

[Redfern] As they're planting it
and maneuvering it,

it seems to really shake

and wither in what people
said is the wind.

Now, the moon is a vacuum,

which means it has no oxygen,
it has no air.

In other words,
there's nothing to blow the flag.

[Marrs]
So why would the U.S. government,

you know,
fake the moon landing?

Number one,
it was national prestige.

President Kennedy had pledged

that we would have a man on
the moon by the end of the decade.

That was in the early '60s.

And when did we supposedly
land a man on the moon?

August of '69.

Just a few short months
before his deadline.

[Knapp] I think the reason that the story
has evolved around Area 51

is because the astronaut corps
did some training here in Nevada,

out in the desert 'cause it was
so much like the lunar environment

that astronauts were here for a time.
There was a connection there.

[narrator]
Might the U.S. government

have faked the moon landing
at Area 51

in order to fool the Soviets?

Or might the secrets
being kept at Area 51

be part of a more sinister
Cold War cover-up?

In 2011,

a book titled Area 51:

An Uncensored History of America's
Top Secret Military Base,

written by journalist Annie Jacobsen,
was released.

In it, she claims
Soviet leader Joseph Stalin

sent a remotely controlled
disc-shaped craft

filled with surgically altered children
into the United States,

crashing at Roswell in 1947.

[Merlin] An anonymous source,

who has since been identified
as an EG & G engineer,

who worked out
at the Nevada test site,

had this wild claim that the thing
that crashed at Roswell

was not an alien spacecraft

but was, in fact,
something from the Soviet Union.

An aircraft
with advanced hovering capabilities,

that was flown over here
and then crashed intentionally

to create a War of the Worlds
type panic in the U.S.

[Redfern]
Joseph Stalin, Soviet premier,

really wanted to frighten
the U.S. public and government,

and so the plan
was to biologically alter

a number of Russian children,

and that this would be done
by a notorious Nazi scientist

named Josef Mengele.

To sort of fake an alien invasion,

these weird-looking kids would
get out and the belief would be,

"Oh, my God, America
has just been invaded by aliens,"

that it would sort of possibly disrupt
the Earth's infrastructure,

which might allow Russia
to launch a sneak attack

or, you know,
take advantage of the situation.

[narrator] Though many dispute
Jacobsen's claim,

could outrageous tales
of what might go on at Area 51

be strategic ploys

to conceal what's really going on
at the top secret facility?

[Birnes]
There were no deformed

children at Roswell in 1947.

That was disinformation
to cover up the fact

that there were actually aliens
in the craft that crashed at Roswell.

[Marrs] The easiest way
of keeping a secret is obfuscation.

You just cover it all over with layer
after layer of story, counterstory,

claim, counterclaim,
one theory after another theory,

and then everybody
gets so confused

and arguing
over all the various theories.

That's keeping a secret.

[narrator]
How will we ever know

if any of the stories
that come out of Area 51 are true?

Could there be an intricate mythology
created to cover up the truth?

Even so, not everything
developed at Area 51

has remained under wraps.

Perhaps by looking at what we do know,

we can gain more insight
into what remains a secret.

I do believe
that the truth is going to come out.

It's going to come out.
You can't hide it forever.

And incidentally, as a society,
we're just moving way too fast.

We're on a trajectory
that is going to take us,

like it or not, into that very,
very blinding light of the truth.

[narrator]
Have the UFO stories

and conspiracy theories
surrounding Area 51

simply been a smoke screen

to protect actual
clandestine military projects?

Or is the truth about Area 51
really stranger than fiction?

Will we ever know what the government
is hiding at Area 51,

or will we continue to be in the dark?