Project OXCART Declassified From Area 51 208
An anonymous reader sends this excerpt from the LA Times:
"... the myths of Area 51 are hard to dispute if no one can speak on the record about what actually happened there. Well, now, for the first time, someone is ready to talk ... Colonel Hugh 'Slip' Slater, 87, was commander of the Area 51 base in the 1960s. Edward Lovick, 90, featured in 'What Plane?' in LA's March issue, spent three decades radar testing some of the world's most famous aircraft (including the U-2, the A-12 OXCART and the F-117). Kenneth Collins, 80, a CIA experimental test pilot, was given the silver star. Thornton 'T.D.' Barnes, 72, was an Area 51 special-projects engineer. And Harry Martin, 77, was one of the men in charge of the base's half-million-gallon monthly supply of spy-plane fuels."
Re:I WANT TO BELIEVE (Score:2, Insightful)
They've been cleared to not talk about the aliens.
It's all bollocks! (Score:5, Insightful)
Nuff said
Re:I WANT TO BELIEVE (Score:3, Insightful)
Regardless (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Good thing they kept it so secret (Score:4, Insightful)
...or (more likely) it was just stamped with a standard 50-year classification, and nobody wanted to be bothered to declassify it earlier. See, they don't know how long in advance things will have to remain classified, so they pick an arbitrary number far enough ahead that it won't release while it could still put our people and operations in jeopardy.
Re:Good thing they kept it so secret (Score:4, Insightful)
Geez, you just felt like ranting, right?
Do you seriously question the need to conceal the nation's highest technology from other governments?
Lying to the public is obvious. You need to lie to the public because the public aren't the only people listening. The intelligence agencies know that anything said to the public in general is also being said to foreign agencies. It doesn't work to print a story in the local paper describing what's going on with a byline to make sure no one tells the Russians.
Drugging the pilot also serves an end: they gave him sodium pentathol to ensure that he was telling them all he knew, and didn't leave anything out, consciously or otherwise. This has as much of a use to reveal something the person didn't even realize they were concealing (mental block) than it does at trying to catch someone in a conscious lie.
Forcing civilians to sign a NDA: that should be self-evident. We're dealing with the most secret technology at the time, obviously the government is going to use legal tools to help ensure that it stays secret as long as possible.
The SR-71 was still in official operation late into the 1990s, the official service record is from 1964 to 1998. This year, about 10 years after it was retired, is about the right time I would expect the government to start talking about that plane. A government will only discuss its technology in public when that technology is no longer the best or would not be a threat if another government had it. I think it's fair to assume at this point that if another air force came at us with an SR-71, that we would be able to shoot it down.
51 is silly (Score:1, Insightful)
business as usual for conspiracy theorists (Score:2, Insightful)
So we have guys who were actually working at Area 51 and say there were no ETs or ET technology there.
Will this debunk any conspiracy theory?
No.
The axioms upon which the conspiracy theories are established will be protected. The theorists will interpret reality so as to protect their cherished axioms. The theorists will just say that these men are part of the cover up and that their declaration is in fact proof of ETs at Area 51.
I'm quite sure they knew the gist of it (Score:4, Insightful)
Really, it wasn't any secret among the American public (the non consparicy nuts that is) for some time that it is a flight test facility. The Soviets likely had an easy time telling that from satellite shots. So they likely had no trouble figuring out this was a testbed for US planes. By the secrecy surrounding it, they probably had no trouble figuring out it was for secret planes.
As for the specifics, I imagine not unless they got a spy in there. All the projects that have so far been declassified in terms of secret craft, like the U2, were quite effective at being secret from the public during their development.
I imagine if one were allowed complete access to the classified American records of the facility you'd discover that yes, it is just an aircraft testing facility that has worked with lots of neat planes.
Re:business as usual for conspiracy theorists (Score:3, Insightful)
It's not meant to debunk any crazy theories. Despite the self-importance that conspiracy theorists like to ascribe to themselves, the government really doesn't give a damn what they think.
The reason this information is being released is because it's classified status has finally expired, and a few of the people who worked on these projects are happy to finally be able to tell others about them. That's it, that's all. Put yourself in their shoes. If you were part of the development team for the SR-71, you'd feel some justifiable pride in being part of the project, and would want to share the information with others. It's human nature, not some complex CIA plot to get rid of conspiracy theorists.
See, there WERE UFOs at Area 51 (Score:4, Insightful)
Anyone who saw a U2 or SR71 or F117 or other "black" aircraft flying around in the airspace near Area 51 would not have recognized what it was unless they has a security clearance. Ergo, to the general public, all of these "black" aircraft would (at the time they were being tested at Area 51 and before the public knew about it) have been Unidentified Flying Objects.
Whether there has ever been aliens at Area 51 is another matter altogether.
Re:Anyone else dissapointed? (Score:3, Insightful)
It stopped being fuel for my imagination right about the time I turned 14, and realized that most of the theories were complete garbage.
If you want to fuel your imagination, buy yourself a telescope and gaze into the heavens. The universe can inspire more awe and wonder than any crazy theory made up about a nondescript patch of desert in the middle of the US.
Re:It's all bollocks! (Score:2, Insightful)
On the other hand, if they do land, they'd be busy attacking and not hiding.
Re:I WANT TO BELIEVE (Score:3, Insightful)
Woosh.
The joke is that 6*9=42 in base 13.