Area 51's Secrets Explored From Nuclear Experiments To Stalin's Mutant Pilots

Many of the conspiracy theories around Area 51 deal with aliens, specifically those that allegedly crashed at Roswell in 1947. According to Jacobsen, there were no aliens in 1947. The mysterious disc-shaped aircraft was a Soviet ship created by former Nazi scientists. She speculates the "aliens" in the vessel were child pilots, who were once subjects of Joseph Stalin's experiments.

Jacobsen recounts what the Air Force found when they investigated the crash: 

Unusually petite for pilots, they appeared to be children. Each was under five feet tall. Physically, the bodies of the aviators revealed anatomical conundrums. They were grotesquely deformed, but each in the same manner as the others.

They had unusually large heads and abnormally shaped, [oversized] eyes. One fact was clear: these children, if that’s what they were, were not healthy humans. A second fact was shocking. Two of the [child-sized] aviators were comatose, but still alive.

Investigators took everything from the ship to an Air Force base in Ohio, where the materials remained until 1951. When they arrived in Nevada, American scientists studied the advanced technology, using it in many programs over the next several decades.

The Soviet aircraft which allegedly crashed at Roswell in 1947, later making its way to Area 51, was significantly more advanced than anything the US military had developed at the time. Scientists couldn't determine how it hovered or flew. They believed Nazi aerospace engineers Walter and Reimar Horten designed the flying disc. When the US tracked down the Horten brothers in 1948, they confirmed they had, in fact, worked with the Soviets on aerospace technology.

In understanding the perplexing machine, however, Vannevar Bush, a Manhattan Project scientist and former science advisor to President Franklin Roosevelt, proposed a solution. He ordered engineers to dismantle the craft and reassemble the pieces to understand its mechanisms.

The American public would have felt terrified and shocked about Soviet aircraft making its way into US airspace; however, if they knew who supposedly manned the ships, the response would have involved outrage. In Jacobsen's book, she details how Stalin allegedly enlisted former Nazi doctor Josef Mengele to create a group of small, deformed pilots to fly his mysterious discs. Mengele entered into an agreement with Stalin in 1945, shortly before the end of World War II.

According to Jacobsen, Stalin told Mengele if he could create a crew of grotesque, child-sized aviators, Russia would gift him a laboratory to continue his work. Mengele held up his side of the Faustian bargain and provided Stalin with the child-sized crew. Stalin did not. Mengele never took up residence in the Soviet Union.

Mengele later escaped to Paraguay and then Brazil. He assumed the identity of another former Nazi, Wolfgang Gerhard, and died in 1979. His identity remained unverified until 1985.

Jacobsen interviewed one of the former engineers who worked on the remains of the 1947 crash and asked him why President Truman didn't tell the American people what happened. According to the engineer, the priority was advancing science at any cost, including keeping Stalin's machinations a secret.  

In 1957, the Atomic Energy Commission began Operation Plumbbob at Area 51. Operation Plumbbob involved the detonation of 29 atomic bombs between May and October 1957, one of the most extended series of nuclear weapon tests conducted by the United States. According to Jacobsen:

Nearly 7,000 civilians were badged to work at the test site during Operation Plumbbob. Another 14-18,000 employees of the Department of Defense also participated; official figures vary. 

Despite concerns about contamination and fallout, which led to proposals of canceling the tests entirely, the government assured the American public and the world at large the tests were necessary. The New York Times published a partial schedule of bomb detonations, which gave tourists a chance to see a mushroom cloud on summer vacation. As the tests progressed, viewers could see detonation flashes as far south and north as Mexico and Canada, respectively.

Scientists at Area 51 attempted to develop and test a nuclear rocket capable of launching from space. In 1958, the US government experimented with high-altitude atomic weapons. Operation ARGUS involved shooting nuclear weapons into space from ships in the South Atlantic.

James Killian ran operation ARGUS, and he believed "a nuclear explosion occurring above the Earth’s atmosphere - but within the Earth’s magnetic field - might produce an electronic pulse that could hypothetically damage the arming devices on Soviet ICBM warheads." However, it never worked.

According to Jacobsen, Killian announced dropping a bomb from a satellite would prove reckless, and it was too "cumbersome" to put one in space.

Area 51 served as home base to Operation NERVA (Nuclear Engine for Rocket Vehicle Application), an effort by NASA and the Air Force to send astronauts to Mars using nuclear power. These organizations intended the late 1960s program as a public enterprise, but its details remained a secret. Workers entered underground bunkers where they were developing a massive nuclear engine through a series of passages, tunnels, and steel doors.

When it was at full power, Jacobsen says NERVA "operated at a temperature of 2,300 Kelvin, or 3,680.6 degrees Fahrenheit, which meant it also had to be... cooled by liquid hydrogen on a permanent basis." At one point in 1965, Phoebus, an iteration of NERVA, "suddenly... ran out of [liquid hydrogen]... and overheated in the blink of an eye.” Area 51 called in HAZMAT teams to clean the radiation.

When nearby Caliente, NV, reported iodine-131, a radioactive byproduct of nuclear processes, in their water supply during the 1960s, the Pentagon denied any nuclear testing took place. The engine went underground only three days before the iodine appeared.

Eventually, funding for NERVA faltered, and public interest in reaching Mars waned. President Nixon officially canceled the project in 1973.