Area 51 by Annie Jacobsen
Discussion
I'm reading a book about Area 51 (written by Annie Jacobsen) at the moment which is really interesting. I saw it in the shop and thought it would be about aliens, Men In Black and conspiracy theories, but (thankfully) its not, and is in fact a history of the base itself and the projects that went on there.
It tells the story of the nuclear bomb tests that were going on in the Nevada desert in the 1940's, and how the CIA scouted around the area after WW2 to find a secluded place to build and test their new spy aircraft. If you like stories about the Skunk Works projects then this will appeal, as it tells the story of the creation and testing of the U2 and the A-12/Blackbird. It also goes into detail of the nuclear bomb tests that were happening at the time, and the sometimes barbaric and ludicrous ways they went about doing it.
The book was written in 2011, and makes extensive use of material and documents that have been recently declassified or obtained via the Freedom of Information act, as well as interviewing people who worked at the site, so there is a lot of interesting information there that you probably won't have known if you've read Sled Driver or Skunk Works in the past, as IIRC they are fairly old books now.
It also goes as far as debunking the classic Roswell incident; suffice to say that the book claims the wreckage found in the desert was not from a Little Green Man's spaceship, but an aircraft from a certain Red nation designed by a pair of German brothers during WW2.
I'd recommend the book if you like the whole aviation and nuclear business the world was going through during the Cold War; the book reads like Empire of the Clouds, which was what drew me to it in the first place, and it is, at least for me, a genuinely interesting book that keeps me coming back to it each day.
It tells the story of the nuclear bomb tests that were going on in the Nevada desert in the 1940's, and how the CIA scouted around the area after WW2 to find a secluded place to build and test their new spy aircraft. If you like stories about the Skunk Works projects then this will appeal, as it tells the story of the creation and testing of the U2 and the A-12/Blackbird. It also goes into detail of the nuclear bomb tests that were happening at the time, and the sometimes barbaric and ludicrous ways they went about doing it.
The book was written in 2011, and makes extensive use of material and documents that have been recently declassified or obtained via the Freedom of Information act, as well as interviewing people who worked at the site, so there is a lot of interesting information there that you probably won't have known if you've read Sled Driver or Skunk Works in the past, as IIRC they are fairly old books now.
It also goes as far as debunking the classic Roswell incident; suffice to say that the book claims the wreckage found in the desert was not from a Little Green Man's spaceship, but an aircraft from a certain Red nation designed by a pair of German brothers during WW2.
I'd recommend the book if you like the whole aviation and nuclear business the world was going through during the Cold War; the book reads like Empire of the Clouds, which was what drew me to it in the first place, and it is, at least for me, a genuinely interesting book that keeps me coming back to it each day.
They've declassified some of the U2 development documents, where the US admit to the existence of Area 51 (like we didn't know it existed)
Worth a read I think
http://www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB434/
Worth a read I think
http://www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB434/
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