Message posted by Chuck Clark on July 26, 2005 at 7:30:52 PST:

The idea of Area 51 moving was started by a story by Jim Wilson of Popular Mechanics magazine in June, 1997. In that article, he claimed that the operations had moved to Area 6413 in eastern Utah (the number is based on a block of restricted airspace, R6413 as it is designated on flight charts). That location is located about 15 or 20 miles south of Interstate 70 at Green River and about 20 miles west of Moab. I have visited the site and all that is there is a disused cold war era ICBM launch facility. That entire area is a very popular 4-wheeling recreational area – not the best site selection for a secret facility.

Area 51 remains intact. It was undergoing an expansion in 1997, when Wilson claimed it hat moved, and it has since undergone another growth spurt in 2002/2003. Development projects at Area 51 come and go, so some projects that begin at Groom Lake do on occasion move to other facilities. The best known recent example of this is the F-117 Stealth Fighter, it was initially developed and tested at Groom, then the project was moved to TTR where pilot flight training took place.

There are other areas where R&D takes place (Edwards, China Lake, Dugway, White Sands, etc), but there just aren’t that many places as remote as Area 51 in the lower 48 states. Weather would preclude significant testing in Alaska, and there are way too many tourists in Hawaii (and the land isn’t cheap either).

In Reply to: Is area 51 there posted by Apracticalguy on July 26, 2005 at 3:27:40 PST:

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