Selects: How Area 51 Works

The secret military base Area 51 is inextricably linked to every secret, shady project the US government is rumored to be involved in – from reverse-engineering alien technology to coordinating a one-world government. The truth is much more mundane. Listen to this classic episode as Josh and Chuck break it down. See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.

• 0:04Josh Clark?

  Buy smart, drive for less, and trade for more. That's Toyota Fordability, and it starts with a great deal on an off-road-ready Tacoma or half-ton Tundra, two of Toyota's longest-lasting trucks, combining power for work, tech for adventures, and style in between. And they're built on a reputation for quality and reliability, which is why Toyota trucks are known for holding their value, which could mean big savings when it's time for your next Toyota. So get a great deal today and a great value tomorrow. Shop toyota.com for more. Toyota, let's go places.

• 0:35Speaker 02

  Hey, everybody. You ever show up late to the game and your friends have already saved your seat and your drink and even a plate? Well, that's looking out, and that's having your back. And that's exactly what AT&T does with the AT&T Guarantee. They know that staying connected matters, so they actually guarantee a network that comes through when it counts. AT&T has connectivity you can depend on, or they'll proactively make it right, just like that friend who takes care of things before you even ask. AT&T: Connecting changes everything. Terms and conditions apply. Just visit att.com/guarantee for details.

• 1:07Josh Clark?

  Stuff You Should Know is brought to you by Granger. And if you're responsible for keeping inventory stocked in a warehouse, you already know having critical parts on hand is key. But did you also know Granger offers a vast selection of professional-grade products, including barcode scanners, V-belts, and safety gear? Plus, Granger can help you get the products you need the same or next day, so you stay stocked and ready for whatever your operation demands. Call 1-800-GRANGER, click Granger.com, or stop by. Granger, for the ones who get it done.

• 1:38Speaker 02

  Hello, everybody. Chuck here. Take me to your leader. Other Things ETs Might Say. Happy Saturday. This episode is called "How Area 51 Works." It's from June 13, 2019. And, you know, we get into it. We chop it up, as they say. All about Area 51. I hope you enjoy.

• 2:05Speaker 00

  Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.

• 2:14Josh Clark?

  Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant over there, and there's Dylan, the guest producer again. And this is Stuff You Should Know. The podcast.

• 2:28Josh Clark?

  About Chuck, some pretty heady stuff.

• 2:32Speaker 03

  Yeah, I could have sworn we did this one.

• 2:35Josh Clark?

  No.

• 2:36Speaker 03

  What did we do, Roswell?

• 2:37Josh Clark?

  No.

• 2:38Speaker 03

  UFOs?

• 2:39Josh Clark?

  Yes.

• 2:39Speaker 03

  We did that at a Comic Con or something, right?

• 2:41Josh Clark?

  Yeah, we did. We did it live. I've never been satisfied with that one.

• 2:45Speaker 03

  I agree.

• 2:47Josh Clark?

  Maybe we'll redo it one day.

• 2:48Speaker 03

  Nah, this is good. This Area 51. I think this kind of covers some ground that I didn't think. I was surprised by this, is what I'm saying.

• 3:00Josh Clark?

  Yeah, me too. And I think the thing that I would wager you were surprised about, which I was definitely surprised about, was just how mundane the explanations for what goes on at Area 51 probably is.

• 3:11Speaker 03

  Yeah, secret government research. The end.

• 3:14Josh Clark?

  Right. But it probably doesn't have anything to do with reverse engineering, alien technology, and the secret seat of the one world government, the Majestic Twelve, probably isn't located there.

• 3:26Speaker 03

  No, probably just bombs and planes.

• 3:28Josh Clark?

  Probably. It makes sense. And if there is a conspiracy going on, the one conspiracy theory I saw for Area 51 that made the most sense to me is that it's actually meant to be a distraction, or has developed into a distraction for some other place that no one even knows about.

• 3:46Speaker 03

  Area 50?

• 3:47Josh Clark?

  Maybe.

• 3:48Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 3:48Josh Clark?

  Maybe. Hopefully, they're not quite that on the nose, but it's possible.

• 3:54Speaker 03

  All right, so let's go back in time, I guess, to World War II.

• 4:00Speaker 03

  And, well, first of all, Area 51, just to geographically level set, it's less than 100 miles from Las Vegas in Nevada.

• 4:09Josh Clark?

  South, South Nevada.

• 4:11Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's 600 square miles, and it's basically, if you look at it on Google Earth, it looks like a, you know, a big airfield with a bunch of buildings.

• 4:21Josh Clark?

  So the, I think the whole restricted airspace, that's part of like the test range and the airbase and all of that stuff.

• 4:29Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 4:29Josh Clark?

  That Area 51 is located in, I think that's 600 square miles, I'm pretty sure Area 51 itself is no more than 60 square miles.

• 4:37Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah, sure, just like the, it's not like there's 600 square miles of buildings.

• 4:42Josh Clark?

  Right, it's just, yeah, the installation that people think of as Area 51 is, is part of a larger, huge, big chunk of the American desert in Nevada.

• 4:53Speaker 03

  Right, so, uh, next to Area 51 is what's, what you were kind of talking about, the Nevada Test Site, and this is where, for about 10 or 11 years, the Atomic Energy Commission was setting off nuclear bombs, underground, above ground, and really sort of figuring out how to kill a lot of people very easily.

• 5:19Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 5:20Speaker 03

  And sort of the most dangerous way you could imagine.

• 5:22Josh Clark?

  Yeah, and you could see this from Vegas, like, they would have parties when they were doing the test, because Vegas is like 80 miles away or something like that, and they would have, like, atomic cocktails and viewing parties and stuff like that, and people would watch them shoot off bombs.

• 5:37Speaker 03

  Unbelievable.

• 5:38Josh Clark?

  Right, but this is obviously a part of the country that the government would be very interested in keeping people away from, not just for the bombs, but because of the, the fallout, the radiation, but also the fact that they're testing like super sensitive military equipment and weapons, right, like atomic bombs.

• 6:00Speaker 03

  Yeah, like, previous to this, it was just land, it was, there were silver mines, there was cattle and wildlife, but then in 1940, the government said, no, this is ours, and we're gonna train bombers here.

• 6:11Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 6:12Speaker 03

  And there was a big bombing range, and they were split into different numbers, and that's where the, the number Area 51 comes from, which seems... I don't know about arbitrary, but no one knows if it really matters why it was named Area 51.

• 6:26Josh Clark?

  No, I think it was, if you look at old bombing range maps, just the area where Area 51 is located was denoted as Area 51.

• 6:35Speaker 03

  Between 50 and 52 is probably the answer.

• 6:37Josh Clark?

  Yeah, that's basically, from what I saw, that was it.

• 6:40Speaker 03

  Yeah, so there's another part to this story with World War II, and this is Germany. They were a bit ahead of us as far as jets go, jet airplanes.

• 6:51Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 6:51Speaker 03

  The United States was like, this won't do at all, so we're gonna get, kind of put the gas on our jet development. And in 1943 Lockheed said, was tasked with developing a jet fighter plane. You can use a British jet engine, and they tasked engineer Kelly Johnson, said, get a team together. He got a team together, and they delivered the P-80 Shooting Star, which is one of the coolest looking old jets. All these planes are just amazing looking.

• 7:22Josh Clark?

  Agreed.

• 7:22Speaker 03

  Very, very cool.

• 7:23Josh Clark?

  It's a good idea, when we talk about a new jet or something, go look it up as we're talking about, because most of them are pretty boss looking.

• 7:29Speaker 03

  Yeah, I've never been a plane guy, but I'm getting more and more into it.

• 7:32Josh Clark?

  Is that right?

• 7:32Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 7:33Josh Clark?

  I want to do a stealth bomber episode one day, okay?

• 7:35Speaker 03

  Possibly the coolest plane.

• 7:37Josh Clark?

  Yeah. So Kelly Johnson was a, that, just that right there, delivering America's first jet on, like, under time and under budget, was huge. And he became a legendary engineer right off the bat. And they, I think Lockheed said, hey, how would you like to keep this pace up? We'll give you your team of elite engineers, whatever funding you need, whatever resources you need, just ask, you can have it, and you just keep developing stuff really quickly for us, and we will put you at the cutting edge of aviation research. And so Kelly Johnson and his team eventually became known as the Skunk Works,

• 8:18Josh Clark?

  which is legendary in aviation engineering, because they developed a whole bunch of really cool stuff. But also they had a pretty great name, too, that was fairly intriguing. But they were the first ones to kind of basically develop agile project management, from what I understand.

• 8:35Speaker 03

  Yeah, and this was all out of the, what was known as Site 1, which was in Burbank, California, just sort of a suburb of LA. But then in 1954... They said, you know what we need now is a spy plane. The CIA wants a spy plane. We want something that can fly above radar and photograph Soviet military bases, missile installations. We're gonna name it, because we name everything, Project Aqua Tone. And that's where Johnson and his team developed the U-2, the Skunk Works team.

• 9:11Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 9:11Speaker 03

  But they couldn't do this at Site 1 anymore because it had to be super, super secret, obviously because it was a spy plane. So they needed a different place. And that's where that sort of all converges onto this testing site in Nevada.

• 9:24Josh Clark?

  Yeah. Kelly Johnson, CIA officer named Richard Bissell, and a couple of pilots started scouting locations for where they could develop this in super, super secret. And they, they went to look at the old Nevada Test Range. And specifically, the thing that attracted them was a dry salt lake called Groom Lake. And one of the pilots recounted taking some like 16-pound shot put balls and dropping them on the ground to see just how sandy the ground was. And it, he said it was solid as a tabletop, this lake was, the dry lake.

• 10:00Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 10:01Josh Clark?

  They were like, this will probably do. And there's a lot of reasons why it would do, not just because there was a dry lake bed that was as hard as concrete, but because it was in an area that was already off limits to the public. The airspace was already restricted. It was remote. There are two mountain ranges that shield the, the test site from view. So this area, what became known as Area 51, was just perfect for developing a super secret spy plane in super secret. And so the CIA and the Skunk Works team said, this'll do. Let's take this place over.

• 10:40Speaker 03

  Did I ever tell you about one of the most fun things I ever got to do as a PA?

• 10:44Josh Clark?

  What? Wait, weren't you arrested by Eric Estrada? Is that what you're gonna say?

• 10:48Speaker 03

  Oh, no, that's top ten.

• 10:49Josh Clark?

  Okay.

• 10:51Speaker 03

  We did a car shoot on a dry lake bed.

• 10:55Josh Clark?

  Oh, yeah?

• 10:55Speaker 03

  In Death Valley.

• 10:56Josh Clark?

  Nice.

• 10:57Speaker 03

  And they had like a big, huge line of cars in a row, all driving in perfect synchronicity. And the director wasn't happy and they were like, "We want..." All the dust is behind them. He went, "I want dust in front of them." So the A.D. ran and grabbed the keys to a Mustang, threw them to me, and he said, "Get in that Mustang and drive a hundred feet in front of them as fast as you can, fishtailing and doing donuts and stuff."

• 11:21Josh Clark?

  Awesome.

• 11:22Speaker 03

  And I was like, "Me?"

• 11:24Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 11:25Speaker 03

  Oh, man, it was so much fun. Cause it's a dry lake bed. It's like, there's just no fear of hitting anything or flipping. Like, you could just do whatever you wanted. It was wonderful.

• 11:34Josh Clark?

  That's cool.

• 11:35Speaker 03

  It was so much fun.

• 11:36Josh Clark?

  You didn't hit a jackrabbit or anything, did you?

• 11:38Speaker 03

  Uh, just a couple. No, it was fine. It was a lot of fun. So, what was the last thing you said? Super secret?

• 11:46Josh Clark?

  Yeah, the last thing I... Well, I was talking about how amazingly perfect Area 51 is for developing a super secret spy plane.

• 11:53Speaker 03

  Yeah, so they called it Paradise Ranch, and the locals around there, they were used to, because of all the atomic bomb testing, it kind of worked out because they weren't gonna... First of all, it was in the middle of nowhere, but even the nearby communities, the ones that were close enough, it just wasn't on anyone's radar because they had always been doing weird things out there. So it's not like it pricked up anyone's ears. So it was kind of the perfect cover to be there at Paradise Ranch doing these... Development of these spy planes and stuff.

• 12:23Josh Clark?

  Right, right. So, but in addition to that, the cover story initially that the CIA produced was that they were a team of bomb experts

• 12:32Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 12:33Josh Clark?

  who were cleaning up unexploded munitions from the time when it was used as a bombing range. So that was why... That was the story they used for why there was a sudden appearance of like trucks and people when there hadn't been really much of anything there before.

• 12:47Speaker 03

  Yeah, there were also natural barriers. There were a couple of mountain ranges that kind of shielded it from view. It was already remote. The airspace was already restricted. And then Eisenhower came along and signed Executive Order 10633 in 1955, which basically extended the airspace over Area 51. And then in 1958, a public land order.

• 13:13Speaker 03

  Made this, basically said that this area doesn't exist anymore.

• 13:17Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 13:17Speaker 03

  It's not on maps, it's not acknowledged, and this is one of the huge reasons why Site 2, the ranch, Area 51, has been so, and we'll see later, things have changed a little bit in recent years, but just for the government to say like, "I don't know what you're talking about," over and over again, is sort of crazy-making.

• 13:39Josh Clark?

  It is, but like, they would, as we'll see later, they will, they would say in open court, this, the, the place where this person claims to work does not exist.

• 13:48Speaker 03

  I know.

• 13:49Josh Clark?

  Like, in court, and the, the judge would just be like, "What are you, how, what, how are we gonna get around this? This is a real problem." But that, from what I read, Chuck, originally, Area 51 was a CIA installation.

• 14:05Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 14:05Josh Clark?

  And around 1970, it transferred hands to the Air Force, but from, from what I could tell, up until that point, or at least the first several years, in the mid-to-late 50s and early 60s, no one had any idea that Area 51 existed. They did a really good job of keeping that place a genuine secret, not an open secret like it became later on, but a real secret. And one of the ways that they did that was they, they, from, from what workers later said in like, testimony in court cases, is that, like, they would be interrogated at gunpoint to see if they were actually spies, there were all sorts of like, weird loyalty tests and things like that, and while they were working on the U-2 spy plane in

• 14:50Josh Clark?

  particular, they kept that secret so serious, that if you were out there working, and you had nothing to do with the U-2 program, you were just a worker, you were working on a different program, they would move you indoors.

• 15:03Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 15:04Josh Clark?

  Close the doors, close the blinds on the windows, before rolling the U-2 out or testing it, like, you were not allowed to be outside or look.

• 15:12Speaker 03

  Yeah, that, that was pretty like, remarkable, I, I, like, within Area 51, they even had sub-security.

• 15:20Josh Clark?

  Mm-hmm.

• 15:20Speaker 03

  Protocols in place. I kinda just figured like, if you were in there, then you had access to the alien room.

• 15:27Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 15:28Speaker 03

  You know, all the good stuff.

• 15:29Josh Clark?

  Right, but, but think about that, because to even be on the base, or in Area 51, you had to have the highest level of security clearance you could possibly have.

• 15:40Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 15:41Josh Clark?

  Just to work on there. And even if you had that, you still couldn't see the U-2 spy plane, or know that it existed, or hear people talk about it.

• 15:49Speaker 03

  They wouldn't even let Bono in on it.

• 15:51Josh Clark?

  Nope.

• 15:52Speaker 03

  So, that was a terrible joke.

• 15:53Josh Clark?

  It was really bad. I was really hoping we can get around that one.

• 15:58Speaker 03

  So, the U-2 spy plane was great, until it wasn't. And that was when Francis Gary Powers was shot down in 1960, and the plane was all of a sudden in the hand of the Soviets.

• 16:11Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 16:12Speaker 03

  And they basically were like, "Well, that's the end of that. You can't have a secret spy plane anymore, once it's in the hand of the Soviets." And it was also a big deal, because the American people, all of a sudden, knew that the US government is definitely doing things in total secret, and developing technology-

• 16:30Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 16:31Speaker 03

  -that no one knows about.

• 16:32Josh Clark?

  It was a surprise to everybody, not just the Soviets, but also the American public, like you were saying, too. And I looked to see if this was looked upon by historians as like, the point where Americans realized that the government did things in secret, that the American public didn't know about. And I didn't see anything like this. I don't know if this is an ad comment, or what, but it makes sense. And certainly, people didn't know that the U-2 spy plane existed. The CIA did a really good job of keeping it secret. But, when it was out, it was pretty humiliating for the US. And it was also a big deal, that this spy plane was shot down. Because Eisenhower had approached Khrushchev, and said, "Hey, why don't we maintain an

• 17:13Josh Clark?

  open airspace policy to one another, so we can keep tabs, to make sure that either side is keeping our word with our, you know, armament treaties and the stuff we're doing? Like, we're enemies, but maybe we should kind of be able to keep tabs on one another." And Khrushchev said, "No, there's not going to be any open airspace policy." And so, the United States went and developed this U-2 spy plane instead. And when it got shot down, flying over restricted airspace of an enemy, that's an act of war.

• 17:41Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 17:42Josh Clark?

  And it could have gone way differently than it did. But instead, it was a big humiliation for the United States. And instead of just kind of tucking tail and running, the guy who was in charge of it, for the CIA, Richard Bissell, went to the government and said, "Hey, I've got an idea. Let's get even more secret, and develop an even more secretive plane, under an even more secretive project." And that- The government said, hey, let's do it. We're scared of the Russians. We'll double down. We'll triple down if you want, buddy. And that became Project Oxcart.

• 18:15Speaker 03

  That's right. And that was a black project. And it was so secret and so concealed that no one was even allowed to know how much money was being spent.

• 18:26Josh Clark?

  Yeah, this is a big, a big turning point here.

• 18:28Speaker 03

  It was. I mean, this kind of started the era that we still live in today, which, in which the military just dumps money into secret projects, where there's, that don't exist as far as anyone knows and that there's very little oversight for.

• 18:42Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 18:43Speaker 03

  It's really interesting.

• 18:44Josh Clark?

  Yeah, and apparently it was this Richard Bissell's idea.

• 18:46Speaker 03

  All right, well, let's take a break. Old Dick Bissell.

• 18:52Speaker 03

  And we'll get back to Dick Bissell and the rest of Oxcart right after this.

• 19:12Speaker 02

  Hey, everybody. If you've been thinking about securing your home, there's no better time to protect it with SimpliSafe. Right now, you can save 70% on a new system, their biggest savings of the year. You've heard us talk about SimpliSafe before and you know it's designed to keep threats away from the door and your loved ones safe in the first place. If you thought about SimpliSafe at all, now is the time to finally secure your home.

• 19:31Josh Clark?

  Yeah, unlike traditional security systems that only alert you after a break-in is already underway, SimpliSafe is built to stop it before it starts. Their agents intervene in under 30 seconds, speaking through the camera to stop an intruder in their tracks and calling for urgent 911 dispatch when it's needed most.

• 19:48Speaker 02

  That's right. And SimpliSafe has an offer for our listeners now with their biggest savings of the year, 70% off your new system with professional monitoring when you visit simplisafe.com/stuff. That's simplisafe.com/stuff. And when you order, write in the code STUFF at checkout. It tells them we sent you and it really helps the show. SimpliSafe, ahead of crime, in real time.

• 20:15Speaker 02

  Hey everybody, the holidays are coming up, so let us throw this out there. Are you prepared to host friends or family? Like, really prepared? Because there's a difference between having people stay at your house and properly hosting them.

• 20:27Josh Clark?

  Yeah, that's what we thought. So maybe it's time for a little refresh. Well, we have a tip. For all things hosting, Wayfair delivers high-quality, customer-trusted products for your home, so you can host and celebrate without the stress.

• 20:40Speaker 02

  That's right. Whether you're just swapping out a busted appliance or going all-in on a top-to-bottom home makeover for the holidays, Wayfair has you covered. Thousands of products, every style, every budget.

• 20:50Josh Clark?

  And it's all built for real life. Every item is hand-vetted by specialists with a 10-point quality inspection. And on top of that, with over 20 million verified 5-star reviews, you can have total confidence in all the picks you make.

• 21:02Speaker 02

  So remember, when refreshing your home this holiday season, Wayfair delivers exactly what you need. Just head to wayfair.com to shop all things home. That's W-A-Y-F-A-I-R dot com.

• 21:18Josh Clark?

  Hey, everybody. The best pieces in your closet are the ones you can count on. Whether you're heading to work, or going out, or keeping things casual, and this time of year, Quince makes finding something great for everyone else just as easy. This holiday season, it's where you want to shop for yourself and everyone on your list.

• 21:36Speaker 02

  That's right. And you know what? Quince focuses on high-quality staples made with premium materials like 100% Mongolian cashmere, 14-karat gold, and Italian leather. All timeless, versatile pieces that feel special to unwrap and become everyday favorites long after the holidays.

• 21:51Josh Clark?

  Yeah, plus, everything at Quince is priced 50% to 80% less than similar brands. They work directly with ethical factories and cut out the middlemen, so you can give luxury-quality pieces without the luxury price tag.

• 22:03Speaker 02

  So give the gift of quality this holiday season. Download the Quince app for app-exclusive offers, or go to quince.com, where you can get free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. Now available in Canada and the UK as well. And when Quince asks you where you heard about them, let them know it was stuff you should know. It's the best way to support the show.

• 22:34Speaker 03

  So, one of the problems with, I guess it's not a problem if you're comfortable with dumping money into a project, but one of the, I guess, expenses of a super, super-secret project is that it just costs a lot more. Background checks take time and cost money. Putting something in a super-remote location costs money. Having extra security forces, and it all just costs a lot more money. I mean, it's a, it's a serious multiplier on cost to do something that quote-unquote "doesn't exist."

• 23:06Josh Clark?

  Right. But in addition to that Chuck, too, is just the fact that the, the technology that was being developed was so cutting-edge, it just by definition required even more money, on top of the extra money for it being so super-secret.

• 23:20Speaker 03

  Yeah, so Oxcart eventually led to the SR-71 Blackbird, another amazingly cool plane.

• 23:26Josh Clark?

  Probably the coolest of all time, if you ask me.

• 23:29Speaker 03

  Yeah. I said the Stealth Barmer earlier, but the SR-71 is, it was pretty awesome. Although, there is another one later on that I'll, I'll mention. Well, I'll go ahead and say the Bird of Prey Stealth Jet.

• 23:41Josh Clark?

  You like that one, huh?

• 23:42Speaker 03

  It's pretty cool.

• 23:43Josh Clark?

  It looks a little bit like a super-cool tongue depressor. You know what I'm talking about?

• 23:49Speaker 03

  I know what a tongue depressor is.

• 23:51Josh Clark?

  This looks like that, like a flying gray tongue depressor.

• 23:55Speaker 03

  It's like a popsicle stick, though, right?

• 23:57Josh Clark?

  Um, yeah, but wider.

• 23:59Speaker 03

  Okay. But the SR-71 Blackbird, definitely not a popsicle stick.

• 24:04Josh Clark?

  No, no, it's just cool. Plus, it doesn't hurt the fact that G.I. Joe, well Cobra technically, had the SR-71 Blackbird as one of their planes.

• 24:13Speaker 03

  That's funny. So, Oxcart, they needed better infrastructure, basically, and it was, they couldn't just pour money into the development of the jet at this point. They had to really update all the facilities. Expanding on land, expanding in more restricted airspace even, that happened in 1962. And it just sort of, I think ingrained the super permanence of Area 51.

• 24:40Josh Clark?

  And also like the fact that like the government said, no, okay, this was a humiliating thing to have our U-2 shot down, rather than maybe we'll just kind of take another tac. They really went further down the path of just completely secret, black projects. And they developed some pretty, pretty amazing stuff there. The, I think you were saying the Bird of Prey? That was from the 90s, right?

• 25:05Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think it's cool looking.

• 25:07Josh Clark?

  The F-117 Nighthawk? That's the one that's like a single wing stealth bomber, I believe.

• 25:12Speaker 03

  Yes. And this is also where they take, like if you capture an enemy plane, you will take that to Area 51 to check out as well.

• 25:23Josh Clark?

  Yeah, there's another program at Wright-Patterson Base in Dayton that's like set up specifically for that, but I wonder if this is like even more highly sensitive, I don't know.

• 25:34Speaker 03

  I don't know.

• 25:35Josh Clark?

  But yeah, they've captured MiGs before, captured radar systems, and they reverse engineered them there, which will come into play later on. And then there was another one called the Tacit Blue Stealth Bomber. So basically, any stealth aircraft, whether it was the Stealth Black Hawks or the Stealth Bombers that were developed from the 60s onward, it was probably developed and tested in super secrecy in Area 51.

• 26:05Speaker 03

  Right. So, like I said, this made it just sort of a shop that they, that wouldn't close essentially at this point. In 1993, there's an area known as Freedom Ridge, very ironic name because Freedom Ridge was taken by the government.

• 26:22Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 26:23Speaker 03

  And closed off to the public, and this is where tinfoil hats used to gather with their binoculars to try and check out things. And they said, no more. Freedom Ridge is now ours.

• 26:35Josh Clark?

  It's called Get Outta Here Ridge.

• 26:37Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 26:38Josh Clark?

  Shot on sight Ridge.

• 26:39Speaker 03

  That's right.

• 26:40Josh Clark?

  So. If you are like, get to the aliens, what are you guys even talking about? Aliens in Area 51, as synonymous as they are now, and they are synonymous. The highway that Area 51 is off of, that the road to Area 51 is off of, has been officially renamed by the state of Nevada as the Extraterrestrial Highway. I think it's Highway 305.

• 27:01Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 27:02Josh Clark?

  As synonymous as this base is with aliens and UFOs, that's actually relatively recent. It was operating for a good 25, 35 years, I think, before aliens became tied to Area 51. And there's actually a moment in time that you can point to where it happened. And it happened on a broadcast in May of 1989, almost just past 30 years ago, on KLAS, the local Las Vegas TV network. I'm not sure what network affiliate they are. But they had like their 5 o'clock news and on it, they interviewed a guy who was anonymous, went by the pseudonym Dennis.

• 27:45Josh Clark?

  And he basically said, "Hey, I'm doing a lot of weird stuff out there at Area 51. Let me tell you all about it."

• 27:52Speaker 03

  Yeah, his name, his real name was Bob Lazar. And he, have you seen interviews with this guy?

• 27:59Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 28:00Speaker 03

  Did you see the more recent one?

• 28:03Josh Clark?

  No, but the one where he said, "I think it was a good idea," that one?

• 28:08Speaker 03

  No, I'm talking about, there was one just from a few years ago.

• 28:10Josh Clark?

  No.

• 28:13Speaker 03

  It, I gotta say, I mean, I'm not a conspiracy guy at all.

• 28:18Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 28:18Speaker 03

  But when you listen to Bob Lazar talk today, he just doesn't seem like some crackpot or a weirdo, or like he would be lying, he hasn't like made money off of this, or like, he's basically like, "Listen, man, I kinda wish this wasn't attached to my name because I'm trying to run a business in Michigan and it doesn't help that people think I'm some UFO kook."

• 28:41Josh Clark?

  Bob Lazar is alien apples.

• 28:46Speaker 03

  Oh, good. And he said, but he was like, you know, everything that I told you was true, though, and that's just the deal. You know, and I don't care if anyone believes me.

• 28:58Josh Clark?

  He's kind of like that, though, too, in the early interviews. At the very least, he's very calm and not at all kooky or anything like that. It's specifically the stuff he was talking about that was so compelling.

• 29:10Speaker 03

  Yeah, so his story is, and you can go watch the stuff for yourself and see it all, but he basically explains how he's an engineer and he was working on reverse engineering, flying saucers, essentially, alien spacecraft and alien technology. And at one point, he was in a room and they left him alone with all these files that describe alien technology and alien autopsies and all of this stuff. And it's pretty remarkable to listen to. It didn't make the hugest waves because it was 1989 and it was a local news station.

• 29:50Josh Clark?

  At first, it didn't.

• 29:51Speaker 03

  Yeah, and then it was picked up by Japan, oddly enough. And after it went to Japan, it went kind of worldwide. And before you know it, the whole area just sort of became alien central. And this is, we should point out, this also has a lot to do with the fact that in the 70s and 80s, the United States kind of went UFO nuts.

• 30:14Josh Clark?

  Oh, yeah, man, there are so many great books at the time that were coming out that claimed everything from like UFOs were responsible for the Bermuda Triangle, or Atlantis was populated by UFOs, or the Nazca lines were for UFOs, or the Egyptians built the pyramids with UFOs. All that stuff came out of the 70s and 80s.

• 30:34Speaker 03

  Yeah, so this all kind of coincided with Lazar. Having his news interview and it really just kind of changed everything.

• 30:41Josh Clark?

  It did, right? So he kind of like came out at a time when America was primed to really believe it. But if you think about it, like everything you hear about and think about from about Area 51 today did not exist pre 1989, pre Bob Lazar. It all started with Bob Lazar. And the reason why everybody wasn't just like, so he's just some nut who came out and said this stuff? Who cares? How did that, how did that become truly cemented with Area 51? Is that weirdly, some of the stuff he talked about kind of held water. Like he would talk about just mundane, day-to-day stuff that went on at Area 51. That seemed to be able to be correlated from locals. Like it held up.

• 31:27Josh Clark?

  There is a, there was a scanner once. He said that you would get in and out of rooms by scanning your hands. And it would scan the bone structure of your hand. That was how you were identified and could come in and out of rooms. And supposedly, somebody found, like 30 years later, mention of something like that in some declassified report about Area 51. He also, and this is what really kind of legitimized him. He would take people out on Wednesday nights. And at the time, he would say, I never saw what time it was. But at the time, he said it would happen. Lights would rise up in the sky and they would do all sorts of UFO-y kind of stuff. And the fact that he knew about these schedules really kind of added legitimacy to his claims.

• 32:12Speaker 03

  Yeah, and the new interview that I saw, he was explaining some of that anti-gravitational propulsion technology that the aliens had supposedly used. He was supposedly assigned to reverse engineer. And he was sort of walking, walking the person through it that was in the room. And he was like, oh yeah. And he said, we had this thing, it was sort of like half a basketball. And when you went to put your hand on it, he was like, there was this, he was like... Bringing two magnets, you know, opposite poles to, or is it opposite poles that repel?

• 32:44Josh Clark?

  Hmm.

• 32:45Speaker 03

  And he said, that's kind of what it felt like. And he said, so we would drop like a golf ball and it would just, you know, skirt off to the side without hitting it. And like, as if it had bounced. And he, the way he was describing it, I was just like, this guy just seems so credible.

• 32:58Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 32:59Speaker 03

  It was so like shocking. I didn't know what to expect. I thought he was, I thought he was not going to be credible, I guess.

• 33:05Josh Clark?

  Right. Um, I didn't see the, the interview with him, but um, I read about that technology. And um, and by the way, everybody, you can erase your email. It's like poles that repel each other, Chuck, not opposite.

• 33:20Speaker 03

  Right.

• 33:20Josh Clark?

  Um, the, uh, the, the, the anti-gravity technology he was talking about was basically saying like around the craft or whatever, that they were reverse engineering. It would bend gravity so this could just move right through space, basically at light speed.

• 33:36Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 33:36Josh Clark?

  That's the big suspicion among ufologists who follow this stuff is that they're reverse engineering light speed aircraft that was propelled using anti-gravity technology on engines that were matter anti-matter engines. And, and back in 1989, you couldn't, there wasn't an internet to start with, but even if there was, you couldn't find stuff like descriptions of anti-gravity craft at the time. So for this guy to just come out and start talking about this in an authoritative way.

• 34:03Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 34:04Josh Clark?

  He, he's an enigmatic figure for sure. But he was also one whose credibility was questioned right out of the gate too, right?

• 34:11Speaker 03

  Yeah. I mean, he says that he went to MIT and to Caltech. Uh, there are no records of him being a student.

• 34:19Speaker 03

  Uh, the conspiracy theorists will say like, you know how easy it is for the government to wipe that glean?

• 34:26Josh Clark?

  Do you?

• 34:27Speaker 03

  Yeah. I'm like, I don't know. Is that easy?

• 34:31Speaker 03

  Uh, so that's what they will say. Um, they, uh, will also say that they also like, got in touch with his professors to make sure they never talked and stuff like that. But

• 34:43Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 34:44Speaker 03

  That's when I get a little bit like, you, you can't, you can't have hundreds of people or thousands of people involved in some big massive cover up.

• 34:52Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 34:53Speaker 03

  Like someone's gonna talk.

• 34:54Josh Clark?

  Yeah. You're just not thinking big enough. I agree with you. That's when it kind of starts to get hinky for me.

• 35:01Speaker 03

  But he did disappear. I mean, not disappear, disappear, disappear, but he, I mean, it's not like he was like, "All right, and now I'm gonna go make all the money on this."

• 35:11Josh Clark?

  Right, exactly.

• 35:12Speaker 03

  Like, he moved and tried to start like a regular business and tried to just not be in the public eye.

• 35:17Josh Clark?

  Yeah, he did, which I think adds to his credibility even more, you know?

• 35:20Speaker 03

  A little bit.

• 35:22Josh Clark?

  Let's take our last break and then come back, shall we?

• 35:24Speaker 03

  Let's do it.

• 35:25Josh Clark?

  But let's promise we're gonna come back.

• 35:27Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 35:45Speaker 02

  Hey, everybody. If you've been thinking about securing your home, there's no better time to protect it with SimpliSafe. Right now, you can save 70% on a new system, their biggest savings of the year. You've heard us talk about SimpliSafe before, and you know it's designed to keep threats away from the door and your loved ones safe in the first place. If you thought about SimpliSafe at all, now is the time to finally secure your home.

• 36:04Josh Clark?

  Yeah, unlike traditional security systems that only alert you after a break-in is already underway, SimpliSafe is built to stop it before it starts. Their agents intervene in under 30 seconds, speaking through the camera to stop an intruder in their tracks and calling for urgent 911 dispatch when it's needed most.

• 36:21Speaker 02

  That's right, and SimpliSafe has an offer for our listeners now with their biggest savings of the year, 70% off your new system with professional monitoring when you visit simplisafe.com/stuff. That's simplisafe.com/stuff, and when you order, write in the code STUFF at checkout. It tells them we sent you, and it really helps the show. SimpliSafe, ahead of crime, in real time.

• 36:49Josh Clark?

  Hey, everybody. The best pieces in your closet are the ones you can count on, whether you're heading to work, or going out, or keeping things casual. And this time of year, Quince makes finding something great for everyone else just as easy. This holiday season, it's where you want to shop for yourself and everyone on your list.

• 37:06Speaker 02

  That's right. And you know what? Quince focuses on high-quality staples made with premium materials like 100% Mongolian cashmere, 14-karat gold, and Italian leather. All timeless, versatile pieces that feel special to unwrap and become everyday favorites long after the holidays.

• 37:21Josh Clark?

  Yeah, plus, everything at Quince is priced 50% to 80% less than similar brands. They work directly with ethical factories and cut out the middlemen, so you can give luxury-quality pieces without the luxury price tag.

• 37:34Speaker 02

  So give the gift of quality this holiday season. Download the Quince app for app-exclusive offers, or go to quince.com, where you can get free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. Now available in Canada and the UK as well. And when Quince asks you where you heard about them, let them know it was stuff you should know. It's the best way to support the show.

• 38:05Josh Clark?

  Okay, Chuck, so Bob Lazar comes along, just starts spouting out at the mouth about all the crazy alien stuff that's going on at Area 51. And then he kind of like fades into the background for a while. And everybody else kind of took it from there. If you have anything to do with government conspiracies, or believe in UFOs, or aliens, or whatever, all that stuff started to get saddled, little by little, onto Area 51. And one of the things that, pretty early on, got connected to Area 51, but almost across the board, any reasonable source, skeptical source, will say like, the two have nothing to do with one another, is Roswell and Area 51.

• 38:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, the Roswell crash in 1947, when something crashed, a gentleman found pieces of an air, well, pieces of some kind of unidentified object. And it became UFO Central. Later, it was, it was said to be a weather balloon.

• 39:09Josh Clark?

  But first, the Army said it was a flying disc.

• 39:11Speaker 02

  Right.

• 39:13Josh Clark?

  They kind of changed things.

• 39:14Speaker 02

  You've seen the pictures, right?

• 39:16Josh Clark?

  Sure. I mean, it looks like, I've seen that one famous picture of the guy crouching with what looks like just some balloon material.

• 39:23Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 39:24Josh Clark?

  Right. But, you know, he was just a stooge for the government, and that was just a prop that they came up with. So the Roswell crash happens in 1947. There's no way Area 51 would have been associated with it. The whole mythos around Roswell is that there was a UFO crash that happened. Some aliens survived, or at the very least their bodies were recovered, depending on who you ask. And the UFO and the aliens, alive or dead, were taken for further study to where? Area 51.

• 39:56Speaker 03

  Right.

• 39:57Josh Clark?

  Area 51 back in 1947, when the Roswell crash happened, was not even on the CIA's radar. It was basically a defunct airstrip and a nuclear testing range still. So there wouldn't have been any place to take the aliens in the first place. And then, secondly, after the Roswell crash happened, the idea of an alien crash having taken place there, that didn't come about until like the 80s, too. So really, people started to kind of catch on to this a little late. So probably Area 51 and Roswell have nothing to do with one another. And let's not forget that they're like 800 miles apart, too.

• 40:38Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 40:39Josh Clark?

  Even though to everyone in America, and really the rest of the world outside of the southwest, thinks they're like right next to each other.

• 40:45Speaker 03

  I think so.

• 40:46Josh Clark?

  You know?

• 40:47Speaker 03

  Yeah, so there have been a lot of crazy theories over the years. The very most basic are, like you just said, like there's alien corpses there, there's alien technology there.

• 40:59Josh Clark?

  Mm-hmm.

• 41:00Speaker 03

  And the US military has been studying this stuff and trying to perfect everything from time travel to light speed travel.

• 41:08Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 41:09Speaker 03

  That's the basic ground zero approach.

• 41:13Josh Clark?

  Don't forget interdimensional travel, too.

• 41:15Speaker 03

  Oh, why not?

• 41:17Josh Clark?

  Another one I saw, there's some pretty low-hanging fruit that I love. The moon landing was faked there.

• 41:23Speaker 03

  Uh, sure.

• 41:24Josh Clark?

  And then after that, right, but then after that Kubrick was executed on-site and replaced by a clone.

• 41:30Speaker 03

  Well, that clone did some great work.

• 41:31Josh Clark?

  He did.

• 41:32Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 41:33Josh Clark?

  Better than Barry Lyndon, right?

• 41:35Speaker 03

  Oh, I love Barry Lyndon.

• 41:36Josh Clark?

  I've never seen it, so I can't really hate on it.

• 41:38Speaker 03

  Oh, it's amazing.

• 41:39Josh Clark?

  Weather control experiments, that's probably the most believable for me.

• 41:43Speaker 03

  Sure. Cloud seeding?

• 41:44Josh Clark?

  Sure.

• 41:45Speaker 03

  Why not?

• 41:45Josh Clark?

  Well, why not? And then there's like, stage two of conspiracy theories.

• 41:51Speaker 03

  Yes, that is, there are aliens that clock in every day at Area 51. And work side by side with us in harmony.

• 42:05Josh Clark?

  In harmony, in order to build like, an alien-human hybrid race, maybe?

• 42:10Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 42:11Josh Clark?

  And if all of this sounds familiar, I will bet that you watched a pretty hefty amount of X-Files.

• 42:16Speaker 03

  Oh, yes.

• 42:17Josh Clark?

  Because they really tapped into this stuff. They basically just appropriated it for plotlines.

• 42:24Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah.

• 42:25Josh Clark?

  Which is great, I love the X-Files, but it was just, I guess Chris Carter used to hang out with like, ufologists or something, just to get ideas.

• 42:34Speaker 03

  Probably. Did he really, or?

• 42:35Josh Clark?

  Yeah, he had to have.

• 42:36Speaker 03

  Yeah, or he is one himself, I don't know much about the guy.

• 42:38Josh Clark?

  Maybe so, maybe so.

• 42:39Speaker 03

  So, and then, of course, if you even ramp that up a little bit more, that this is all part of a giant conspiracy to create a one-world government that is human-alien-run.

• 42:52Josh Clark?

  Right, and that's where that majestic 12 I mentioned at the beginning comes in. They are supposedly a panel of academics, elites, scientists, there's 12 of them, who were empanelled by Eisenhower after the Roswell crash. Or I guess it would have been Truman, I think, still.

• 43:14Josh Clark?

  And they were put together, just the cream of the crop, to basically go contact the aliens and... Basically broker a meeting, I guess, between the president and the aliens. And they managed to leverage this to catapult themselves into the status of actual people who run the world.

• 43:36Speaker 03

  Right.

• 43:36Josh Clark?

  They're the ones who are forming this one world government. And that is where Area 51, or that's where it's located. The seat of this government is located underground in Area 51.

• 43:47Speaker 03

  Yeah, this next one is a little more recent and very kooky. And it's the notion that Hitler and Stalin got together and hatched a plan to undermine the United States in World War II by distracting us about the threat of an impending alien invasion. And they would do this by building a fake spaceship, filling it with mutant children that Joseph Mengele created. And fill the spaceship with those kids. And then the craft crashed in a storm. And that was the Roswell Incident.

• 44:28Josh Clark?

  Right, it was meant to land and then these mutant children come out.

• 44:32Speaker 03

  Speaking German.

• 44:33Josh Clark?

  Right, supposedly the mutant children, who were the aliens that were found in the Roswell Crash, had huge heads and giant eyes. They were basically like the grays of alien legend.

• 44:44Speaker 03

  Right.

• 44:45Josh Clark?

  And that Stalin and Hitler were inspired by the public's reaction in America to the World War of the Worlds broadcast. They wanted to incite that kind of panic by actually creating this fake alien invasion.

• 45:00Speaker 03

  With all the drugs Hitler was on, after we know this now, who knows?

• 45:05Josh Clark?

  I'm sure he's like, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's a great idea. That's a great idea, man. What else you got? What else you got? What else can we do?"

• 45:12Josh Clark?

  Stalin's like, "Mellow." You tried CBD?

• 45:17Speaker 03

  He's like, "No, that's the one thing I haven't tried. You got any?"

• 45:19Josh Clark?

  Right. I'll bet it'll mix well with everything else.

• 45:22Speaker 03

  So, this is, this is obviously not a thing either.

• 45:25Josh Clark?

  Well, this is from a book by an author named Annie Jacobson, I believe. And she, this book came out in 2011, and she based this whole thing on an alleged Area 51 insider, who was her source, who said that he worked on a project that had to do with this somehow, some way. But that, this, this was where all of this alien stuff came from. It was a, it was a hoax by the Nazis and the Soviets.

• 45:55Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 45:56Josh Clark?

  Weird thing is, is there is another guy out there who supposedly has a different source, who tells the same story, but this other source says that this is, it was all fake. That I saw the files myself, but I believe that it was meant to be a test of loyalty.

• 46:15Speaker 03

  Right.

• 46:15Josh Clark?

  Or to see how I would react, working at Area 51, to files like this and be like, "Oh, my God, this is real. This is real. I can't believe this is, this is actually real." I guess to see how gullible you were and therefore how trustworthy you were.

• 46:29Speaker 03

  Right, which could explain Bob Lazar's situation too, because he was supposedly in a room full of files that he probably shouldn't have seen either.

• 46:36Josh Clark?

  Right, so that...

• 46:37Speaker 03

  And he probably failed the test.

• 46:38Josh Clark?

  You got three different sources who supposedly worked at Area 51. Technically, I should say, because we'll get email, Bob Lazar worked at S4, which is an even more secret installation that's attached to Area 51.

• 46:50Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 46:51Josh Clark?

  But you got three people who allegedly worked in Area 51, who all tell a story about basically being left in a room with files that contained information about aliens, whether it was a hoax, or real, or whatever. And maybe that is, because that kind of correlates with the idea that there were like gunpoint interrogations to verify your allegiance to the government or the military or whatever. Maybe that is something they tried there.

• 47:18Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 47:18Josh Clark?

  It doesn't make the actual aliens real, it just makes the presence of the files real.

• 47:23Speaker 03

  That's true.

• 47:24Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 47:25Speaker 03

  So, Area 51 today, as it truly exists, if you're driving down Highway 375, there's an unmarked dirt road between mile markers 29 and 30, or I guess 30 and 29. And you turn on that road, it's 12 miles on a dirt road, and you'll get to a gate,

• 47:46Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 47:46Speaker 03

  And there'll be warning signs all along saying restricted area, sort of like Close Encounters type stuff. There will be cameras and sensors everywhere, so don't think you're like getting away with anything.

• 47:57Josh Clark?

  No, there's mics that listen to your conversation.

• 48:00Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah.

• 48:00Josh Clark?

  Like, you are under as close surveillance as you've ever been in your life, from what I understand.

• 48:05Speaker 03

  Yeah, and there are guards, of course, and they will say, "I'm sorry, turn around and drive back to the highway." And if you persist a little bit, then you will get arrested. If you're around the perimeter area, kind of walking around with your binoculars, they will probably come and take your binoculars and tell you to leave, or drive you back to the highway, or maybe smash your face in, and bury you in the desert.

• 48:28Josh Clark?

  Well, there's a sign that says "use of deadly force is authorized."

• 48:32Speaker 03

  Oh, I'm sure.

• 48:32Josh Clark?

  But there's, from what I've seen, there's never been an incident where that actually happened. You're much more likely to get handed over to the local cops, who will slap you with a several hundred dollar fine.

• 48:45Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 48:46Josh Clark?

  If you give them any kind of guff and don't leave immediately when they tell you to.

• 48:51Speaker 03

  So, kind of the cool thing about Area 51, there are, obviously, I mean, there are civilian workers that work there. It's a huge facility, that apparently is still growing. Because you can look at satellite photographs, and year by year, it seems to be getting bigger and bigger with more buildings.

• 49:09Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 49:10Speaker 03

  If you work there, and, I mean, they have to have everything from food services to... Custodial services to plumbing and electricians and stuff like that.

• 49:20Josh Clark?

  And all of those people have the highest possible security clearance an American can have.

• 49:26Speaker 03

  Oh, sure. So they don't drive down that dirt road and just go to the gate and say, how you doing, Rick? And they go, come on in, Jane. They go to McCarran Airport in Las Vegas and they all get on a big, basically, air taxi. It's a 737 passenger jet that fly, they call them the Janet Jets. It's under the callsign Janet. They're white with a big thick red stripe. You can look it up online. And they, that's how they get to work every day. They fly everyone in on a 737.

• 49:58Josh Clark?

  And you can see them on the tarmac. They just get in with the regular planes.

• 50:03Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 50:03Josh Clark?

  It's just look for the giant 737s that are white with the red stripe and

• 50:07Speaker 03

  Pretty cool.

• 50:07Josh Clark?

  No logo, no nothing. They don't actually have a name. Like you said, they fly under callsign Janet. People have tried to figure out forever what Janet means. There's an idea that it's just another nonexistent terminal. It stands for that.

• 50:21Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 50:21Josh Clark?

  Or Joint Air Network for Employee Transportation.

• 50:25Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 50:25Josh Clark?

  But if you go visit the Nevada Aerospace Hall of Fame, they tell the story that there was a commander of Area 51 named Richard A. Sampson from 1969 to 71, and he chose his wife's name Janet to identify the commuter shuttles.

• 50:41Speaker 03

  That's sweet.

• 50:41Josh Clark?

  And that's, that's the most romantic, super-secret government story of all.

• 50:47Speaker 03

  So we kind of teased earlier on that the government is no longer saying like, I don't know what you're talking about. Like, no, this satellite image that we're all looking at of buildings, I don't see anything but dirt. That's all changed a little bit now because of a lawsuit. In the mid 1990s, there were a group of workers from Area 51 that sued the government because of the

• 51:14Speaker 03

  It's an environmental disaster there, or, you know, maybe that's changing now, but it had been for many, many years because of the fact that it's a black project and so unregulated that they were just basically doing everything like dumping hazardous waste and burning it in trenches. And people were there just inhaling these fumes.

• 51:36Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 51:36Speaker 03

  And getting really sick. And a guy named Robert Frost that worked there, an employee, had a lot of really bad health problems. Doctor said, "You are suffering from some kind of a really bad chemical reaction, and in order to treat it, we need to know what it is." And the government said, "Sorry, we can't tell you that."

• 51:55Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 51:55Speaker 03

  And he died.

• 51:56Josh Clark?

  He died and some other coworkers filed this lawsuit, and one of them ended up dying too. And they finally got to like a Nevada, I think, or a federal circuit court that said, "No, you guys don't have a right to know what you've been exposed to."

• 52:10Speaker 03

  Yeah, they weren't looking for money. They just wanted to know what was killing them.

• 52:14Josh Clark?

  And the reason that they had no legal right to know was, and this is that trial that I was referring to earlier, where the government representatives were saying like, "The place that they're talking about doesn't exist, sorry."

• 52:26Speaker 03

  Right.

• 52:27Josh Clark?

  So imagine like trying to just get past that barrier, right? You're suing the government to find out what they were burning that made you sick. But the government's in court saying like, "The place that they're talking about doesn't even exist." That's like, that's obstacle one.

• 52:42Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 52:42Josh Clark?

  But the whole reason that they were burning this stuff in the first place is because Area 51 operates under what's called the mosaic theory. And the mosaic theory is that any little piece of information a spy gets his or her hands on could be fit together with other information to provide a larger picture of what's being done at Area 51. And- As a result, nothing can come out of Area 51.

• 53:11Speaker 03

  Like the chemical that's killing the people?

• 53:13Josh Clark?

  Right, or computers that go in and are used. Once they get decommissioned, they get put in this pit and these trenches. And every two weeks, they go out there with jet fuel. And everything that's been put into the trenches over the last two weeks gets doused with jet fuel and set on fire with road flares.

• 53:30Speaker 03

  Amazing.

• 53:30Josh Clark?

  And whatever is in that smoke, the workers get exposed to because for some reason, they built the trenches upwind of this installation rather than downwind. And so people were exposed to this every two weeks for years and years and years. And things like, you know, anti-radar paint. The jet fuel that they're using as an accelerant, I'm sure wasn't helping. But just all sorts of exotic materials that was super, super classified. This is what was killing these people.

• 54:00Speaker 03

  Alien skin.

• 54:00Josh Clark?

  Or making them sick, exactly. And the government said, no, this is just too classified. These people can't know. They're just gonna have to go off and die untreated because we're not going to say publicly what they were exposed to.

• 54:12Speaker 03

  Yeah, but-

• 54:13Josh Clark?

  And that's where it stood.

• 54:14Speaker 03

  That case, they did finally, finally, in that case, say, okay, there's an Area 51.

• 54:23Josh Clark?

  I know, the whole courtroom went out for beers that day afterward.

• 54:27Speaker 03

  So there's a thing there, and that's really all we can say, sorry. Is there's a thing there. But that was the very first sort of insight into the, just that admission that there was something there was the first time that had ever happened.

• 54:44Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 54:44Speaker 03

  Which is in the mid 1990s.

• 54:46Josh Clark?

  Yeah, and you were saying like, people would point to satellite images of the place and you can see that it's growing now, like you can see it on like Google Maps.

• 54:54Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 54:55Josh Clark?

  That is really new because it wasn't very long ago where all the satellites in space were controlled by the government. And the government could control what ended up in satellite images. So they blocked out anything, any image of Area 51. But as private firms started launching their own satellites, it became basically impossible. So just little by little, it's becoming to the point now where they're like, yes, they acknowledge something's there. No, you can't know what's going on there. Is basically the status quo now.

• 55:24Speaker 03

  Pretty much.

• 55:26Josh Clark?

  So that's Area 51, and sorry, we kind of took the government tack here and didn't really go all in on the alien theories, but I just don't think that's what it is.

• 55:36Speaker 03

  No.

• 55:37Josh Clark?

  If you want to know more about Area 51, I guess just start reading about it. There's some pretty interesting stuff out there. And since I said that, it's time for listener mail.

• 55:49Speaker 03

  This is about nicknames. This is from Rob Bob.

• 55:53Josh Clark?

  Oh, yeah, I love this one.

• 55:54Speaker 03

  Hey, guys. My name is Rob Bob. Rob and Bob combined into a singular form, like Jim Bob, but better. My mom has explained to me that it started when I was about six months old. I was a really chunky kid, like in the 99th percentile for weight. They felt like no other nickname like Robbie or Bobby fit, so they started calling me Rob Bob. Many years later, I meet my wife, which is almost eight years ago now, and quickly found out that her favorite writer is Richard Wright. And since reading his novel, Native Son, has wanted to name her kid Richard to honor the impact he had on her life. She had visited his grave in Paris and has every book he ever published.

• 56:37Speaker 03

  When she met me, I told her about my super nicknames that I had wanted to call my kid. Because, you see, my father is William, Bill for short, but now, since we came up with these weird names, I call my dad Will Bill to bug him. This leads me to why I have always wanted to name my child Richard since high school. Then we would, in order to have a Will Bill, a Rob Bob, and a Rick Dick, all in three generations of awesomeness. My wife does not approve and thinks we should look elsewhere for name ideas. With great admiration, Rob Bob and Rachel.

• 57:14Josh Clark?

  Thanks, Rob Bob. Good luck with that, with your quest.

• 57:17Speaker 03

  Yeah, I don't think Rick Dick is going to fly in your household.

• 57:19Josh Clark?

  I don't think so either. Rachel may have the cooler head here.

• 57:23Speaker 03

  I think so.

• 57:24Josh Clark?

  Well, if you want to get in touch with us like Rob Bob did, we would love that. You can go on to stuffyoushouldknow.com, check out our social links there, or you can send us an email to [email protected].

• 57:39Speaker 00

  Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts, iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

• 57:55Josh Clark?

  Buy smart, drive for less and trade for more. That's Toyota Fordability. And it starts with a great deal on an off-road-ready Tacoma or half-ton Tundra, two of Toyota's longest-lasting trucks, combining power for work, tech for adventures, and style in between. And they're built on a reputation for quality and reliability, which is why Toyota trucks are known for holding their value, which could mean big savings when it's time for your next Toyota. So get a great deal today and a great value tomorrow. Shop toyota.com for more. Toyota, let's go places.

• 58:26Speaker 04

  Sponsored by GSK, the makers of Extenture, Depamocumab ULAA. If your asthma keeps interrupting,

• 58:34Speaker 04

  it may be time to try something else. Extenture is an ultra-long-acting prescription-maintenance treatment for severe asthma, eosinophilic type, ages 12 and older. It isn't for sudden breathing problems. Extenture is the first and only add-on treatment that can help deliver protection from asthma attacks with two doses a year. Just one dose every six months. That's a lot of time for everything in between. Serious allergic reactions can occur. Get help right away for swelling of face, mouth, tongue, or trouble breathing. Don't change or stop medicines, including steroids, unless told by your doctor. Report if you have a parasitic infection, common cold, sinus infection, inflammation in the nose, flu or flu-like symptoms, joint pain or sore throat may occur.

• 59:16Speaker 04

  Carry on with fewer attacks and ask your doctor about Extenture. Learn more at extenture.com or call 1-833-393-3678.

• 59:28Speaker 05

  What's that?

• 59:28Speaker 02

  My fresh detector.

• 59:30Speaker 05

  Uh, your what?

• 59:31Speaker 02

  There it is.

• 59:32Speaker 05

  What is it detecting?

• 59:34Speaker 02

  Fresh produce, fresh meat.

• 59:36Speaker 05

  Okay, what happens if it detects something really fresh?

• 59:42Speaker 02

  Apparently, we celebrate.

• 59:44Speaker 06

  At Food Lion, you can count on fresh food at fresher prices when your fresh detector is going off. Head to your local Food Lion or shop at foodlion.com. This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human.