The National Interest magazine on January 7 reported that the Pentagon wants to keep Area 51 out of the public eye because it is an area containing many types of experimental aircraft, even potentially including gliders. negative excess (HGV).

Area 51 is so mysterious that in April 2019, Russia sent a Tupolev-154M spy plane to spy on this facility.

The US military expanded Area 51 – which previously included only a small airfield – to test the Lockheed U-2 spy plane in 1955. Currently, the facility is within 37-40 km of airspace. limited to a Nevada training and testing facility that spans more than 11,600 square ^kilometers .

Some other US bases located near Area 51 include Nellis Air Force Base and Tonopah Test Facility – the latter home to many secret Pentagon programs.

According to  The National Interest , Area 51’s initial role was to help develop the CIA’s U-2 and A-12 spy planes.

Area 51 is also said to be the place to store former Soviet fighter jets. In 1966, Israel acquired a MiG-21 from a defected Iraqi pilot. In 1968, two Syrian pilots flying MiG-17F got lost and mistakenly landed in Israel.

All three of these aircraft were shipped to Groom Lake, Nevada to test their ability to confront American fighters, including the F-4 Phantom fighter.

In the 1970s, the US Air Force’s special unit 6513 Test Squadron (also known as the “Red Hat”) continued to conduct assessments of former Soviet fighters.

However, in 1984, General Richard Bond of the US Air Force decided to test-pilot a MiG-23BN “Flogger” and lost control of the aircraft, resulting in his death. Bond is the second US Air Force pilot to die while testing a MiG-23 in two years.

Some photos and videos show the US testing both MiG-29 and Su-27 aircraft over Area 51 to test the limits of Russian engineers.

In the 1990s, a number of reputable aviation writers revealed that the US owned a vehicle called “Aurora” that could fly 5 times the speed of sound. However, there is no concrete evidencethat the US tested this vehicle in Area 51.