What year did Area 51 open?

Answer 1

From what I could find, Area 51 began as a WWII base. After the war it was abandoned for a few years and then Lockheed-Martin used the site for aircraft testing. What goes on there now I have no idea.

Answer 2

'Area 51' is in reality a US government facility in Nevada, about 83 miles northwest of Las Vegas. As part of the Nellis AFB built in 1941, it's designated purpose is the development and testing of experimental aircraft and weapons systems which includes restricted airspace.

The suspicion that the government had also been hiding more than military secrets began in 1955 when the CIA designated additional land area to test the U-2 and the Dept. of Interior withdrew and additional 60 sq. mile rectangle of land beneath the airspace in 1958. The speculation went into high gear in 1989 when a Las Vegas TV station broadcast a series of interviews with a self-proclaimed aerospace engineer, Robert Lazar, who said that he had been hired to help examine an alien spacecraft at the facility. He claimed that the government had recovered an extraterrestrial spacecraft which it kept stored in an underground bunker.

That's how the whole thing started and since Mr. Lazar's interviews, there has been no end to the stories and speculation involving Area 51 and the surrounding area.

Answer 3

It is hard to tell the age of something that is not supposed to exist but it seems to have been a post-WWII idea which would make it about 50 or 60 years old.

Answer 4

It opened in 1947... SUB TO JAZZ300CP