Forbidden History - Inside Area 51

Episode Date: October 23, 2025

In this episode, we pull back the curtain on Area 51 - the secretive military base in Nevada, long rumoured to hide UFOs, alien technology, and government cover-ups… Join historian and author Guy Walters as we explore the mysterious stories behind one of the world’s most famous conspiracy zones. Go to ⁠⁠⁠https://surfshark.com/forbiddenhistory⁠⁠⁠ or use code FORBIDDENHISTORY at checkout to get 4 extra months of Surfshark VPN! Cast List: Guy Walters: Author & Historian  Eric Meyers: Narrator  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to the Forbidden History Podcast. This program is presented solely for educational and entertainment purposes. It contains adult themes. Listener discretion is advised. Hidden deep in the Nevada Desert lies a place that for decades did not officially exist. A place surrounded by barbed wire fences and warning signs, patrolled by armed guards and shielded in layers of secrecy. I mean, personally, I had a friend who was in the US military, who was in the special forces, and he did a stint working at Area 51.

And I said to him, come on, tell me what happens there. Tell me about the aliens. Tell me about all the secrets. She said, if I told you, I would have to kill you. Born in the shadow of the Cold War, its runways and hangars became the proving ground for America's most advanced aircraft. Spy planes that flew higher than any radar could run. reach, stealth bombers that seemed to vanish into the night.

For years, the government denied it was even there. If you've got a place that officially doesn't exist, what are you going to have? You're going to have a hell of a lot of speculation, a hell of a lot of conspiracy theories saying, you know what, this can't just be about super quick spy planes. This has got to be harboring something a little bit more sinister and a bit more secret than just military technology. In this episode of Forbidden History, we open the gates. We trace the origins of Area 51.

We follow the trail of its most famous whistleblowers, and we ask the question, what really lies in America's most secret base? A base hidden in the Nevada desert, built in the heat of the Cold War. Officially, it was a remote detachment of the Edwards Air Force Base, But its true purpose was concealed behind layers of secrecy. At the start of the Cold War, the United States needed eyes over the Soviet Union, and they needed them fast. In Moscow, Joseph Stalin had slammed the iron curtain shut, and American intelligence had gone blind.

To counter the threat of nuclear expansion, the CIA and the Air Force turned to a patch of flat desert near a dry lake bed called Groom Lake. This would become Area 51, the testing ground for the most advanced aircraft ever conceived. We're joined by historian and author Guy Walters. It's been around for a long time. I mean, it was established in 1955, and it was originally a testing ground for that very Cold War iconic spy plane called the U2. The U2. reconnaissance plane could soar higher than 70,000 feet, taking photographs deep inside Soviet territory. But it wasn't the only weapon being tested there. Over the years, it has been used to develop a lot of really cutting-edge aviation technology. The famous Blackbird, the SR-71, you've got stealth

aircraft being developed there, you've got the F-35 being developed there, you've got the Night Talk, the F-1-1-7s, That's developed and tested there. The machines tested at Area 51 were decades ahead of their time. The Blackbird SR-71 could cruise at over 2,000 miles per hour, one of the fastest crude aircraft to this day. The Nighthawk F-117 was designed to counter-radar, built with sharp, faceted angles, that made it all but invisible to enemy detection.

And today, the F-35 Lightning 2 represents the cutting edge, a jet able to hover like a helicopter, fly supersonic, and link the pilot's helmet directly to the aircraft's sensors. The cover stories were as important as the aircraft themselves. When high-altitude test flights were spotted by commercial pilots or civilians, the government could not admit to their existence. So sidings were written off as weather balloons or atmospheric phenomena. To ordinary Americans, they looked like something out of this world. It wasn't until 2013, nearly 60 years after Area 51 was built,

that the CIA finally declassified documents acknowledging its existence. What the declassified documents do show us is actually lots of kind of really cool stuff. I mean, they show the development of spy planes such as the U-2, one of which was famously shot down by the Soviets and the pilot put on trial. This is obviously the time before satellites, so you need planes flying very high above the Soviet Union. And all these are very critical programs in intelligence gathering during the Cold War. Area 51 became a point of speculation. Locals reported strange lights at night and mysterious objects in the sky. The heavy military presence in the area soon made people start to question what was going on in the base.

The site's intrigue would only grow when one of the world's most famous whistleblowers came forward with claims that, if true, would change everything we thought we knew. But where it really gains traction is in the 1980s. When you've got this guy who claims to have been a former Area 51 employee, this guy called Bob Lazard. And he goes around saying that he worked at this facility called S-4. Lazzar's claims were extraordinary. And what does he say happened to S-4? He says, this is where the US government,

where the US Air Force, all these scientists and boffins, are reverse engineering alien spacecraft. This is a big claim. Bob Lazzar described one aircraft in particular. the sport model. To him, it looked almost exactly like the flying saucers drawn in 1950s pulp magazines, a sleek silver disc about 50 feet across, with a rounded dome rising from its center. Inside, the technology was baffling. There were no right angles, no visible controls, and the walls seemed to flow seamlessly into the floor and ceiling, as if molded from a single material.

The seats were small, built for beings far shorter than humans. What Lazar is describing are things like anti-gravity propulsion systems. Also, this mysterious element that he called Element 115, that actually supposedly powers these aircraft, these alien aircraft. Lazar mentioned Element 115 as a fuel in his 1989 interviews. scientists later synthesized element 115, or Moscovium, in 2003, and was later added to the periodic table. However, this element is not the same as the one Lazar claimed to have found. In the narrow sense, he named an atomic number that later turned out to exist.

But while Lazar claimed that the propulsion system, or fuel, relied on a stable isotope, This is not supported by nuclear physics as we know it. No stable isotopes of Muscovium have yet been synthesized, as they're extremely short-lived and highly radioactive. Lazars' accounts repeatedly mention a supervisor called Dennis or Denny Mariani. Researchers and enthusiasts have found public records and memorial entries for men named Dennis Mariani, who lived in the right generation and areas,

areas in the veterans' records and obituaries. But mainstream journalism and official archives do not offer a definitive, declassified document that proves a particular Dennis Mariani served as S4 supervisor. Lazar was also raided by the FBI in 2017, but there is no publicly available evidence confirming the dramatic claim that the FBI seized alien fuel, or Element 115. Luzar's story spread like wildfire. It appeared on TV, in books, on late-night radio. Soon, Area 51 was the home of flying saucers.

And the myth embedded itself so deeply, it even shaped how we interact with the place today. And here's an example of how much that's taken hold. So if you've ever used Google Maps or Google Earth, and you know when you're on a street view, you've got that little yellow figure that you then drag, onto the street, try doing that with the little yellow figure at Area 51 the next time you're on Google Earth. And watch what that little yellow man turns into when you drag it over Area 51. It turns into a flying saucer. We continue with the mystery after the break.

Bob Lazar's story didn't fade away. Instead, it opened the door for a wave of others claiming insider knowledge of the base. In 2019 there was this event organized on Facebook and it was entitled Storm Area 51 with the snappy catch line, they can't stop all of us. And this goes viral and millions of people respond to it. And you've got to remember storming Area 51, this is a pretty dangerous thing to do because if you go near Area 51, there are a lot of signs saying if you step over this line, you're going to be shot. So it was initially a joke, I think. But what it does actually spark is this real-life gathering in Nevada near the base, Area 51, and you have got a few thousand people turning up, demanding access to the base.

And they're saying this is paid for us, paid for or by our taxes, you're keeping a secret from us. We think that there is proof of alien life forms in there, alien spacecraft, why are you covering that up? You know, we've got a right to know as the public. Let's storm it. Let's go in there, guys. They can't stop all of us. There are quite a few people who claim to be whistleblowers and very credible whistleblowers regarding Area 51 and UFOs.

It's not just Bob Lazar. You have got former government insiders, supposedly like a man called David Grush. He claims knowledge that there's all this secret crash retrieval programs at Area 51. You know, whenever an alien crash happens, Area 51's straight out there with recovery vehicles. And he says there are all these possible ETU. extraterrestrial artefacts and Area 51, and even some of his statements have been looked

at in Congress. You know, his claims are completely unverified. In his testimony to Congress, Grush claimed he had spoken with nearly 40 witnesses over four years who said they had direct knowledge of the crash sites. He also maintained the idea that several sites yielded, quote, non-human biologics, even claiming that some colleagues had been injured during attempts to conceal these operations. Other former Area 51 employees supposedly going around sharing accounts of these advanced but human-made technologies, but what they are saying is, you know what, there are these advanced technologies, but don't assume that just because they're unidentified aircraft,

or these technologies seem so super advanced that they are necessarily of alien origin. You know what? Some of this new American kit, it's not made by ET, is made by us. The Pentagon, the US government, it's very aware of the fact that actually all this kind of interest in UFOs and ETs and crash landings, it's starting to have this sort of kind of deleterious impact on kind of public discourse, if you like, and it's kind of running down what the US government is trying to achieve with some of these secret programs, ultimately trying to promote American safety. And they're saying, look, let's not call them UFOs anymore. Let's call them UAPs, unidentified aerial phenomena. It's not as fun, is it?

What the Pentagon's reports have shown is that there have been unidentified objects that have supposedly shown capabilities beyond human technology. But that doesn't prove that some citing of something weird is proof of something extraterrestrial. Some of these things are atmospheric phenomena. Some of them are weird. They may spy craft from China, from Russia. Some of them are people misreporting things. And what I find really compelling is,

is that I grew up in the 70s and 80s where there were people reporting being abducted by extraterrestrials all the time and flying saucers landing in their back gardens. And all this kind of stops when everybody has got a smartphone in their back pocket. And mysteriously, despite the invention of the smartphone, there is no smartphone footage that shows ET landing on Earth. The lack of solid proof has not killed much of the public's disbelief. If anything, it has hardened it. To some, secrecy is confirmation.

If the government admits only fragments of the truth, then surely the rest must be darker. There have even been more recent sightings of unidentified anomalous phenomena, or UAPs, such as the Tic Tac siting in 2004, which gained widespread attention years later in 2017. Navy pilots training off the USS Nimitz tracked a strange job object they called the Tic Tac, describing it as a smooth white aircraft with no wings or exhaust, it darted through the sky, maneuvering in a way that had never been seen before. It dropped tens of thousands of feet in seconds, hovered, and then accelerated away so fast, it vanished from radar.

Or even more recently, in the 2024 New Jersey drone phenomenon, residents describe swarms of mysterious drones hovering over towns and infrastructure, causing mass panic and hysteria, despite the government reassuring that there was no sense of danger so far. It took a very long time since Area 51 was founded in 1955 for the US government to admit that it actually existed. It's not until 2013 that you have the CIA, the Central Intelligence Agency, declassifying lots of documents, which confirms the Area 51. actually exists. Also, it declassified Area 51's role in all sorts of Cold War reconnaissance programs. Area 51 was behind Project Mogul, which was sending up into the edges of space all these very high

altitude balloons that can monitor Soviet nuclear test programs. And that obviously had to be kept secret. You're going to do it, as I say, in Area 51, middle of Nevada. You're not going to do it in the middle of LA, for example. What these government documents don't show, was any mention of extraterrestrial activity. And actually, all they spoke about was aircraft testing. Now, there's some people who go, hang on a minute, you know, that is a cover-up. Come on, aliens got a lot of proof that aliens have crash-landed at Roswell and places like that. And these CIA documents are only painting some of the story.

There is a whole US government history of secrecy and US government misleading us in so many ways. This stuff in 2013, this is just the partial truth. prove a negative. It's very, very difficult. So there's always going to be speculation and conspiracy theory about Area 51. And you could say, give me all the data about it. Give every document that Area 51 has ever created. Tell me every invention area 51's ever created. And there's always going to be that slight sense of doubt that we're not being told the full story. The cultural impact is undeniable. From the X-Files to Hollywood blockbusters, Area 51 is now a permanent part of our folklore.

It represents both our greatest hopes that we are not alone in the black void of space and our darkest suspicions that our leaders keep the truth from us. There is a lot that remains unknown about Area 51, and that's not surprising. The US government has declassified documents. There have been some whistleblowers out there who've revealed a bit more than they should. But there are a lot of questions about Area 51 that remain unanswered today. You know, what new technologies are being developed there? Are there extraterrestrial materials housed at the base?

I suspect not. But why is the government quite so secretive? What we do know is that it is believed to be a place where it's a testing ground for seriously advanced military aircraft and also drones. So, you know, seriously cool, top secret high-performance drones are being tested there. The man in the street can now look at satellite images on Google Earth, and you can see that this place has been expanding. You can see the runways. You can see the hangars. You can see all the infrastructure. There's no doubt this is a place for testing aviation projects.

From the Cold War to congressional hearings, from spy planes to alien spacecraft, Area 51 has remained one of the most secret and mythologized places on Earth. Is it a vault for alien technology? A cradle of cutting-edge human invention. Perhaps it even holds the lost arc of the covenant. In the desert silence of Nevada, the mystery of Area 51 endures. And perhaps that is the only truth we will ever know. Thanks for exploring the past with us today. If you like this episode, please be sure to follow for more.

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