I did a couple of pretty heavy history books in 2019, and this one was by far the wildest. Annie Jacobsen’s Area 51: An Uncensored History of America’s Top Secret Military Base is exactly the kind of book anyone interested in aviation and military history would want to read.

I originally borrowed Area 51 as an audiobook from the library but enjoyed it so much I ended up buying an actual copy of the book. Jacobsen interviews surviving military and aviation professionals who spent time in Area 51, as well as surviving participants of the US nuclear programs during the second World War and the Cold War.

With all the UFO stuff Area 51 is famous for, a lot of the other history surrounding the area can get lost. The history and use of the base is tightly guarded, which has fed into the legend, but the area is, first and foremost, a military base called Homey Airport or Groom Lake. A lot of the secrecy surrounding the base is due to the military developments taking place there, not aliens. Jacobsen documents the planes/programs developed, built, and tested out there (out there being the Nevada desert, for anyone who doesn’t know) in great detail. Included on the list of Area 51 programs was the U-2 program.

Nuclear testing/development was also taking place out there. In the book Jacobsen interviews Richard Mingus, who worked as security guard at the base for decades. He was even there when the base came under attack during a nuclear test. It turned out to not really be under attack, but it was a great story and I really liked Mingus as he came across.

The book was really interesting. It really was, I very much enjoyed it.

But where it failed was the alien stuff.

I’m about to spoil you.

If you want to be surprised about Jacobsen’s alien hot take, I am telling you stop reading here.

Stop.

Stop.

You asked for it.

Jacobsen claims that the infamous crafts/beings rumored to have crashed in the Nevada desert were, essentially, human guinea pigs flying crafts developed by the USSR. Stalin hired infamous Nazi “doctor” Josef Mengele to develop “grotesque, child size aviators” to pilot crafts to America that would produce the kind of hysteria that happened after Orson Welles’ broadcast of his 1938 radio program, War of the Worlds. The bodies found at the crash site were, ultimately, mutilated children. And this is what has been top secret for 75 years.

While the explanation isn’t any less plausible than an alien spaceship crash, it somehow actually feels like more of a stretch. I wouldn’t put it past Mengele or Stalin to attempt such an evil thing (obviously), but it still just seems too far fetched.

The book is criticized by some for being poorly sourced with errors, however, based on what I read, it seemed unclear if the sources were wrong or the translation into entertainment caused the errors. I think the idea of the UFO stuff being a Soviet hoax is the main source of the outrage from critics. The military and aviation stuff seems reasonably well done, although at least one person took issue with the source Jacobsen used for her information on the Manhattan Project.

Overall, I enjoyed the book tremendously. I highly recommend it if you’re into twentieth century American history, from World War II to the Cold War.

Tagged: authors: annie jacobsen, books: area 51, genre: history, genre: non-fiction