CIA confirms Area 51, what will this mean for UFO enthusiasts? In theory, this takes away the little green men that have haunted generations and the flying saucers that have fueled their imagination. The CIA confirms Area 51, but said it has nothing to do with aliens or UFOs.

The CIA confirmed the existence of Area 51 in a recently declassified 407-page document that detailed the discovery, research, and development of the government base called , "The Central Intelligence Agency and Overhead Reconnaissance: The U-2 and OXCART Programs, 1954-1974." Area 51 has entered modern mythology and been featured in the TV show “The X-Files” and the movies "Indiana Jones" and “Independence Day.”

The CIA may have confirmed Area 51, but says it had nothing to do with aliens or UFOs. The CIA acknowledged Area 51 as the base that tested the U-2 spy plane program. The CIA confirmed Area 51 as an "aerial gunnery range" for the Army Air Corps during World War II.

The CIA documents revealed “From the air the strip appeared to be paved, but on closer inspection it turned out to have originally been fashioned from compacted earth that had turned into ankle-deep dust after more than a decade of disuse. If LeVier had attempted to land on the airstrip, the plane would probably have nosed over when the wheels sank into the loose soil, killing or injuring all of the key figures in the U-2 project."

CIA confirms Area 51 was originally going to be called “Paradise Ranch.” The name Area 51 was a carry-over name from a Nevada Test Site Map. President Eisenhower approved the additional wasteland area to the test site, but the name "Paradise Ranch" didn't stick.

The declassified document is the first time the CIA confirmed the Area 51 base. Area 51 had been mentioned in other documents, but specific references to the base were stricken from intelligence papers.

CIA confirms Area 51 as an area where high-tech spy craft, including forerunners to unmanned drones, were tested. Area 51 was home to Project Aquatone and Operation Baby Face.

The National Security Archives documents about “the facility at Groom Lake” may doom the subculture of alien and UFO believers.

The CIA kept the mythology of Area 51 going so it could keep its real projects, the highflying bombers, spy planes like the S-71 Blackbird, secret. The document acknowledge that the secrecy led to an “unexpected side effect,” including “a tremendous increase in reports of unidentified flying objects.”

Area 51 took its place in America’s cultural mythology in 1989 when a Las Vegas man who claimed to work there said he saw crashed alien space hardware.

The CIA confirmation of Area 51 hasn’t stopped UFO enthusiasts from speculating. British historian Chris Pocock says there was nothing new in the documents. He wrote “Three or more paragraphs are still redacted. Why?”

Canadian UFOlogis Stanton Friedman, told The Associated Press that the explanations are “utter rot and baloney. Can the U-2 sit still in the sky? Make right-angle turns in the middle of the sky? Take off from nothing? The U-2 can’t do any of those things.”

by Tony Sokol