When … the stealth planes were unleashed in 1988 … more than a few of those same ufologists came to wonder if what was seen over the Hudson Valley was actually a top-secret variation on the Stealth Fighter and the Stealth Bomber
Area 51 The Revealing Truth of Ufos, Secret Aircraft, Cover-Ups & Conspiracies
If just about any and all military agencies want one thing, it’s for their aircraft to be completely invulnerable. Well, while that’s a tall order, steps were taken in the early 1970s to create an aircraft that could not be detected on radar.
It would, then, be the ultimate predator: quietly and carefully approaching its completely oblivious target. That is, until it was all too late. Lockheed Martin, the company that was secretly contracted to come up with a stealth-driven fighter, states that a pair of engineers, Dick Sherrer and Denys Overholser, “developed a computer program based on obscure German and Russian theories, which postulated that radar beams could be reflected by a series of carefully angled triangular panels,” which is precisely why both the B-2 and the F-117 look so odd, but cool, too.
The most important development came in 1976. That was the year in which a program designated “Have Blue” was established as, to quote Lockheed Martin, “the stealth demonstrator that would lead to the F-117A Nighthawk.” Built out of aluminum and not much else, the aircraft was typified by the angular shape and futuristic look. Although the Nighthawk remained unknown to virtually everyone until 1988, it was first test-flown on June 8, 1981, just one year before the Hudson Valley “UFOs” were first seen. Notably, the Nighthawk —while in test stage—was flown exclusively at night, and while it seems unlikely that the F-117A was the culprit in the Hudson Valley, perhaps a far more advanced stealth plane was.
One of the most notable of all the missions that the Nighthawk took part in revolved around the invasion of Iraq in January 1991. The radar systems of the Iraqi military were woefully inadequate and, as a consequence, they flattened close to forty targets in no time at all, which helped to bring the conflict to a close in a little more than forty days.
Today, the Nighthawk is no more—it has been mothballed—but how many other stealth aircraft—of highly advanced forms and technologies—remain hidden from prying eyes is anyone’s guess. Now let’s take a look at the stealth bomber: the Spirit.
The brainchild of Northrop Grumman Corp., the B-2 stealth bomber is, to quote the team that brought it to fruition, “a key component of the nation’s long range strike arsenal, and one of the most survivable aircraft in the world. Its unique capabilities, including its stealth characteristics, allow it to penetrate the most sophisticated enemy defenses and hold at risk high value, heavily defended targets.”
It has played major roles in numerous conflicts, including Operation Iraqi Freedom in Afghanistan, in Kosovo, and in Libya. Not only that, the Spirit is capable of flying for six thousand miles without refueling and can soar through the skies for ten thousand miles when refueled just once. Additionally, it is armed with nuclear weapons. The B-2, then, is a decidedly formidable craft.
Twenty-one such aircraft were built and deployed, of which only one came to grief, while taking to the skies from Andersen Air Force Base, Guam, in February 2008. Just like the Stealth Fighter, early versions and incarnations of the Spirit were secretly flown from Area 51.
Now let’s return to that briefly referenced matter concerning NASA, which provoked a whirlwind of controversy in 1974. It all revolves around three astronauts and NASA’s almost legendary craft, Skylab. NASA states: “Skylab was hailed as a ‘bold concept’ by Rocco Petrone, who served as director of launch operations at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida before becoming director of the agency’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., during 1973 and 1974. The program demanded innovation and ingenuity, said Petrone in Skylab, Our First Space Station, a NASA report published in 1977. ‘Experience and knowledge gained from earlier space programs provided a solid foundation on which to build, but the Skylab Program was truly making new pathways in the sky.’
The project began as the Apollo Applications Program in 1968 with an objective to develop science-based human space missions using hardware originally developed for the effort to land astronauts on the moon. Skylab orbited the Earth from 1973 to 1979.”
It was on April 19, 1974, that trouble started brewing. It was on that day that the then-director of the CIA, William Colby, received a communication from one of his colleagues, an unknown figure who wanted to discuss a certain “issue.” Colby was told: “The issue arises from the fact that the recent Skylab mission inadvertently photographed” Area 51. Colby was additionally informed: “There were specific instructions not to do this.” Dwayne A. Day of The Space Review, who personally broke the story in 2006, said: “In other words, the CIA considered no other spot on Earth to be as sensitive as Groom Lake, and the astronauts had just taken a picture of it.” Uh- oh. Not good.
Those astronauts who had caused all of the problems were Edward Gibson, Gerald Carr, and William Pogue. Both Pogue and Carr had military backgrounds, and Gibson had a doctorate in engineering physics. Day says of their actions: “Why the Skylab astronauts disobeyed their orders and took the photo is unknown, as are what it depicted.” Director Colby’s informant told him: “This photo has been going through an interagency reviewing process aimed at a decision on how it should be handled.
There is no agreement DoD elements (USAF, NRO, JCS, ISA) all believe it should be withheld from public release. NASA, and to a large degree State, has taken the position that it should be released—that is, allowed into the Sioux National Repository and let nature take its course.” Colby was also advised: “There are some complicated precedents which, in fairness, should be reviewed before a final decision.” Colby was told that people had “a question of whether anything photographed in the United States can be classified if the platform is unclassified; such complex issues in the UN concerning United States policies toward imagery from space” as well as “the question of whether the photograph can be withheld without leaking.”
In terms of the outcome, Dwayne A. Day said: “Nothing more is known of this Skylab incident than the fact that the photograph was not released. NASA and the State Department clearly lost the argument. But the opponents of releasing it preserved national security, as they defined it.” None of this explains, exactly, why the NASA astronauts deliberately went against protocol and photographed Area 51. Were they, perhaps, aware of the strange rumors surrounding the base and, as a result, decided to get a photo of the legendary installation? It’s very hard to come to another viable conclusion.