Area 51 Early Overflights — UAP Concurrent with A-12 1960

Among the most institutionally significant revelations in declassified CIA and Air Force records is the confirmation that during the height of classified aircraft testing at Groom Lake, Nevada (Area 51), cleared personnel — including test pilots and radar operators who were fully familiar with the classified U-2, A-12 OXCART, and HAVE DOUGHNUT programs — regularly reported observations of unidentified objects that out-performed the most advanced classified aircraft of the era. Internal CIA memoranda, particularly correspondence involving Deputy Director of Plans Richard Bissell, acknowledge these reports from cleared personnel and the challenge they presented to cover story management. The CIA's strategy of attributing civilian UAP reports to classified aircraft flights is well-documented in the 1997 CIA historical review. What that strategy did not address were the reports from individuals who knew exactly what the classified aircraft looked like and could fly, who reported observing objects that those aircraft could not match. Test pilots at Area 51 had no incentive to misidentify classified aircraft they flew themselves and had reason to know exactly what capabilities those aircraft possessed. The concurrent existence of UAP observations by the world's most highly cleared aviation community — during the same period the US government was using classified aircraft to explain other UAP reports — represents one of the most significant institutional contradictions in the UAP record.