Area 51, Annie Jacobsen
Area 51, Annie Jacobsen
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Area 51
An Uncensored History of America's Top Secret Military Base

Author: Annie Jacobsen

Narrator: Annie Jacobsen

Unabridged: 16 hr 11 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 05/17/2011


Synopsis

This "compellingly hard-hitting" bestseller from a Pulitzer Prize finalist gives readers the complete untold story of the top-secret military base for the first time (New York Times). 

It is the most famous military installation in the world. And it doesn't exist. Located a mere seventy-five miles outside of Las Vegas in Nevada's desert, the base has never been acknowledged by the U.S. government — but Area 51 has captivated imaginations for decades.

Myths and hypotheses about Area 51 have long abounded, thanks to the intense secrecy enveloping it. Some claim it is home to aliens, underground tunnel systems, and nuclear facilities. Others believe that the lunar landing itself was filmed there. The prevalence of these rumors stems from the fact that no credible insider has ever divulged the truth about his time inside the base. Until now.

Annie Jacobsen had exclusive access to nineteen men who served the base proudly and secretly for decades and are now aged 75-92, and unprecedented access to fifty-five additional military and intelligence personnel, scientists, pilots, and engineers linked to the secret base, thirty-two of whom lived and worked there for extended periods. In Area 51, Jacobsen shows us what has really gone on in the Nevada desert, from testing nuclear weapons to building super-secret, supersonic jets to pursuing the War on Terror.

This is the first book based on interviews with eye witnesses to Area 51 history, which makes it the seminal work on the subject. Filled with formerly classified information that has never been accurately decoded for the public, Area 51 weaves the mysterious activities of the top-secret base into a gripping narrative, showing that facts are often more fantastic than fiction, especially when the distinction is almost impossible to make.

About Annie Jacobsen

Annie Jacobsen is the author of the New York Times bestsellers Area 51 and Operation Paperclip and the Pulitzer Prize finalist The Pentagon's Brain. She was a contributing editor at the Los Angeles Times Magazine. A graduate of Princeton University, she lives in Los Angeles with her husband and two sons.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Stephanie *Eff your feelings* on May 03, 2013

"Wow! It sure is hot in the desert. Hey, why does that rattle snake have two heads?" "I can tell you……." "Oh, hello…I didn‘t see you there, just talking to myself and the snake---s. I’m Stephanie, and who are you and what are you doing in the middle of the Mojave Desert?" "I could ask you the same thin......more

Goodreads review by Joe on June 29, 2022

AREA 51, fact or fiction? This must be why the CIA came up with the connotation term known as the 'conspiracy theory.' What better way to fool the public than to make a fool of whistleblowers? Some of the stuff in this book is history while other parts seem just too fantastic, or should I say, out o......more

Goodreads review by Anne on December 19, 2017

I heard an interview with Jacobsen on Fresh Air which intrigued me. Then I got a sample chapter to see if it held up to a critical reading, and I was hooked. If all you know about Area 51 is the alien/spaceship wacko thing, then you can be forgiven for thinking that is what this is about. Rather, thi......more

Goodreads review by Eric_W on March 23, 2014

Annie Jacobsen is obsessed with secrecy. Her other book, Operation Paperclip, deals with the hidden machinations of the US government after WW II to find and import Nazi scientists who had special expertise in rocketry and chemical weapons. This book details the hidden history of Area 51, an ultra-se......more

Goodreads review by Jamie on October 18, 2022

Lest you think this is 500 pages of UFO nuts: not hardly. It’s our military history, our aviation history, our hubris and folly and wizardry and triumph. The nuclear program, the Cold War, the Space Race; it all connects in a few hundred square miles of desert. And yet Jacobsen keeps this story focu......more