Area 51

**Area 51** was a highly classified United States Air Force facility located in Nevada. The Groom Lake facility was established in the wake of the Roswell incident of 1947 in which it stored and studied a crashed extraterrestrial spacecraft and its deceased occupants. Following the War of 1996, Area 51 was renamed as the **Center of Alien Technology** and becoming one of the largest military installations on Earth, and headquarters for the Earth Space Defense.

## History

"*I don't understand, where does all this come from? How do you get funding for something like this?*" "*You don't actually think they spend $20,000 on a hammer, $30,000 on a toilet seat, do you?*"
―**President Whitmore** and **Julius Levinson**
Area 51 was established as a storage facility containing an alien spaceship and the bodies of its passengers from the Roswell incident of 1947. The facility contains a deep-level hangar, where the spaceship is studied and repaired, and a vault containing the preserved bodies of the vessel's passengers dubbed as "The Freak Show" by the base's staff members.

The U.S. government denied the existence of Area 51 and its possessions, and publicly dismissed it as a sensational conspiracy theory. Only a select few in the government were aware of its existence. The President and other higher ranking government officials were kept ignorant of the facility's existence, as former CIA Director and Secretary of Defense Albert Nimziki stated this for the sake of "plausible deniability." Funding for Area 51 was dependent on a black budget that was secretly funneled from the American congress, as part of the national budget for developing new weapons for the military in which spy planes and stealth technology were developed from extraterrestrial technology.

Immanuel Wells was director of research at Area 51 from 1947 to 1968. In 1968, Wells was removed from his position and from Project Smudge due to his erratic behavior and calls to make information surrounding the alien visitations public in order to prepare for a potential invasion. Brackish Okun became director of research in 1974 after working at Area 51 for two years.

### War of 1996

As of 1996, Area 51's administrator was USAF Major Mitchell and its research division was headed by Dr. Brackish Okun. During the alien invasion of 1996, President Thomas Whitmore and his surviving staff were informed of Area 51's existence by Albert Nimziki and landed there, where it temporarily became the functioning headquarters of the U.S. government. By this time, the Harvester vessel was fully repaired and operational, and ultimately used by David Levinson and Steven Hiller to infiltrate the alien mothership and thus disabling the force fields of the City Destroyers. Area 51 soon came under attack by a City Destroyer, forcing Whitmore to lead a counterattack on the Destroyer and leading to its destruction with the sacrifice of volunteered jet fighter pilot, Russell Casse.

### Earth Space Defense

Five years after the War of 1996, Area 51 was place under the Earth Space Defense and renamed as the Center for Alien Technology. Area 51 greatly expanded its facilities which included housing for thousands of employees mining from the wreck of the City Destroyer that attacked the base, new testing areas for its equipment, and fielded with new defense emplacements. Unexpectedly, a town was formed by displaced entrepreneurs outside of Area 51 and even has its own mayor and alderman. The townspeople have not chosen a name for their town and are referred to as "the town of 51".

Area 51 also contained a prison for the Harvester survivors of the war. Due to the aliens' fragile form, they cannot be let out of their exoskeletons or they will perish. The Harvesters remained unresponsive for two decades until the War of 2016. The Marilyn Whitmore Hospital was also part of the facility complex.

### War of 2016

Area 51 became the site of a second battle against the Harvesters. The ESD salvaged an alien container containing the Sphere and brought it to Area 51. The presence of the Sphere attracted the attention of the Harvester Queen in which the ESD used this to their advantage to lure the Queen into a trap.