Area 51: An Uncensored History of America's Top Secret Military Base

The book, based on interviews with scientists and engineers who worked in Area 51, addresses the Roswell UFO incident{{cite news |first= Thomas |last= Harding |url= https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/ufo/8512408/Roswell-was-Soviet-plot-to-create-US-panic.html |title= Roswell 'was Soviet plot to create US panic' |work= The Daily Telegraph |date= May 13, 2011 |accessdate=2011-05-15| archiveurl= https://web.archive.org/web/20110520225608/http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/ufo/8512408/Roswell-was-Soviet-plot-to-create-US-panic.html| archivedate= 20 May 2011 | url-status= live}}{{cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/16/books/area-51-by-annie-jacobsen-review.html |work= The New York Times |title= A Military Post's Secrets: Espionage, Not Aliens |last= Maslin |first= Janet |date= May 15, 2011 |accessdate= 2011-05-18| archiveurl= https://web.archive.org/web/20110519095912/http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/16/books/area-51-by-annie-jacobsen-review.html| archivedate=May 19, 2011| url-status= live}} and dismisses the alien story.

Instead, it suggests that Josef Mengele was recruited by the Soviet leader Joseph Stalin to produce "grotesque, child-size aviators" to be remotely piloted and landed in America to cause hysteria in the likeness of Orson Welles' 1938 radio drama War of the Worlds, but that the aircraft crashed and the incident was hushed up by the Americans. Jacobsen writes that the bodies found at the crash site were children. Grotesquely but similarly deformed, aged around 12, each under five feet tall, with large heads and abnormally shaped oversize eyes. "They were neither aliens nor consenting airmen, but human guinea pigs", she claims.Thomas Harding. "[https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/ufo/8512408/Roswell-was-Soviet-plot-to-create-US-panic.html Roswell 'was Soviet plot to create US panic']", The Daily Telegraph, 13 May 2011. Retrieved 15 May 2011. Jacobson also interviews Richard Mingus who outlines an incident whereby Area 6 was attacked at gunpoint during the preparation of a nuclear test detonation.

{{Quote box|

[They] were not aliens. Nor were they consenting

airmen. They were human guinea pigs.

— Annie Jacobsen, author of Area 51}}

The book received mixed reviews. The Los Angeles Times called it "highly readable" and "deeply researched ... a dream for aviation and military buffs."{{cite web | title=May 30: Los Angeles Times Book Review: "Highly readable…deeply researched…chilling depictions…a dream for aviation and military buffs." - | website=area51thebook.com | date=27 August 2011 | url=http://www.area51thebook.com/news-and-reviews/may-30-los-angeles-times-book-review-highly-readable-deeply-researched-chilling-depictions/ | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110827083413/http://www.area51thebook.com/news-and-reviews/may-30-los-angeles-times-book-review-highly-readable-deeply-researched-chilling-depictions/ | archive-date=27 August 2011 | url-status=unfit | access-date=1 July 2018}} Time magazine wrote that "Area 51 suffers one flaw", referring to the Roswell craft that Jacobsen reports was a Soviet hoax.{{cite magazine|last=Thompson |first=Mark |url=https://nation.time.com/2011/05/18/area-51-revisited/?xid=rss-topstories |title=Area 51, Revisited |magazine=Time |date=2011-05-18 |access-date=2015-11-10}} The Daily Beast called it an "explosive new book".{{cite web|author=Annie Jacobsen |url=http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2011-05-13/the-truth-about-area-51-revealed-in-area-51-by-annie-jacobsen/ |title=The Truth About Area 51 Revealed in Area 51 by Annie Jacobsen |publisher=The Daily Beast |date= |accessdate=2015-11-10}} The New York Times wrote: "Although this connect-the-dots U.F.O. thesis is only a hasty-sounding addendum to an otherwise straightforward investigative book about aviation and military history, it makes an indelible impression. Area 51 is liable to become best known for sci-fi provocation." The Times noted that "the book is noteworthy for its author's dogged devotion to her research."{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/16/books/area-51-by-annie-jacobsen-review.html|newspaper=The New York Times|title=A Military Post's Secrets: Espionage, Not Aliens|date=May 15, 2011|accessdate=2015-11-10}}

Other reviews have been less positive. Space historian Dwayne Day, for instance, called Area 51 a "poorly-sourced, error-filled book" in which the author makes an argument that "defies common sense" and is reliant on one anonymous source.{{cite web|author=Dwayne A. Day |url=http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1852/1 |title=Roswell that ends well |publisher=The Space Review |date=2011-05-31 |accessdate=2015-11-10}} Jeffrey T. Richelson and Robert S. Norris, critiquing Jacobsen's factual errors on the blog Washington Decoded, stated that "[t]here are so many mistakes that it is hard to know where to begin ... Area 51 is a case study of how not to research and write about top-secret activities."{{cite web|url=http://www.washingtondecoded.com/site/2011/07/area51.html |title=Dreamland Fantasies |publisher=Washington Decoded |date=2011-07-11 |accessdate=2015-11-10}} Historian Richard Rhodes, writing in The Washington Post, also criticized the book's sensationalistic reporting of "old news" and its "error-ridden" reporting. He wrote: "All of [her main source's] claims appear in one or another of the various publicly available Roswell/UFO/Area 51 books and documents churned out by believers, charlatans and scholars over the past 60 years. In attributing the stories she reports to an unnamed engineer and Manhattan Project veteran while seemingly failing to conduct even minimal research into the man's sources, Jacobsen shows herself at a minimum extraordinarily gullible or journalistically incompetent."{{cite news|last=Rhodes |first=Richard |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/annie-jacobsens-area-51-the-us-top-secret-military-base/2011/05/26/AGIZPLIH_story.html |title=Annie Jacobsen's "Area 51," the U.S. top secret military base |newspaper=The Washington Post |date=2011-06-03 |accessdate=2015-11-10}} The book was sharply criticized for extensive errors in an essay by Robert Norris and Jeffrey Richelson, senior fellows at the Federation of American Scientists and the National Security Archive respectively.{{cite web |url=http://www.washingtondecoded.com/site/2011/07/area51.html |title=Dreamland Fantasies |work=Washington Decoded |first1=Robert S. |last1=Norris |first2=Jeffrey T. |last2=Richelson |date=July 11, 2011 |accessdate=September 26, 2011}}

In a 2024 interview by Lex Fridman, Jacobsen revealed the source of the Roswell UFO incident explained as a Soviet hoax to be Alfred O'Donnell, who worked for EG&G at Area 51 in the early 1950s."[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXgGR8KxFao Annie Jacobsen: Nuclear War, CIA, KGB, Aliens, Area 51, Roswell & Secrecy | Lex Fridman Podcast #420]" (at 2h27m15s), The Lex Fridman Podcast, 22 March 2024.

• {{cite book|title=Area 51: An Uncensored History of America's Top Secret Military Base|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Pl-B_TL7S8oC|date=17 May 2011|publisher=Little, Brown|isbn=978-0-316-19385-6}}

{{Reflist}}

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Category:2011 non-fiction books

Category:Books about conspiracy theories

Category:Aviation books

Category:Non-fiction books about military history of the United States

Category:Non-fiction books about United States intelligence agencies

Category:Little, Brown and Company books

Category:Works about Area 51

Category:Cultural depictions of Josef Mengele

Category:Books about Joseph Stalin