Area 51

Officially designated the Nevada Test and Training Range, the facility became embedded in UFO culture in 1989 when Robert Lazar claimed to have worked on reverse-engineering extraterrestrial craft at a sub-site called S-4. Despite — or because of — the US government's long refusal to acknowledge the base's existence, Area 51 became the organizing centre of American UFO mythology.

Declassified CIA documents confirm the base was used to test the U-2 reconnaissance aircraft and the SR-71 Blackbird from the 1950s onwards, accounting for many 'UFO' sightings: test flights at altitudes far above commercial aviation. The base remains active and heavily guarded; the surrounding 'Extraterrestrial Highway' (Nevada State Route 375) draws hundreds of thousands of visitors a year.