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

best book i loved it so much

14 out of 36 people found this review helpful.

Not very original...

Most if not all info in the book can be found on the internet. Some of it being word for word THE SAME. No mind blowing secrets uncovered. A lot of the book has nothing to do with Area 51. Goes off subject quite a bit. Spent good bit of ink on JFK's older brother getting killed in WWII flying drones, and the Navy drone program. Who cares!!! Nothing to do with Area 51. Kind of figure it would end up like this but there were quite a few good reviews. Guess those readers have spent little if any time online reading about Area 51. I know I haven't spent a lot of time myself, but enough to know I wasted $15 bucks on this. Glad I didn't buy the hard cover.

10 out of 17 people found this review helpful.

Excellent book!

Found this book totally fascinating. Lots of info that filled in several holes from other books I have read about the same historical periods. Whoever complained about the info about the flying saucer and "creatures" who make up the Roswell Incident being so non-credible, and giving the book such a low rating because of it, neglected to mention that it was maybe 5 or 6 pages of info at the end of more than 300+ pages. All the rest of the book was totally discarded because they didn't believe one section?! What a travesty. This book is thoroughly worth reading for so much good stuff you never will learn in history class.

6 out of 7 people found this review helpful.

Read with caution - contains some good material amid some really nutty ideas.

A well written but deeply flawed book based on recently declassified files on the U-2 and A-12 Oxcart programs and enriched interviews with more that 30 individuals who have worked at Area 51. It is unfortunately deeply marred by shoddy research on any topic outside that narrow focus on which those named interviewees kept her grounded. Her unnamed source at contractor EG&G sets her spinning wild tales about Russian flying discs crashing at Roswell that is even loopier than the extraterrestrial aliens story was. Her sections on the NERVA nuclear rocket test experiments at Jackass Flats (Area 25) are nearly totally wrong. She betrays a negligible understanding of science and engineering and appears to exhibit a knee-jerk reaction against any form of atomic energy. This could have ben a great book, but it falls far short of that mark.

4 out of 4 people found this review helpful.

Frightening

This is the scariest book I have ever read. It is basicaly the history of nuclear reseatch and weapons development in the US. I wasn't a believer in cabals or conspiracies running the country until I read rhis well researched and documented book. It can read dry and be a bit confusing, but you won't forget it.

2 out of 2 people found this review helpful.

Disappointing, riddled with factual errors

In the hands of a skilled writer with a sense of history, Area 51 could have been an important historical work. But as it is, the author confounds fact with fiction in what appears to be an attempt to create a sensational story. Some of the narrative is compelling but the book is riddled with factual errors, leaving the reader not knowing what is real, and what is not. The author attempts to rail against government secrets, but parts of her book undermine her thesis. She lets on at the beginning of the book that the book is about "government projects and operations that are secret from Congress and secret from the people who make up the United States." She rails against the deception of governments, asserting what I think is her underlying cause that "government policy on secrets undermines the greater good." But she leaves to the reader's imagination exactly what secrets she is referring to. Are all government secrets necessarily evil? The focus of her book, before she gets carried away, is on the U-2 program and Oxcart. Is Jacobsen suggesting that the US government should have advertised its work at Area 51? Jacobsen says that the U-2 was the CIA's "best chance to get hard intelligence on the Soviet Union, considering that one photograph could provide the Agency with as much information as approximately ten thousand spies on the ground." Is Jacobsen suggesting that we would have been better off with trying to recruit ten thousand spies on the ground in the Soviet Union? Or possibly Jacobsen is suggesting that the government should come clean about the miscreants sent by Stalin in a flying disc that crashed at Roswell. Government secrets are a serious topic that deserve more thoughtful examination than Jacobsen is able to provide. The author is certainly not a student of history or geography. She calls the MVD (Ministerstvo Vnutrennikh Del), the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Soviet Union, the "MBD" and mistranslates it. She persistently calls the Soviet Union, Russia. The list of gross factual errors continues. Jacobsen wanted to say that America's intelligence services had no idea about what was going on east of the Ural Mountains, which would be Soviet Asia, but instead says that they had absolutely no idea "what was happening west of the Ural Mountains." The author's sense of direction in the US fares no better. Burbank, California is not "nine miles to the southwest" of Northridge--the correct answer is that it is southeast. Although she is correct that Tsar Nicolas II was shot in 1918, it did not "set[] off the Communist Revolution." The Bolshevik Revolution occurred in October (old style) 1917. The author's failure even to understand basic historical facts undermines her entire "story" not even talking about the infamous wacky "Revelation" chapter on "child-size aviators" with "large heads and abnormally oversize eyes" sent by Stalin to the US. My hope is that this book will prompt others to take a closer look at the activities and work at Area 51, and that they will create an accurate account before those who are no longer able to share their firsthand accounts. They certainly deserve better than this historical hack job.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

UL-1 and going down?

Has anyone out there gone deep? Just remembering! Contact citti 1/0

Great!

Amazing details!

HEY I THOUGH 51 WAS LIKE ALIENS FROM MAAARZZZ

O.o

Good Book

Good book, well written.
Revealed things that happen in that place over the years, help understand

SO SO

Goes off in different directions

Good over all history about America's, but then the author loses it

Great history lesson regarding the turf wars between the CIA and Air Force regarding the U-2,A-12 and SR-71 and the activities at Groom Lake.but then the author goes on a totally unbelievable theory on the Roswell crash of 1947.The soviet flew a disc shaped air craft to the U.S. when they barely had a working rocket? If this were true, how come they were unable to intercept a U-2 until 1960? She fails to mention Peter Umfitsov and his forgotten paper on radar wave propagation,the closest the Soviets came to Area 51 without a satellite.The author talks about disinformation a few times.Perhaps she failed to notice she is a victim of it.

Awesome

It just wants to make you read more.

Great!

Great read for military history buffs, especialy if u like the CIA and black budget.

Eh to the pic

Derp

Fascinating!

0 out of 3 people found this review helpful.

Good read

We have all heard stories about Roswell and Area 51. This book uncovers many of those secrets. Well documented and highly factual. Great history and research. At times repetitive commentary. The photographs are stashed away in the back of the book. Would have been more meaningful if they were inserted into the body of the text. Enjoyed it.

Great Book

I read this book on a series of very long flights. It kept me very interested and entertained. A great read and I learned so much, some things that are a little on the scary side: nuclear tests in the ozone layer...scary.scary.

Highly Recommended

My son encouraged me to read this book. I thought it was going to be about Area 51. It is but much more. I have lived in Southern New Mexico much of my life. Including Roswell & Las Cruces. I found it fascinating to learn much more about what I thought I knew about the Roswell Incident, the first atomic bomb, Los Alamos, Sandia Lab & so on. I have read & heard about these places & goings on all of my life. I encourage anyone who wants to better understand "The Cold War" with Russia, the "Black Ops" that our country has been involved in & much more.

lots to learn about U.S. dark side

A good review of the technical developments by the CIA, Air Force, and others in the Utah desert to create the U2 and successors. Not a "little green men" history: more a "dark side of intelligence" history.