Mystery of area 51

Hi,friends today's topic is area 51

The small US towns of Rachel and Hiko, near the highly secret Area 51 facility in Nevada, are bracing themselves for a possible influx of visitors.

The viral Facebook event "Storm Area 51, They Can't Stop All of Us" is due to take place on 20 September - even though the person who came up with the idea says it was a joke.

So, what is Area 51?

What do we know about Area 51?

Area 51 refers to a map location and is the popular name for a United States Air Force base. It is at Groom Lake, a dry lake bed in the Nevada Desert, 85 miles (135km) north of Las Vegas.

What goes on inside is extremely secret. Members of the public are kept away by warning signs, electronic surveillance and armed guards.

It is also illegal to fly over Area 51, although the site is now visible on satellite images. The base has runways up to 12,000ft (2.3 miles/3.7km) long.

Image copyrightGETTY IMAGES

Image captionSome local businesses in the small town of Rachel have embraced Area 51's association with alien mythology

The facility is next to two other restricted military areas: the Nevada Test Site, where US nuclear weapons were tested from the 1950s to the 1990s, and the Nevada Test and Training Range.

The entire range covers more than 2.9 million acres of land.

According to the US military, it represents "a flexible, realistic and multidimensional battle-space to conduct testing tactics development, and advanced training".thanks  friend s.