Area 51

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Area 51 was a secret U.S. military base containing an alien spaceship and alien bodies from the Roswell incident of 1947. Following the War of 1996, Area 51 was renamed as the Center of Alien Technology and became a headquarters for the Earth Space Defense.

History

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 existence of Area 51 and its possessions was publicly dismissed as a sensational conspiracy theory. Only a select few in the U.S. 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.

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 alien 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 counterstrike on the Destroyer and leading to its destruction by the sacrifice of 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. Although the townspeople haven't choose a name for their town, except being referred to as "the town of 51".

Area 51 also contained a prison for the alien survivors of the war. Due to the aliens' fragile form, they cannot be let out of their exoskeletons or they will perish. The aliens remain unresponsive for two decades until the War of 2016.

Gallery

Independence Day

Air Force One above Area 51.

Major Mitchell, administrator of Area 51.

The "Freak Show".

Area 51 following after the battle.

Independence Day: Resurgence

Artist rendering of an alien prison in Area 51.

Some Destroyer cannons under construction at Area 51.

The Alien prison.

A cell containing an alien is transported from the prison to an isolated chamber.

The Harvester leaves Earth as seen from Area 51.

Behind the Scenes

• Area 51 is a real life United States Air Force base. Because of its intense secrecy surrounding the base it has since become the frequent subject of conspiracy theories and a central component to unidentified flying object (UFO) folklore. Due to the importance of Area 51 in Independence Day, the U.S. military backed out in the movie's production after the producers refused to remove the script's Area 51 references. Allegedly, ID4 location manager Kenneth Fix asked the U.S. government if the production could film at the real Area 51. The government's response was uncharacteristically flippant: "If you can find it, you can film there." In July 2013, the CIA publicly acknowledged the existence of the base for the first time, declassifying documents detailing the history and purpose of Area 51.

• During the film making of Independence Day, Wendover Airport doubled for the Area 51 and El Toro exteriors.

• The interior sets for Area 51 were built in one of the cavernous warehouse spaces at the former Hughes Aircraft manufacturing plant in Playa Vista, California. The sets were largely contiguous, with the huge hangar and alien ship at one end and the alien "freak show" and medical lab at the other.

• The "freak show" term refers to the sideshows that was a staple of carnivals and traveling circuses and made popular by showmen such as P.T. Barnum. These displays and performances of human oddities often included collections of deformed and strange creatures preserved in jars of formaldehyde - similar to the bodies of the "freak show" aliens that were displayed in the film.

William Wordsworth's "She was a Phantom of Delight" easter egg.

• Ed Marsh snuck a few lines of William Wordsworth's 1798 poem "She was a Phantom of Delight" into the projected SECTOR 3 military video graphic during Whitmore's briefing with General Grey: "And now I see with eye serene / The very pulse of the machine."

• The giant Area 51 hangar set is another one of Roland Emmerich and Dean Devil's motifs also seen in their previous movie Stargate, which features a large, underground bunker with scientists and/or military personnel bustling around a piece of alien technology they are trying to get it operational.