Nevada Test and Training Range

Military training area in Nevada, United States

For the United States Air Force unit, see

Nevada Test and Training Range (military unit)

.

The Nevada Test and Training Range (NTTR) covers roughly 4,531 sq mi (11,740 km2) of high desert in Nye, Lincoln, and Clark counties in southern Nevada, with an additional 5,000 sq mi (13,000 km2) of restricted airspace and 7,000 sq mi (18,000 km2) of shared Military Operations Area, and is one of two military training areas at the Nellis Air Force Base Complex used by the United States Air Force Warfare Center at Nellis Air Force Base. The range encloses the adjoining Nevada National Security Site (formerly the Nevada Test Site) and contains or borders several classified installations that figure centrally in mainstream aviation history and in UFO/exopolitics lore, including Area 51 at Groom Lake, the Tonopah Test Range, Papoose Lake with its alleged "S-4" facility, Tolicha Peak, and Point Bravo. The NTTR land area includes a "simulated Integrated Air Defense System", several individual ranges with 1,200 targets, and four remote communication sites. The current NTTR area and the range's former areas have been used for aerial gunnery and bombing, for nuclear tests, as a proving ground and flight test area, for aircraft control and warning, and for Blue Flag, Green Flag, and Red Flag exercises. Allegedly, portions of the range — especially Papoose Lake and the Groom Lake complex — have also housed recovered non-human craft and associated reverse engineering programs, a claim most prominently advanced by Bob Lazar in 1989.

Geography

The Nevada Test and Training Range land area is mostly Central Basin and Range ecoregion (cf. southernmost portion in the Mojave Desert), and smaller ecoregions (e.g., Tonopah Basin, Tonopah Playa, and Bald Mountain biomes) are within the area of numerous basin and range landforms of the NTTR.

Landforms

For the list of all NTTR landforms, see

Nellis and Wildlife 5 Ranges region

.

The NTTR is at the serpentine section of the Great Basin Divide in southern Nevada and uses numerous landforms for military operations, e.g., Groom Lake near the northeast NTTR border is the airstrip for Area 51, the 1955 Site II west of the lake's WWII field. Tolicha Peak and Point Bravo are the sites of for electronic combat ranges, and the Mercury Valley is the eponym for a Cold War camp that became Mercury, Nevada. The Tonopah Test Range, within the boundaries of the NTTR (e.g., "Nellis Range 75") includes Antelope Lake, Radar Hill, and the "Cactus, Antelope, and Silverbow Springs".

Northern Range

The Northern Range includes the Tolicha Peak Electronic Combat Range (TPECR, e.g., Range 76 targets 76–03, -05, -11, & -14) and Tonopah Electronic Combat Range (the Wildhorse Management Area encircled by the Northern Range is not part of the NTTR.)

Eastman Airfield Target

The Eastman Airfield Target (Target 76–14, Korean Airfield, 37°22′N 116°50′W / 37.367°N 116.833°W / 37.367; -116.833 (Eastman Airfield Target 76-14)[citation needed]) is a Range 76 target 4.3 miles (6.9 km) northwest of the TPECR. The target has a northeastern taxiway loop, characteristic for the former Soviet Air Force base at Jüterbog Airfield in East Germany, and three ramps in front of hangars on the western side of the loop. The other taxiways have a similar layout to Jüterbog, although the runway is about 1,300 feet (400 m) shorter. There are two accompanying SAM sites, one 1.6 miles (2.5 km) northwest of the airfield, and one 3.5 miles (5.6 km) northwest just like the original.

Southern Range

The Southern Range includes the Point Bravo Electronic Combat Range.[citation needed] An area of about 1,276 sq mi (3,300 km2) of the Southern Range that was withdrawn from the Desert National Wildlife Range is co-managed by the United States Air Force (USAF) and the United States Fish and Wildlife Service.

Nearby facilities

In addition to Nellis AFB, areas outside of the current NTTR land area are used for related activities, e.g., about 1,107 sq mi (2,870 km2) of the former military range land (relinquished 1942, e.g. ranges 46–56, and c.1953) is under the Nellis "Area A" airspace that is a Military Operations Area (MOA). The Formerly Used Defense Site north and northeast of the NTTR with "Stone Cabin, Hot Creek, Railroad, Tikaboo, and Sand Spring valleys" is a "former portion of the Tonopah Bombing Range", includes "Permit Required Confined space", and prohibits vehicles in "suspected ordnance impact area[s]" (e.g., "green markings" indicate chemical agents). Most areas adjacent to the NTTR are managed by the Bureau of Land Management for limited non-residential use such as grazing. Temporary sites, e.g., for Patriot Communications Exercises (about "21 days per exercise"), are in the "ADA activity area" east of the NTTR with 13 empty "500 feet by 500 feet" sites for mobile electronic equipment on BLM land in the "Sand Springs Valley, Coal Valley, Delamar Valley, and Dry Lake Valley" ("general area" of the Key Pittman WMA) and "under MOA airspace".

History

"Tertiary age" lava flows formed 5 erupted groups in the area, and block faulting such as the Siebert and Mizpah faults formed the ranges and valleys. Precambrian and Paleozoic marine sediments form an "almost uniform thickness of 40,000 feet", and surface geology is "typically the Cenozoic Era continental deposits and some Paleogene volcanic rocks". Located at the southern tip of the Great Basin tribes area, the eventual range area was crossed by the Old Spanish Trail (trade route), was south of the Pony Express route, and was split by the 37th parallel north of the 1850 New Mexico & 1863 Arizona territories' northwest corner. In the 1930s the land had been used as an Animal Sanctuary where the Department of the Interior made it a wildlife reservation. However, in 1942 during World War II the region restricted it from public access for the War Department to use. The original bombing range had been used for the 1900–1921 silver rush (e.g., Tonopah Mining District & Tonopah Manhattan Stage Route), and the region was subdivided into smaller numbered management areas (e.g., Area 2, Area 5, Area 11, Area 12, Area 25, Area 27, Area 52), which are used for names of some of the range installations (e.g., "Area 3 Compound" and "Area 51" for "Groom Lake Field").

Tonopah Bombing Range

"Las Vegas Bombing and Gunnery Range" redirects here. For the nearby WWII base named for the city, see

Las Vegas Army Air Field

.

The Tonopah Bombing Range was designated on federal land "withdrawn... October 29, 1940, from the public domain" and in June 1941, the "Tonopah Gunnery and Bombing Range" was split at "37 degrees and 30 minutes" latitude into the "Tonopah General Range" and "Las Vegas General Range". On October 28, 1941, "United States v. 1,855,720 Acres of land..." (US Fifth District) was initiated to seize private land, and in July 1942 the Fourth Air Force Bombing and Gunnery Range Detachment from "Muroc Lake" arrived as the 1st unit. Several Nevada World War II Army Airfields were established, e.g., the August 1942 Tonopah Army Air Field in the north area and in the south, Indian Springs Auxiliary Army Airfield and its additional fields, e.g., at Area 18 (Aux. Field#4) and Area 51 (Aux. Field#1). In February 1943, Indian Springs AAF was being used for the 82d Flying Training Wing for air-to-air gunnery training, and Indian Springs AAF closed in January 1947.[citation needed] In June 1947 Tonopah AAF was declared excess along with its 3 auxiliary areas (Mizpah and Butler housing terraces and Columbia Junction gasoline unloading station). The Indian Springs main facility[specify] re-opened in January 1948 and on June 13, 1949, Air Training Command merged the Las Vegas Bombing and Gunnery Range and the Tonopah Bombing and Gunnery Range. On June 28, 1949, the "Gunnery Range of the Tonopah Air Force Base" had about 30 sq mi (78 km2) and after the 1949 Las Vegas Air Force Base was renamed on April 30, 1950, a United States Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) committee selected the "Las Vegas Bombing and Gunnery Range" [sic] for a nuclear test site on December 12, 1950. The land was ideal for training aerial gunners because the land was far from people and contained dry lake beds, which worked perfectly for target practices.

Nellis Air Force Gunnery and Bombing Range

A 680-square mile section of the Nellis Air Force Gunnery and Bombing Range was designated the Nevada Proving Grounds (NPG) on December 18, 1950. The new NPG included "Yucca and Frenchman Flats, Paiute and Rainier Mesas". The presidential order also established Groom Lake Field (colloq. "The Pig Farm") at the WWII installation.[citation needed] The first NPG nuclear test was for Operation Ranger on January 27, 1951, and the Indian Springs main facility (renamed an Air Force Base in 1951) supported NPG testing after ARDC General Order No. 39 on July 16, 1952.[citation needed] The NPG Camp Desert Rock "military support facility" (now the private Desert Rock Airport) operated September 1951-October 7, 1957 (electricity was from AEC's Camp Mercury) and closed June 18, 1964. In 1955 on the southwest corner of Groom Lake, a survey team laid out the 5,000-foot (1,500 m) north–south "Site II" runway for Project AQUATONE. The 1st Lockheed U-2 (Article 341) left the Skunk Works in a C-124 Globemaster II cargo plane for the AQUATONE site in July 1955 and first flew on July 29 during a runway test. The Tonopah Test Range (TTR) land was withdrawn from public use in 1956 to replace nuclear test sites at the "Salton Sea Test Base" and the Yucca Flat site, and in 1957 Sandia Laboratories began TTR operations at Cactus Flat.

From 1956 to 1969–70, the Las Vegas Air Force Station and Tonopah Air Force Stations provided Reno Air Defense Sector radar tracks and in 1957, the "instrumented AEC range at Tonopah" was used by NAS Fallon and Point Mugu pilots. "A safety experiment (Project 57 No. 1) with ground zero coordinates of N 932646, E 688515 was detonated on April 24, 1957" in "Area 13" at the northeast NTTR boundary. In 1958, the Tonopah Test Range Airport was planned with a single runway of 19,000 ft (5,800 m). In 1960, Camp Mercury was a base camp for Project 5.5 that studied nuclear detonation effect on the Northrop F-89D Scorpion (a similar Project 6.5 was for effect of nuclear detonations on the Nike Hercules missile system). A 1961 Public Land Order transferred USAF land to the AEC, and after the 1962 RBS Express #2 near the Hawthorne Naval Ammunition Depot was used for Radar Bomb Scoring of flights over the range, the Hawthorne Bomb Plot radar station operated in Babbitt until c.1993. Operation Roller Coaster was a TTR nuclear test series in May and June 1963 and in November and December 1965, B-52 Combat Skyspot testing at the range used the only CONUS AN/MSQ-77 developed for the Vietnam War. Planning to integrate the range with the Fallon and Hill/Wendover/Dugway ranges to create the Great Basin's "Continental Operations Range" ended in 1975, the first year for a Nellis range Red Flag exercise.

Nellis Air Force Range

The Nellis Air Force Range (NAFR) was used to bury wreckage of the 1978 Groom Lake & 1979 NAFR F-117 Nighthawk crashes, and additional Cold War accidents at the range included the 1975 NAFR TR-1 crash, the 1979 Tonopah MiG-17 crash during training versus an Northrop F-5, the 1984 Little Skull Mountain MiG-23 crash, which killed a USAF general, and the 1986 NAFR crash, which "Air Force sources" identified as an "F-19" stealth fighter. Circa 1980, NAFR received 806L "Range Threat" systems for electronic warfare simulation and from 1983 to 1985, the area of South Antelope Lake was used for two Tomahawk missile targets. NAFR range operations transferred to the 99th Range Group at the end of the Cold War (the range received various Radar Bomb Scoring electronic systems from Strategic Training Ranges, e.g., Nellis had 5 AN/MSQ-77s by 1994). In 1999 the range's land withdrawal[quantify] was renewed and the unused portion of the original Tonopah Bombing Range was redesignated a Formerly Used Defense Site.

In 2001, NAFR was renamed the Nevada Test and Training Range (NTTR) and in October 2001, the range group personnel and assets for range operations transferred to the 98th Range Wing. In 2005, Indian Springs AFAF was renamed Creech Air Force Base and in 2010, the NTS was renamed the Nevada National Security Site. The NTTR had four tracts in the 2010 U.S. census. In 2011, the 98th Range Wing was redesignated with the same name as the range (NTTR).

Area 51 Facebook Raid

Main article:

Storm Area 51, They Can't Stop All of Us

In June 2019, a joke Facebook event was created rallying the public to storm the training range on September 20 that year. Over two million people responded as "going" to the event, with another 1.5 million "interested". The county commission chairman estimated that approximately 40,000 people would turn up on 20 September.

On July 10, speaking with The Washington Post, Air Force spokeswoman Laura McAndrews said officials were aware of the event, and issued a warning saying that the area was "an open training range for the U.S. Air Force, and we would discourage anyone from trying to come into the area where we train American armed forces", adding: "The U.S. Air Force always stands ready to protect America and its assets". A public information officer at Nellis Air Force Base told KNPR that "any attempt to illegally access the area is highly discouraged".

Alleged role in UFO and exopolitics narratives

See also:

Area 51

,

Bob Lazar

, and

Papoose Lake

The NTTR's size, remoteness, restricted airspace, and concentration of classified test facilities have made it the most frequently invoked domestic location in American UFO lore. Annie Jacobsen's 2011 history of Area 51 frames the NTTR and the adjoining Nevada National Security Site as "the nation's most secret domestic military facility", noting that "everything that goes on at Area 51, and most of what goes on at the Nevada Test and Training Range, is classified when it is happening". Of the seventy-four individuals she interviewed with firsthand knowledge of the base, thirty-two reportedly lived or worked inside NTTR boundaries.

Bob Lazar and S-4

Main articles:

Bob Lazar

and

S-4 (Area 51)

The most influential claim situating extraterrestrial hardware on the NTTR was made in 1989 by physicist Bob Lazar, who told Las Vegas reporter George Knapp that he had been hired by the United States Navy to reverse-engineer recovered flying saucers at a facility designated S-4, allegedly located a few miles south of Groom Lake at Papoose Lake. According to Lazar, employees gathered at EG&G, were flown to Groom Lake, then bused with blacked-out windows south to S-4, where nine disc-shaped craft — including the one he called the "sport model" — were purportedly housed in hangars carved into the hillside. Investigators reported that Nellis public affairs initially confirmed "S-4 was a location at which the Air Force 'tested certain equipment'" on the Nellis range, although the designation was later said to be absent from all maps. The U.S. Air Force and most mainstream aviation historians reject Lazar's claims; skeptical commenters at discussion of the claims note that Papoose Lake's dry bed shows no visible hangar structures in overhead imagery and that no independent corroboration of the "nine craft" claim has emerged.

Aviation cover narrative and UFO reports

Several highly classified programs executed on the NTTR — including the Lockheed U-2 Project AQUATONE tests at Groom Lake from 1955, the Lockheed A-12/SR-71, the F-117 Nighthawk stealth fighter that operated from the Tonopah Test Range Airport, and the reported but never-officially-acknowledged "F-19" whose 1986 crash was identified only through anonymous "Air Force sources" — have been widely cited by mainstream historians as the origin of many Cold War UFO sightings over southern Nevada. The Central Intelligence Agency has publicly stated that U-2 and OXCART flights from Groom Lake generated large numbers of unidentified flying object reports during the 1950s and 1960s. Exopolitics writers nevertheless allege that a separate, genuinely non-human component operates from within the NTTR alongside these black aircraft programs.

Storm Area 51 and public mythology

Main article:

Storm Area 51, They Can't Stop All of Us

The NTTR's hold on the public imagination culminated in the June 2019 Facebook event "Storm Area 51, They Can't Stop All of Us", which claimed more than two million RSVPs and prompted Air Force warnings about the training range. Bob Lazar himself discouraged participation, and Lincoln County officials prepared for as many as 40,000 visitors; the September 20, 2019 gathering drew only a few thousand tourists to Rachel, Nevada, and produced no breaches of the range boundary.

See also

• Nevada National Security Site
• Creech Air Force Base
• Dreamland (Area 51)
• Majestic 12
• List of UFO sightings in Nevada

References

External links

• Official website

This article incorporates material from the Wikipedia article "Nevada Test and Training Range", as of 2024-11-14, released under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License.