Conspiracy Encyclopedia

Popular culture often portrays Area 51 as a haven for extraterrestrials. The numerous conspiracy theories surrounding Area 51 have granted it a fairly high profile in popular culture, specifically in the area of science fiction. Dozens of films and television programs deal with fictionalized events at the site. The following is list of such media:

• In the 1996 action film Independence Day, the complex is shown to have been studying the crashed scout ship from the Roswell UFO incident of 1947. The heroes of the film later make their final attack from the airstrips at the base, and in a nod to established fact, Randy Quaid’s character Russell Casse at one point refers to the base not being shown on a state map of Nevada.
• The television series Seven Days took place largely inside the Area 51 complex itself, with the base depicted as being run by a covert National Security Agency (NSA) operation which used a time travel device made possible by alien technology recovered from the 1947 Roswell incident.
• Lara Croft breaks into Area 51 in Tomb Raider 3. She must find a special stone called “Element 115.”
• Joanna Dark infiltrates Area 51 in the video game Perfect Dark. Her objectives are to meet up with a fellow secret agent, find the autopsy lab of the assumed to be dead alien codenamed “Elvis”, and to get out successfully.
• In the beginning of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, “Hangar 51″ is revealed to be the location of the government warehouse where the Ark of the Covenant was stored at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark, and where KGB agents go to recover the remains of the Roswell alien, eventually revealed to be an interdimensional being with a crystalline skeleton. Writer David Koepp acknowledged the number 51 as a reference to popular beliefs about the connection between Roswell and Area 51.
• In the television series Stargate SG-1, Area 51 is used as a facility for storage and research of extraterrestrial technology brought back to Earth from other planets.
• In the episode Knight to King’s Pawn of the revived Knight Rider series on NBC, Michael Knight infiltrates a storage facility at Area 51, to recover KITT, after it was taken away by NSA agents.
• In the Metal Gear series, Area 51 turns out to be one of the headquarters of the group known as the Patriots, who manipulate all aspects of the world from behind the scenes.
• In the comic Superman: Red Son, Abin Sur’s body is stored in Area 51 by order of J. Edgar Hoover. John F. Kennedy later gives Lex Luthor access to the base to develop weapons to defeat the Soviet Union.
• For the finale of the documentary television series UFO Hunters, Season Two, Area 51 was filmed in October 2008. The high definition footage aired February 25, 2009 on the History channel.
• A video game was released by Midway Games in 2005, called Area 51.
• The title of William Shatner’s 2002 film “Groom Lake” refers to Area 51, and the movie’s plot centers around Area 51.