A51+Aerial+Weaponry+development

= = =What the Government says is occurring= =Aurora Project=

Started in the eighties, the Aurora Project was a supposed American reconnaissance air plane. Conspiracy theorist believed that this plane was capable on hypersonic flight, or speeds over Mach 5. Supposedly it was created to replace the soon to be obsolete SR-71 Blackbird. In 1990, a magazine began all the rumors about the Aurora project by leaking some information about a black aircraft project. Allegedly, some of the funding for the project reached 2.3 billion dollars at a point. Lockheed’s Skunk Works was suggested as the prime contractor for the Aurora Project. In the past, Lockheed had been involved in quite a few other black aircraft projects as well. In august, 1989, a man by the name of Chris Gibson saw an unusual black triangle shaped plane refueling at tanker aircraft accompanied by a few bomber planes as well. Gibson was actually part of the Royal Observers Corps and was still unable to identify the plane.A series of unusual sonic booms were also heard in Southern California starting in 1991. A few were even recorded by machines which are usually used to give advanced warning on earthquakes. After a while, the sighting number decrease which lead people to wonder if the Aurora project had ever existed.

=Other Projects=

The most current reports of activity in Area 51 are of development of UAVs or unmanned aerial vehicles. The UAVs should not replace manned aircraft, but will instead be used for mission that require things we can't do or are highly dangerous.

DarkStar
The DarkStar project is the nickname given to a project also known as the Tier III Minus UAV. It was a project being developed for high altitude reconnaissance endurance flights. It was not very large and it was to be meant for wide area surveillance in highly defended areas. It would be perfect for gathering information in places where pilots would be in extreme danger where the would normally be trying to gather information. It would be capable of completely autonomous take, flight and recovery, and retasking while in flight. It would a able to loiter over a target for around eight hours and would be able to receive instruction from a military base of sorts from 500 nautical miles away. It was also quite stealthy and advanced more in that area that some of its counterparts. However, unfortunately for the DarkStar, its counterpart, that Global Hawk was chosen over that DarkStar as the Global Hawk had a greater range than that of the DarkStar, which had greater stealth. The Department of Defense canceled the Dark Star UAV Project due to budget cuts in February 1999.

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Global Hawk
Another UAV, similar in purpose to the Dark Star, The Global Hawk was another unmanned plane which was used for reconnaissance on enemies