About 120 miles northwest of Las Vegas, somewhere between mile markers 29 and 30 along Nevada’s “Extraterrestrial Highway” (State Highway 375), lies an unmarked dirt road. Although no buildings are visible from the asphalt, the track leads to Groom Lake or Homey Airport—as it’s called on civilian aviation maps. For those in the know, it leads to a military base with many unofficial names : Paradise Ranch; Watertown; Dreamland Resort; Red Square; The Box; and The Ranch; Nevada Test and Training Range; Detachment 3, Air Force Flight Test Center (Det. 3, AFFTC); and Area 51. Before World War II, the area near Groom Lake was used for silver and lead mining. Once the war began, the military took over the remote area and began conducting research: mainly nuclear and weapons testing. When the CIA started developing spy reconnaissance planes during the Cold War, then-CIA Director Richard Bissell, Jr. realized a private was needed to build and test prototypes. In 1955, he and Lockheed aircra
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