Former CIA employee Thornton “T.D.” Barnes shared in a recent interview why Area 51 is tied to UFO stories.
Barnes, who worked on radar technology, is a member of a group for former employees of the secretive military base in Nevada, which once boasted a different name.
“They had all kinds of documents in there that identified it as Station D,” Barnes explained when talking about Area 51’s original name, per the Daily Caller.
He also touched on how UFO theories are constantly tied to the site in Nevada, but it sounds like nothing more than a carefully crafted way to distract attention from CIA’s involvement with highly-classified projects.
“When the word got out that something was going on at Area 51 and the CIA was involved for 20 years that no one knew about, I said what were they doing for 20 years out there? And that’s when the UFO phase started,” Barnes said.
He also noted that the massive secrecy around the location didn’t start until the 1960s.