SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
Area 51 is real.
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SIMON: After years of official non-responses, the CIA has acknowledged that this area in the Nevada desert long rumored to be a secret government facility to house alien spacecraft, Elvis Presley and Colonel Sanders secret recipe really exists. But it's just a big, empty space that was used to test pilot the U2 spy plane in the 1950s. The U2 flies as 60,000 feet. that's higher than passenger and military aircraft in the Eisenhower era, which may have led many to believe they saw a UFO soaring way up there in the sky.
Official silence only seemed to fuel the speculation. Security researchers at George Washington University made a public records request in 2005, which was finally delivered this week. Why did it take so long? And where is Elvis?
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.