by Lynette Alice

Created on: March 03, 2010

For over five years people have been asking the question "Can Area 51 be seen using Google Earth?" The simple answer is yes. Unfortunately the simple answer is also no. How is that for confusing? Of course this has had conspiracy theorists on edge, casual users left dumbfounded, and everyone that has ever put the coordinates of Latitude: 37°11'59.48" and Longitude 115°55'44.89"W  left wondering what it is they are seeing.

In general, the U.S. government has had images of military installations and other sensitive locations like the White House blurred out or in some manner restricted from view on not only Google Earth but similar applications. The logic behind this is obvious - why broadcast to the world regularly updated photos of what is going on at locations that could in some manner compromise national security? As sad as it is, not all people in the world are good and some of those bad people may want to harm others. In a similar vein it makes no sense from a military standpoint to allow the world access to runway activity, missile silos, and what is going on at SRF (Ship Repair Facility) locations and major USN ports.

With that in mind and steering back to the original question of whether Area 51 can be seen using Google Earth, it absolutely can be done. The catch is that you will not be able to get enhanced resolution so most of what you see will be a blur. There have been claims of new photos of Area 51 being available using Google Earth but some have been exposed as hoaxes. A few people have tried passing of satellite photos from the 1960's as screen shots of Area 51 they captured using Google Earth. Some of those folks are very skilled with image altering software, but not so good their ruse went undetected.

Since Google Earth is a technological application it has had hiccups at times in which it failed to do as programming intended. There have been at least two instances in the last 5 years in which a clearer image of Area 51 did leak through although it would not allow users to zoom in - usually the message displayed is that resolution is not available at that altitude. At other times nothing may show up at all aside from a black patch and the message that no images are available at this time.This may be due to use of an active radar jammer being operated as installation needs dictate.

To further confuse things, even when a somewhat clear photo of Area 51 is available it usually only looks like a white dot with blocks. This is almost certainly due to Area 51 being built on a salt flat. In salt flats a larger amount of light is reflected back which makes high quality resolution from satellites a gamble at best. This is not only true with Area 51 but salt flats around the world. Just to add one more log to the fire of confusion many forums and websites circulate the incorrect coordinates for Area 51 in that they are passing off the coordinates for the underground facility at Area 51 which are Latitude: 37.24 and Longitude: -115.816. It is close of course, just not correct.

The long and short of it is and always has been that you can see Area 51 using Google Earth most of the time, you just will not see it in detail unless you are lucky enough to be searching when the application suffers a hiccup. Given the rarity of that happening you will have to settle for seeing a nondescript blob most of the time or a message telling you no image is available. Of course with a little imagination and the desire to see something there you can convince yourself you are seeing whatever you want - just be warned that others may not see it as you do.

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