CIA confirms existence of Area 51 in Groom Lake sans UFO conspiracy theories

The newly declassified CIA documents reportedly confirm the much debated and controversial existence of Area 51, a test site for US spy planes and the one believed to be the subject of conspiracy theories related to the UFO folklore.

According to the New York Daily News, the documents obtained by George Washington University's National Security Archive confirm that Area 51 exists as a small rectangular area in southern Nevada, adjacent to a salt flat known as Groom Lake.

The site was never identified on any of the government maps for decades and was used by the CIA as a testing facility in the 1950s for the U-2 spy plane.

The documents also stated that in order to make the facility in the middle of nowhere sound more attractive, one of the men in charge of the U-2 program renamed the place as 'Paradise Ranch' which was later shortened to 'Ranch'.

The report said that given the testing of futuristic planes, numerous UFO sightings were reported in the vicinity of the secret base and reports from people employed on the base spurred grandiose theories on what the government was keeping hidden from view.

However, none of the conspiracy theories, claiming that the government was hiding a crashed alien aircraft or developing a device to control the weather, have been mentioned in the newly declassified documents.