Groom Lake/Area 51 gets an 'official' name

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Thought you guys might find this amusing, so sit back, pop a
cold one and break out the Clown and E.T. jokes!

http://www.lvrj.com/news/14309802.html

E.T. CAN PHONE HOMEY

CLASSIFIED BASE AT GROOM LAKE HAS A NEW HANDLE

The place that didn't exist has a new name: Homey Airport.

That's what the Air Force Times is reporting about the classified but
widely known installation along the dry bed of Groom Lake, often
referred to as Area 51.

Over the years, stealth fighter jets and top secret high-tech aircraft
have been tested against foreign radar systems and even Soviet MiG jets
flown by U.S. pilots. The place has had as many aka's as someone trying
to evade police -- from Dreamland, to the Ranch, to the Box.

" 'Homey Airport' now appears as the official name for a certain air
base near a certain dry lake bed in Nevada," the Air Force Times
reported in its Wednesday edition, citing other Web site reports
including one by the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association.

But a Nellis Air Force Base spokeswoman, Capt. Jessica Martin, denied
the "official" status of the installation's name in a telephone
interview late Thursday with the Review-Journal, saying about Homey
Airport: "That's not something that we designated. We're not sure where
that came from.

"Most of it is classified," she said about the place that Presidents
Clinton and George W. Bush have issued exemptions for in the past,
invoking national security that allows the Air Force to keep mum about
its operations at Groom Lake.

Earlier Thursday Martin deferred to the Federal Aviation
Administration's Western-Pacific Region office, however, a spokesman
there, Ian Gregor, wrote in an e-mail that the FAA does not assign
names to military bases.

"We do establish the three-letter identifiers for airports (such as
LAS, SFO, LAX, ORD etc.), and we also assign names to approach and
departure routes into and out of airports. But we don't name bases,"
Gregor wrote.

A story titled, "Don't ask, don't tell: Area 51 gets airport
identifier," posted on the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association's Web
site, says for the past year Area 51 has been identified as KXTA on
flight-planning software and handheld GPS receivers.

"KXTA (standing for what, extraterrestrial?)" the association's story
asserts as a reference to aviation lore that the base is secret because
space aliens have been held there.

Attempts to reach association officials late Thursday in Frederick,
Md., were unsuccessful.

The government's official stance on keeping Area 51 exempt from public
disclosures dates back to 1995 when Clinton issued the first exemption
in response to two lawsuits filed by injured workers who sought
information about environmental compliance at Groom Lake.

They claimed, as John Does, that they became sick and at least two died
from inhaling toxic fumes from radar-evading, stealth coatings that
were burned in open pits at Area 51 in violation of environmental laws.

Jonathan Turley, the George Washington University law professor who
represented the workers and two widows said, "As humorous as this
naming may be, it produces very bitter feelings among those of us who
have tried to disclose the crimes at the facility."

Turley had argued that secrecy for Area 51 was used for legal rather
than national security reasons.

In 2003, a three-judge panel in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals
determined that the Justice Department, representing federal
defendants, did not abuse national security when information was struck
from court documents in the two 1994 cases.

"The fact they now give the place a name is because they now believe
officials are no longer held accountable for their crimes," Turley said
by telephone from Chicago.

"Whatever its name is, it will remain a symbol of how the government
has the ability to avoid any accountability for environmental crimes
that may have killed three people," he said.

BL.
- --
Brad Littlejohn | Email:
Unix Systems Administrator, |
Web + NewsMaster, BOFH.. Smeghead! | http://www.wizard.com/~tyketto
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On Sat, 26 Jan 2008 08:30:02 GMT, A Guy Called Tyketto
wrote in
:

GROOM LAKE

Interesting.

N37.45235/W-115.683204 NNW of KLAS