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Photo of secret facility at Groom Lake taken by the US Geological

Survey in 1968. (credit: USGS)

Astronauts and Area 51: the Skylab

Incident
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by Dwayne A. Day
Monday, January 9, 2006

Far out in the Nevada desert, miles from prying eyes, is a

secret Air Force facility that has been known by numerous
names over the years. It has been called Paradise Ranch,
Watertown Strip, Area 51, Dreamland, and Groom Lake.
Groom is probably the most mythologized real location that
few people have ever seen. According to people with
overactive imaginations, it is where the United States
government keeps dead aliens, clones them, and reverseengineers their spacecraft. It is also where NASA filmed the
faked Moon landings.
However, for humans whose feet rest on solid ground,
Groom is the site of highly secret aircraft development. It is
where the U-2 spyplane, the Mach 3 Blackbird, and the F117 stealth fighter were all developed. It has also probably
hosted its own fleet of captured, stolen, or clandestinely
acquired Soviet and Russian aircraft. Because of this, the
United States government has gone to extraordinary
lengths to preserve the areas secrecy and to prevent people
from seeing it.
This secrecy was threatened in early 1974 when the
astronauts on Skylab pointed their camera out the window
and took pictures of a facility that did not officially exist.
They returned to Earth and their photographs quickly
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became a headache for NASA, the CIA, and the Department

of Defense. That story has never been told before.
Shutterbugs
On April 19, 1974 someone in the CIA sent the Director of
Central Intelligence, William Colby, a memorandum
regarding a little problem.
The issue arises from the fact that the recent Skylab
mission inadvertently photographed the airfield at Groom
Lake. There were specific instructions not to do this, the
memo stated, and Groom was the only location which had
such an instruction. In other words, the CIA considered no
other spot on Earth to be as sensitive as Groom Lake, and
the astronauts had just taken a picture of it.
The third and last Skylab crew had In other words, the
CIA considered no
launched into space on November
other spot on Earth
16, 1973. Onboard were three
to be as sensitive as
Groom Lake, and
rookie astronauts: Gerald Carr,
the astronauts had
Edward Gibson, and William Pogue. just taken a picture
of it.
Carr was a Navy commander,
Pogue was in the Air Force and had flown for their elite
Thunderbirds team, and Gibson was a scientist-astronaut
with a doctorate of engineering physics.
The crew quickly fell behind schedule early in their mission
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for a number of reasons, but soon regained time. The crew

repaired an antenna, fixed problems with the Apollo
Telescope Mount and an errant gyroscope, and replenished
supplies. They soon accumulated significant EVA time and
studied the sun for over 338 hours.
What they also did was take photographs of the Earth,
including photos of the secretive Groom Lake facility in
Nevada. On February 4, 1974, after a record 84 days in
space, they splashed down 280 kilometers southwest of San
Diego. They were recovered aboard the USS New Orleans
and found to be in excellent shape.
NASA had an agreement with the US intelligence
community that dated from the beginning of the Gemini
program. All astronaut photographs of the Earth would first
be reviewed by the National Photographic Interpretation
Center in Building 213 in the Washington, DC Navy Yard.
NPIC (pronounced en-pick) was an organization managed
by the CIA that interpreted satellite and aerial
photography. The details of the agreement remain
classified, but the photo-interpreters had wanted to see
what astronauts could contribute to reconnaissance
photography. During the Gemini program they discovered
the answernot much. The photographs returned during
the Gemini missions had many problems, including the lack
of data on what the camera was pointed at. There was no
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good way for an astronaut to record the precise time and

pointing angle of a camera when he took a picture, and so
the interpreters often had a very difficult time determining
what they were looking at. This had been one of the factors
that contributed to the demise of the US Air Forces
Manned Orbiting Laboratory program.
But there was another reason to evaluate the astronaut
photographs: to see if they showed anything interesting, or
anything that they should not, like Groom Lake.
Spooky actions at a distance
There was a certain irony in NPIC photo-interpreters
discovering photographs of Groom Lake, because even
within NPICs Building 213 Groom Lake was classified.
Images of Groom were removed from rolls of spy satellite
film and stored in a restrictive vault. As a former senior
NPIC official explained, there were a lot more things going
on at Groom than the U-2. Not all the photo-interpreters
at NPIC were cleared to know about these things, but
probably included aircraft testing, including advanced
reconnaissance drones and captured Soviet fighter planes.
The average photo-interpreter would know that the U-2
and the Blackbird were based at Groom, but would be
surprised to see a B-52 with drones, or a MiG-21 sitting on
its runway.
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In fact, in April 1962 a CIA official There was a certain

suggested to his superior that they irony in NPIC photointerpreters
consider taking pictures of Area 51 discovering
photographs of
using their own reconnaissance
Groom Lake,
platforms. John McMahon, the
because even within
NPICs Building 213
executive officer of the abstractly
Groom Lake was
named Development Plans Division, classified.
wrote the acting chief of DPD: John
Parangosky and I have previously discussed the advisability
of having a U-2 take photographs of Area 51 and, without
advising the photographic interpreters of what the target is,
ask them to determine what type of activity is being
conducted at the site photographed. He continued: In
connection with the upcoming CORONA shots, it might be
advisable to cut in a pass crossing the Nevada Test Site to
see what we ourselves could learn from satellite
reconnaissance of the Area. This coupled with coverage
from the Deuce [U-2] and subsequent photographic
interpretation would give us a fair idea of what deductions
and conclusions could be made by the Soviets should
Sputnik 13 have a reconnaissance capability.
Whether or not CIA ever undertook such an exercise
remains unknown, but CORONA spacecraft did photograph
Area 51 at least a handful of times. Thousands of rolls of film
are stored at the National Archives, with the relevant
negatives cut out.
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The controversy
Why the Skylab astronauts disobeyed their orders and took
the photo is unknown, as are what it depicted. Because they
had only handheld cameras for earth observation, the
resolution of the image would have been limited. The
existence of the base was not a secret, particularly to an Air
Force pilot like Bill Poguethe pilots who flew in the huge
Nellis testing range in Nevada referred to Area 51 as the
box because they were under explicit instructions to not fly
into that airspace. But for whatever reason, they had taken
the photo and now it had created a stir within the
intelligence community.
This photo has been going through an interagency
reviewing process aimed at a decision on how it should be
handled, the unnamed CIA official wrote. There is no
agreement. DoD elements (USAF, NRO, JCS, ISA) all
believe it should be withheld from public release. NASA, and
to a large degree State, has taken the position that it should
be releasedthat is, allowed to go into the Sioux National
Repository and to let nature take its course.
What the memo indicates is that there was a difference
between the way the civilian agencies of the US government
and the military agencies looked at their roles. NASA had
ties to the military, but it was clearly a civilian agency. And
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although the reasons why NASA officials felt that the photo
should be released are unknown, the most likely explanation
is that NASA officials did not feel that the civilian agency
should conceal any of its activities. Many of NASAs
relations with other organizations and foreign governments
were based on the assumption that NASA did not engage in
spying and did not conceal its activities.
The CIA memo writer added that
What the memo
indicates is that
There are some complicated
there was a
precedents which, in fairness,
difference between
the way the civilian
should be reviewed before a final
agencies of the US
decision. These included A
government and the
military agencies
question of whether anything
looked at their
photographed in the United States roles.
can be classified if the platform is
unclassified; Such complex issues in the UN concerning
United States policies toward imagery from space and the
question of whether the photograph can be withheld without
leaking.
The answer to the last question is obviousthe photo was
withheld, and this fact never leaked. It has only come to
light now, after the CIA declassified this document (but not
the photograph itself). Obviously the answer to the first
question was also positive, for the agencies involved did
classify a photograph taken on an unclassified spacecraft. As
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for the complex issues in the UN, obviously they vanished

if the United Nations never learned of the existence of the
photograph.
Secret as an onion
A cover note to the memorandum, apparently written by
the Director of Central Intelligence William Colby himself,
stated that I confessed some question over need to protect
since: 1-USSR has it from own sats. 2-What really does it
reveal? 3-If exposed dont we just say classified USAF work
is done there?
Colbys questions almost seem nave given the debates that
have raged within the U.S. intelligence community over
decades over the need for secrecy. Those within the
intelligence community who have asked what is the harm
in acknowledging the obvious? have almost always lost the
argument.
Government officials have frequently argued over the need
to refuse to confirm even the most basic knowledge about
things that have been widely reported in the press for
decades. For instance, the existence of the National
Reconnaissance Office (NRO), which manages Americas spy
satellite program, first became known in a 1971 New York
Times article, but arguments flared up within intelligence
circles for the next twenty years over whether or not to
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confirm its existence. Finally, in September 1992 the fact

of the existence of the NRO was revealed in a terse press
release that never even used the word satellite. Even
after that decision, for several years the NRO refused to
confirm that it actually conducted rocket launches, another
glaringly obvious fact.
This refusal to admit the obvious was only surpassed by
Groom Lake itself. The existence of an airstrip at Groom
was first revealed when it was actually constructed. But it
was not until 1999 that the U.S. Air Force issued a terse
statement acknowledging that the facility did indeed exist,
even though photos taken on the ground and overhead had
been available for decades. In fact, at least two U.S.
Geological Survey aerial photographs of Groom taken in
1959 and 1968 had been available in public archives, but not
discovered until many years later.
To be fair, there is a logic to this secrecy policy of refusing to
confirm the fact of an organization, or even an airbase in
the Nevada desert. Intelligence officials often refer to
secrecy being like an onion, and each layer that is peeled off
reveals a little more of what is contained within. Even if the
next layer is visible in vague form, the advocates of strong
secrecy want to keep all the layers in place.
This policy is usually given solid form in legal discussions
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within government agencies. There the concern is not so

much with foreign intelligence agencies, but with American
citizens and the press, and their ability to request the
declassification of government documents through the
Freedom of Information Act. By refusing to even
acknowledge the existence of something, government
agencies have erected an outer legal barrier against
requests for information from their own citizens.
But critics of excessive government Intelligence officials
secrecy argue that such policies are often refer to
secrecy being like
often pursued unnecessarily, since an onion, and each
no law requires the government to layer that is peeled
off reveals a little
reveal anything further about the
more of what is
contained within.
facilities. The onion analogy holds
Even if the next
validity, but can also be taken too
layer is visible in
far; after all, the Soviet Union was vague form, the
advocates of strong
an extremely secret society and
secrecy want to
classified things such as road maps. keep all the layers in
place.
This secrecy was effective at
limiting the ability of the West to determine what the
Soviets were doing, but it came at a cost, in freedom. Clearly
the United States government establishes lines where public
knowledge is deemed more important than national
security, but the question is occasionally asked where those
lines should be drawn.
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Secrecy critics also argue that there is something wrong

when Americas adversaries have better information about
the federal governments actions than its own citizens.
Groom Lake had obviously been photographed numerous
times by Soviet spy satellites at high resolution. Refusing to
release a single low-resolution photograph from a Skylab
mission was taking an abstract idealmaintaining all the
layers of the onionto an absurd extreme. They also argue
that when the government fails to confirm the obvious, it
both undermines governmental authority and legitimacy,
and contributes to wild speculation, such as aliens and
soundstages in underground hangars at Area 51. And
despite the best efforts, information will still seep out. After
all, while various agencies of the federal government were
arguing over whether or not to put this low-resolution
photograph in an unclassified government archive, nobody
realized that several other higher-resolution images were
already sitting in that archive.
Nothing more is known of this Skylab photography incident
than the fact that the photograph was not released. NASA
and the State Department clearly lost the argument. But the
opponents of releasing it preserved national security, as
they defined it.
Acknowledgement: The author wishes to thank Chris
Pocock and Jeffrey Richelson for their assistance. The first
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article in this series, on John F. Kennedy and the Missile

Gap, was published last week.

Dwayne A. Day is the associate editor of Raumfahrt

Concret, a German spaceflight magazine, and frequently
writes about space history and policy.

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