The History Room
A CIA Spyplane Crashed Outside Area 51 a Half-Century Ago.
A CIA Spyplane Crashed Outside Area 51 a Half-Century Ago. This Explorer Found It.
How urban explorers uncovered the site—and the memory—of a covert Cold War–era accident.
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“OXCART” WAS AN ODD NICKNAME for the plane that killed pilot Walter Ray. Oxcarts are slow, cumbersome, and old. Ray’s A-12 jet, meanwhile, was fast, almost invisible, and novel. Among the US’s first attempts at stealth aircraft, it could travel as quickly as a rifle bullet, and fly at altitudes around 90,000 feet. On a radar screen, it appeared as barely a blip—all the better to spy on Soviets with—and had only one seat.
On January 5, 1967, that single space belonged to Ray, a quiet, clean-cut 33-year-old who spent his workdays inside Area 51, then the CIA’s advanced-aviation research facility. Set atop the dried-up bed of Groom Lake in the Nevada desert, the now-infamous spot made for good runways, and was remote enough to keep prying eyes off covert Cold War projects. On the books, Ray was a civilian pilot for Lockheed Martin. In reality, and in secret, he reported to the CIA.
Ray’s last morning on Earth was chilled and windy, with clouds moving in and preparing to drop snow on the nearby mountains. He took off for his four-hour flight to Florida and back a minute ahead of schedule at 11:59 a.m., the sleek curves of the Oxcart’s titanium body triggering sonic shock waves (booms) as it sliced through the atmosphere. He’d done this many times, having already logged 358 hours in these crafts.
Then the trouble and secrecy.
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https://www.popsci.com/story/technol...yplane-area51/
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