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What is Area 51?

Area 51 is the nation's most secret military facility. It's part of a bigger land parcel of federally restricted land that's called the Nevada Test and Training Range, which itself is about the size of Connecticut. [Also] inside of that is the Nevada Test Site, which is where, starting in 1951, America set off more than 100 atmospheric nuclear bombs and then followed up with another 800-and-change in underground tunnels.

How did your book get its start?

In 2007, at a Christmas Eve dinner, an 88-year-old scientist named Ed Lovick leaned over to me and said, "Have I got a story for you." He told me he had invented stealth technology for the CIA, starting in late 1957. And the reason he could tell me was that just a few months earlier in 2007, the CIA had declassified one of the main programs that Lovick worked onthe first stealth Mach 3 spy plane, which was called the A-12 Oxcart. Though most people have never heard of the A-12 Oxcart, they've actually seen its cousin, the SR-71.

Had you heard of the place before Mr. Lovick whispered in your ear?

Only in terms of the conspiracy theories. I wasn't familiar with much of the technology that went on there. When he told me this, I contacted the assistant secretary of defense to see if I could get a tour.

A lot of the scientists and engineers call it Groom Lake rather than Area 51 because it's a flat, dry lakebed that was originally a great place to land planes. So when I wrote to [the Pentagon], I got a letter back that they were unable to meet my request. But it was fascinating to me, because they put the words Groom Lake in quotes; it was like, "That may be part of your lexicon, but it's definitely not part of ours."

Then, when I went through the CIA documents, everywhere where it would say "The crew showed up at ___," instead of saying "Area 51," it would be blacked out. It was kind of an almost childish insistence that this base didn't exist, and as a national security reporter, I wanted to know why.

This initial digging around led to your April 2009 Los Angeles Times Magazine story about the place.

That's right. At that point I had five [sources]. Lovick introduced me to his colleague, who introduced me to his colleague, who introduced me to his colleague, and so it went. Then, as I began writing the book, I was introduced to another and another and another.

Let's talk about the book's most controversial claim: that the long-claimed crash of a UFO near Roswell, N.M., didn't involve a flying saucer of extraterrestrial origin, but one of Soviet origin. Correct?

It's not an argument of mine. It's the oral history of one man whom I absolutely trust implicitly with the information. He's the only source in my book who's anonymous; everyone else uses their real names. I think this is where some of the controversy comes from: People are somehow skeptical of my using an unnamed source. Of course, this is part of journalism historicallyyou sometimes have to use unnamed sources. And I believe that the program the source told me aboutthe reverse-engineering of a flying disk from the Soviet Unionis not declassified, so he remains anonymous for reasons of safety and security.

I absolutely stand by the veracity of what he told me, which is that something did crash in New Mexico; it was taken to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base; and then in 1951, it was transported to the Nevada desert. Hence, that is why Area 51 has the name Area 51.

The chief piece of evidence you offer is his eyewitness report that inside the saucer was a band of Cyrillic lettering. What did it say?

[I don't know.] He was an engineer, whose "need to know" was about reverse-engineering the craft, meaning taking it apart . . . so he did not have a need to know about what the Russian writing said.

Were there instruments or controls inside that also bore Cyrillic lettering?

I never asked that question, but there were instruments and controls inside of the craft. What he told me is that he believes it was piloted remotely. He also says that there's room for the fact that it could have been flown by the pilots, who were child-size but may have been older.

As preposterous as it sounds, we know from the testimony at Auschwitz and also at the Nuremberg trials that [Nazi scientist] Joseph Mengele was conducting barbaric experiments on midgets. The whole thing sounds so preposterous, [but] the reason I chose to include it in my book is that I believe in the veracity of my source. I've worked with him now for two years. He's someone who has an impeccable career. He worked for the Atomic Energy Commission over three decades. He was an early member of the Manhattan Project right after the war, so that period of time when it was still the Manhattan Project and before it became the Atomic Energy Commission. I've examined his Atomic Energy Commission awards and certificates. I examined his war record, his military records, his medical records.

So as stunning or jaw-dropping his revelation . . . may seem, I believe it, and I made the decision to include it in my book.

So the craft appeared to have been crewed by children?

Yes.

At one point you mention that they were about 13, or seemed to be. And they had been physically altered or were deformed in some way?

[First,] there's what the source didhe was an EG&G engineer, one of five who received this equipment and reverse-engineered it, and also had access to the child-size pilots. Then there's what he was told, and what he was told was that it was a flying craft sent by Stalin to create a hoax à la The War of the Worlds. And what he was told was that these child-size pilots had been the horrific creation of Dr. Mengele at Stalin's direction.

So, certainly there's room for interpretation, but I'm very clear in the book about what he told meI put it in quotesand then what I add to support that evidence.

At least one of these child pilots was apparently still living, though in a comatose state, when your source actually saw this creature in 1951, four years after the crash. How long did he live beyond that point?

Well, my source only worked with the equipment and the child-size aviators for two weeks. In that [two weeks], one of them died.

Did the child-size aviator who died die of natural causes?

That I don't know.

You interviewed 74 people with intimate knowledge of the facility. Is your unnamed source the sole source for the Soviet provenance of the saucer?

Yes. I've had conversations with many of the men in my book who worked on the other projects at Area 51, and there's a split: A couple people are really stunned and horrified by it, and say that it's impossible, it could never happen. And others, not so.

This source is one of only five engineers who held the kind of elite position he did, and he's the only one still living. So, surely his colleagues have figured out that he spoke with you. The government knows he spoke with you. He certainly knows that they must know. Besides all that, he has to be a very old man at this point. Why does he insist on anonymity?

When you sign an exit agreement with the government, you are not allowed to talk about programs that are still classified.

So it gives him plausible deniability?

It's also possible that people don't know. His colleagues don't know who he is, although everyone in my book was referred to me by at least two other peoplein other words, all the men know each other through at least two people; there's no lone wolf that no one has heard of.

All things considered, does this seem to you a more logical explanation of the Roswell crash than the old claim that it involved an alien spaceship?

I trust the source, I trust his veracity, I trust his full capacityhowever old he may beto be able to talk to me coherently. So, if you're working from the premise, as I am, then it certainly makes a lot of sense.

You have to know that it's going to strike some people as pretty nutty.

Absolutely. I understand that. I got some emails from a big conspiracy group in the U.K., and they said: "Even we don't believe you."

Look, my source in telling this story, it was a matter of conscience for him. He has done many great things for the United States. He's a true patriot and a real hero, and he worked on programs that absolutely kept America nationally secure. It took a lot of difficulty for him to be able to share this with me, but I know that he knows in his heart, and he told me this, that that rogue program was wrong. That is why he decided to share it, because once he's gone, it's gone.

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