Area 51
51区
Tucked away（隐藏） in the middle of the Nevada desert, an old dusty dirt road winds its way（曲折蜿蜒） to the front gates of a highly classified（机密的） Air Force facility, known commonly as Area 51.
一条老路隐藏在内华达州的沙漠中。这条路尘土飞扬，蜿蜒曲折地通往一个高度机密的空军基地大门，这个基地通常被称为 “51区”。
It might seem like all that sensitive secret data is protected by a little more than a chain-link fence and a few "No Trespassing" signs.
看起来，似乎所有敏感的机密数据都由一道铁丝网和一些 “禁止入内” 标志来保护着。
But that's not quite the case.
但事实并非如此。
But why all the top-secret precautions? What could the government be hiding in the depths of the base? And could some of the rumors（谣言） of extraterrestrial life（外星生命） be true?
但为什么要采取绝密的防护措施呢？政府在基地的深处可能藏着些什么？一些关于外星生命的传言是真的吗？
Many conspiracy theorists（阴谋论者） and alien enthusiasts believe Area 51 to be a place where alien spacecrafts（飞船） are reverse engineered, where otherworldly creatures are cloned and even a possible spot to shoot a fake moon landing.
许多阴谋论者和外星生物爱好者都认为，51区是进行外星飞船反向工程的地方，在这会克隆外星生物，甚至是一个可能拍摄伪造假登月的地方。
So far, all these colorful theories of aliens on earth housed inside Area 51 have amounted to, well, bupkis（什么都没有）, which begs the question what exactly is behind those well-guarded gates?
到目前为止，51区所有关于地球上外星人的丰富多彩的理论其实都没有什么意义，但这引出了一个问题：这些戒备森严的大门后面到底是什么？
To answer that question, we need to travel back to the beginning, November 1954, when President Dwight D. Eisenhower approved a plan to build a highly secretive state-of-the-art（最先进的） surveillance aircraft（侦察机） called the U-2. This new project needed a nice big plot of remote land in order to start testing their newest tech in the area of Nevada, now known as Area 51, was chosen.
要回答这个问题，我们需要回到最初，也就是1954年11月。当时的总统德怀特·D·艾森豪威尔批准了一项计划，同意建造一架高度机密的先进侦察机，名为U-2。这个新项目需要内华达州的一大片偏远土地来开始测试他们的最新技术，正好选中了现在著名的51区。
Less than a year later, testing of the U-2 aircraft started at the newly-minted（新建的） base, and the civilian reports of unidentified flying objects（UFO） started flooding in right away.
不到一年后，U-2侦察机在新建成的基地进行开始测试，民间关于不明飞行物的报道立刻开始大量涌现。
But according to CIA documents declassified in 2015, there's actually a pretty good reason why this brand-new U-2 plane could have been confused with an alien ship.
但根据2015年解密的CIA文件，这架全新的U-2侦察机被误认为是外星飞船其实有充分理由。
Many of the first UFO sightings in and around Area 51 were made by experienced airline pilots who had never seen planes that could fly nearly that high. In fact, many at the time believed that planes couldn't fly as high as the U-2 aircraft could. So, to them, the state-of-the-art（最先进的） plane would have seemed out of this world.
许多在51区及其附近第一次目击UFO的人都是经验丰富的飞行员，他们从未见过能飞那么高的飞机。事实上，当时很多人认为飞机不可能飞得像U-2那样高。所以，对他们来说，这架最先进的飞机简直是天外之物。
By the late 1950s, the US government decided to shut down production on the U-2 plane, but super-secret tests have continued at Area 51 ever since.
到20世纪50年代末，美国政府决定停止生产U-2飞机，但此后51区仍在进行超机密测试。
What they're testing there today is anyone's guess. That information is just as classified as you might expect.
谁也猜不到他们今天在那里测试的是什么。如你所料，那些信息也是机密。
