NYT: The Truth Is Out There, but It's Classified

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The Truth Is Out There, but It's Classified

he corners of the Internet frequented by fans of "X-Files" and alien-creature sightings were abuzz last week when President Bush extended for another year the total secrecy of Area 51, a large Air Force base in the Nevada desert.

Since the base was established in 1954 to test the U-2 spy plane, its cloaked existence has fueled speculation that it is used for something else: the storage and study of captured extraterrestrials and their spacecraft, including those said to have landed in Roswell, N.M. A 1997 Air Force report saying there were no captured aliens served only to convince the faithful that there must have been.

But if the site stokes distrust, it should be for something more down to earth. Mr. Bush's order effectively lets the Air Force flout environmental laws without a public accounting. That is understandably upsetting to a group of former workers and two widows represented by Turley, a Washington University law professor who filed suit in 1994, claiming that exposure to toxic materials illegally burned on the grounds had caused gruesome skin rashes and respiratory ailments.

The secrecy surrounding Area 51 has been obsessive, even for the military, which does not like to acknowledge its existence, much less whether officers illegally handled hazardous waste. In 1995, in response to the suit, President Bill Clinton issued the first annual exemption to protect the military from having to make disclosures.

While armed patrols and ominous signs warning of "deadly force" isolate Area 51, situated about 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, foreign satellite photos of buildings and of a runway several miles long hint at its uses. Rather than performing alien autopsies, the Air Force is more likely to be using the site to test new military hardware. Few would disagree that such work deserves to be classified, but it should not give the government a pass to break the law or to abuse the basic rights of its workers.

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