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Hmm, the Secretary of Defense just visited America's secret 'Area 52'

So ... what was he there to see?

  • U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin made an unannounced stop in Nevada last week.
  • Austin’s plane, an E-4B Nightwatch, is designed to operate as a flying headquarters in the event of a nuclear war.
  • The plane stopped at Tonopah Test Range in Nevada, a site associated with Area 51 and black aviation projects.

    U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin made an unusual detour last week before proceeding on a tour of Southeast Asia. Austin’s ride across the Pacific, an E-4B “Nightwatch,” touched down at the top-secret Tonopah Test Range in Nevada.

    Tonopah has a long history of supporting clandestine aviation projects, including the F-117A Nighthawk stealth fighter and adversary fighters flown by U.S. forces. The site is also close to Area 51.

    Austin is visiting Singapore for a security conference and will then travel to Vietnam and the Philippines, two countries that border the South China Sea and have territorial disputes with China.

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    Austin’s plane, an E-4B with the callsign TITAN25, took off from the Washington D.C. area—almost certainly Andrews Air Force Base in Virginia. Aviation enthusiasts and open source intelligence analysts tracked the plane as it flew west and made a stop at Tonopah. Like most planes, the E-4B is equipped with the ADS-B tracking system, which allows anyone to follow it using websites, desktop software, and phone apps.

    Austin spent an unspecified amount of time at Tonopah before heading north, stopping at Eielson Air Force Base, and crossing the Pacific Ocean. The question on everyone’s mind: Why did he touch down at Tonopah?

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    Given its similar secrecy and proximity to Area 51—it’s just 65 miles north—Tonopah might as well be “Area 52.” (In fact, that’s exactly what one 1998 Department of Energy document called it.) Today, the test range is a key nuclear weapons facility for the DoE, specializing in “[nuclear] stockpile reliability testing; arming, fusing, and firing systems testing; and the testing of nuclear weapon delivery systems.” Tonopah is currently involved in testing the B61-12 tactical nuclear weapons.

    The Pentagon used Tonopah’s remoteness to keep the F-117A stealth fighter secret for nearly a decade. Greg Mathieson/MaiGetty Images

    Between 1979 and 1989, Tonopah was home to the 4477th Test and Evaluation Squadron, a secret Air Force unit that tested and flew Soviet MiG fighters. In the early 1980s, the 4450th Tactical Group, later renamed the 37th Tactical Fighter Wing, flew three squadrons of fighters out of the Tonopah Test Range. These were no ordinary fighters, but rather, top-secret F-1117A stealth fighters based at the desolate, sprawling Tonopah to maintain secrecy. After the planes were declassified, they were later transferred to Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico.

    It seems likely that Austin went to Tonopah to see something ... but what? Perhaps his visit was linked to the B61-12 program, but the idea of the Secretary of Defense traveling to Nevada just to stare at a bomb—even a thermonuclear bomb—is unlikely.

    Notional representation of a next generation fighter jet. U.S. Air Force

    It’s also possible that Austin was there to view a new, classified aircraft. We’ve already established that Tonopah has been the go-to spot to fly secret planes for decades. We know the Air Force’s Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD)—the new stealth fighter the service designed, built, and tested in just one year—is flying, and Tonopah is an obvious choice for a test site.

    What if Austin traveled to see something related to hypersonic weapons testing, like the AGM-183A Air Launched Rapid Response Weapon (ARRW)? While staring at a missile is a lot like staring at a bomb, hypersonic weapons are the new sexy and could pique the interest of a Secretary of Defense.

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    By Kyle Mizokami / Popular Mechanics Writer

    Writer on Defense and Security issues, lives in San Francisco.

    (Source: popularmechanics.com; July 28, 2021; https://tinyurl.com/yjs8y2tb)
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