Yes, Nevada, there is an Area 51

Washingtonpost.com:

For reasons unknown, the government finally has admitted that Area 51 — the Shangri-La of alien hunters and a sturdy trope of ­science-fiction movies — is a real place in the Mojave Desert about 100 miles north of Las Vegas.

It presumably does not house hideous squidlike ETs, but at least you can see the place on a map. Area 51 is confirmed in declassified CIA documents posted online Thursday by the National Security Archive at George Washington University. A dogged researcher pried from the CIA a report on the history of the U-2 spy plane, which was tested and operated at Area 51.

The military, which runs the base, always denied that Area 51 was called by its famous moniker, preferring a designation connected to the Groom Lake salt flat, a landing strip for the U-2 and other stealth aircraft.

“Your honor, there is no name,” an Air Force attorney told a federal judge in 1995. “There is no name for the operating location near Groom Lake.”

The hearing was part of an environmental poisoning case brought by Area 51 workers who said that they had been sickened by exposure to toxic chemicals — including anti-radar coatings and other classified materials — burned in open pits on the base.

For years, those workers commuted from Vegas to Area 51, also known as “the Ranch.” Some of them died after developing strange rashes and respiratory problems.

The men could tell no one what they did; they had signed national-security oaths barring any disclosures about the black-budget facility, where the stealth bomber also was tested.

Holy ET, Batman.  So there really is an Area 51.  Scully and Mulder weren’t just making it up.  So why was it denied by the government?  Even more mysterious is why they just admitted that it exists.

I worked with a lot of retired military officers.  any time this topic or even Roswell came up, some of them got real funny looks on their faces, you know, like “if we continue I will have to kill you even though I am retired.”   Maybe they weren’t kidding.

So what do we now know?  We know that it exists.  But didn’t we know that already?  Why didn’t the government admit to it?  Why do they admit to it now?  What is it we aren’t mature enough to know?

Any ideas?  Is this a lot of hype over nothing?