Area 51 cover art

Area 51

An Uncensored History of America's Top Secret Military Base

Preview
Get this deal Try Premium Plus free
Offer ends 29 January 2026 at 11:59PM GMT.
Prime members: New to Audible? Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Just £0.99/mo for your first 3 months of Audible.
1 bestseller or new release per month—yours to keep.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, podcasts, and Originals.
Auto-renews at £8.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically.

Area 51

By: Annie Jacobsen
Narrated by: Annie Jacobsen
Get this deal Try Premium Plus free

£8.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly. Offer ends 29 January 2026 at 11:59PM GMT.

£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £27.59

Buy Now for £27.59

LIMITED TIME OFFER | £0.99/mo for the first 3 months

Premium Plus auto-renews at £8.99/mo after 3 months. Terms apply.

About this listen

This "compellingly hard-hitting" bestseller from a Pulitzer Prize finalist gives readers the complete untold story of the top-secret military base for the first time (New York Times).

It is the most famous military installation in the world. And it doesn't exist. Located a mere seventy-five miles outside of Las Vegas in Nevada's desert, the base has never been acknowledged by the U.S. government — but Area 51 has captivated imaginations for decades.

Myths and hypotheses about Area 51 have long abounded, thanks to the intense secrecy enveloping it. Some claim it is home to aliens, underground tunnel systems, and nuclear facilities. Others believe that the lunar landing itself was filmed there. The prevalence of these rumors stems from the fact that no credible insider has ever divulged the truth about his time inside the base. Until now.

Annie Jacobsen had exclusive access to nineteen men who served the base proudly and secretly for decades and are now aged 75-92, and unprecedented access to fifty-five additional military and intelligence personnel, scientists, pilots, and engineers linked to the secret base, thirty-two of whom lived and worked there for extended periods. In Area 51, Jacobsen shows us what has really gone on in the Nevada desert, from testing nuclear weapons to building super-secret, supersonic jets to pursuing the War on Terror.

This is the first book based on interviews with eye witnesses to Area 51 history, which makes it the seminal work on the subject. Filled with formerly classified information that has never been accurately decoded for the public, Area 51 weaves the mysterious activities of the top-secret base into a gripping narrative, showing that facts are often more fantastic than fiction, especially when the distinction is almost impossible to make.
Americas Media Studies Military Social Sciences United States Weapons & Warfare

Listeners also enjoyed...

The Red Emperor cover art
An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States cover art
Shadowplay: Behind the Lines and Under Fire cover art
One Party After Another cover art
Jurassic Park cover art
Expected Goals: The story of how data conquered football and changed the game forever cover art
Inside Parkhurst cover art
UFOs for the 21st Century Mind cover art
StarTalk cover art
First Platoon cover art
The Power of Hormones cover art
Raven Rock cover art
Unconstrained cover art
E.F. Benson's Ghost Stories cover art
Mountain of the Dead cover art
Time and Time Again cover art
No reviews yet