Area 51 has a new name

Area 51, the Air Force's infamous top secret test site and UFO landing strip in Southern Nevada, apparently has an official new name: Homey Airport. (For a fun cultural history of Area 51 and its mystique, I highly recommend Phil Patton's great book Dreamland: Travels Inside the Secret World of Roswell and Area 51.) From the AirForceTimes (image from the Wikimedia Commons):

“Homey Airport” now appears as the official name for a certain air base near a certain dry lake bed in Nevada, according to reports in the Web site of the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association, as well as the Daily Aviator blog and others. New editions of flight planning software and civilian aviators’ GPS gear lists the name and the official designation “KXTA” — which online wags have speculated stands for “extraterrestrial airport.” (The “k” designation indicates only that the field is in the U.S., according to the Federal Aviation Administration.)

Capt. Jessica Martin, a spokeswoman for Nellis Air Force Base, which sits 85 miles south of Homey Airport and is responsible for the airspace and any ground facilities, said that “we already know about the designation, but it doesn’t have any effect on operations at the base.”

Link (Thanks, Vann Hall!)

[#1 posted by anangbhai , January 23, 2008 4:28 PM]

Is this where they're filming Soul Plane 2: The Blackjacking?

[#2 posted by Jake0748 , January 23, 2008 4:32 PM]

Yo, homey... take me to your leader.

[#3 posted by Takuan , January 23, 2008 4:45 PM]

one day, I'd like to launch a small, camera equipped drone from the edge of this area. Bet it would get all the way over before they could do anything about it. Live transmission the whole way? Do a launch and scoot from a van or RV.

Know what we'd see? Huge burning pits with bulldozers pushing in piles of money.

[#4 posted by License Farm , January 23, 2008 4:45 PM]

Abductions? Homey don't play that!

Sorry, it had to be said.

[#5 posted by pauldrye , January 23, 2008 5:42 PM]

E.T. phone Homey?

Sorry, also had to be said.

[#6 posted by Brook , January 23, 2008 7:14 PM]

Does this mean we can land there, now that it is an acknowledged airport with an official name and designation? (That's a rhetorical question, more-or-less.)

[#7 posted by strider_mt2k , January 24, 2008 4:34 AM]

Don't waste your time.
They don't do real stuff there anymore.

If anything they're getting ready to make it a tourist attraction.

"Sift for shards of composite materials in the sand!"

[#8 posted by Prufrock451 , January 24, 2008 7:38 AM]

Of course, all this talk of extraterrestrials is just to distract Americans from our government's attempts to colonize the Hollow Earth.

[#9 posted by chizza , January 24, 2008 11:43 AM]

We are over run with disinformation, conspiracy, deceit and government terrorism - Who cares about what its called - it should be given back to the HOPI - peaceful, spiritual farmers.... but no.. machine guns and spyplanes, far more important, not to mention the experimentation, probably genetic stuff goin on too.. let me look around for a few days... bloggers dream.. a weekend roaming area51.1

peace
chizza

[#10 posted by Keneke , January 24, 2008 12:46 PM]

Homey? What's next, curtains?

[#11 posted by Georgia Tills , January 24, 2008 1:05 PM]

Homey Airport? That is weak. Decades of sci-fi down the drain. It'll be a quirky little airport's name in B movies, like the Night Flier, but why couldn't they have kept THE Ara 51 the same name as before?