Area 51 F-117 became operational in 1983, operations at Groom Lake have continued. The base and its associated runway system were expanded, including expansion of housing and support facilities. In 1995, the federal government expanded the exclusionary area around the base to include nearby mountains that had hitherto afforded the only decent overlook of the base, prohibiting access to of land formerly administered by the Bureau of Land Management. On 22 October 2015 a federal judge signed an order giving land that belonged to a Nevada family since the 1870s to the United States Air Force for expanding Area 51. According to
Area 51 show what appears to be F-16 Fighting Falcon aircraft stationed on the base. Its secretive nature and undoubted connection to classified aircraft research, together with reports of unusual phenomena, have led Area 51 to become a focus of modern UFO and other conspiracy theories. Some of the activities mentioned in such theories at Area 51 include: Many of the hypotheses concern underground facilities at Groom or at Papoose Lake (also known as "S-4 location"), south, and include claims of a transcontinental underground railroad system, a disappearing airstrip (nicknamed the "Cheshire Airstrip", after Lewis Carroll's Cheshire cat) which briefly appears when