Area 51 between Area 51 and Lockheed's Burbank, California offices. To preserve secrecy, personnel flew to Nevada on Monday mornings and returned to California on Friday evenings. Project OXCART established in August 1959 for "antiradar studies, aerodynamic structural tests, and engineering designs [and] all later work on the" Lockheed A-12 included testing at Groom Lake, which before improvements for OXCART had inadequate facilities: buildings for only 150 people, a asphalt runway, and limited fuel, hangar, and shop space. Selected for its seclusion and climate, Groom Lake had received a new official name "Area 51" when A-12 test facility construction began in September
Area 51 around the field is referred to as Restricted Area 4808 North (R-4808N). The base's current primary purpose is publicly unknown; however, based on historical evidence, it most likely supports the development and testing of experimental aircraft and weapons systems (black projects). The intense secrecy surrounding the base has made it the frequent subject of conspiracy theories and a central component to unidentified flying object (UFO) folklore. Although the base has never been declared a secret base, all research and occurrences in Area 51 are Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information (TS/SCI). On 25 June 2013, following a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA)