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 included an interview with a 71-year-old mechanical engineer who claimed to be a former employee at Area 51 during the 1950s. His claims included that he had worked on a "flying disc simulator" which had been based on a disc originating from a crashed extraterrestrial craft and was used to train US pilots. He also claimed to have worked with an extraterrestrial being named "J-Rod" and described as a "telepathic translator". In 2004, Dan Burisch (pseudonym of Dan Crain) claimed to have worked on cloning alien viruses at Area 51, also alongside the alien named "J-Rod". Burisch's scholarly credentials are