Area 51 just got a little more mysterious. 

The US Air Force’s top-secret Boeing 737-200 aircraft, also known as the RAT55 jet, was spotted soaring over Nevada’s Groom Lake facility, confirming long-rumored ties to the classified base. 

From 26 miles away atop Tikaboo Peak, a mountain in Nevada, plane-obsessed photographer Michael Rokita recorded fuzzy footage of the RAT55, which is used as a radar testbed, pulling off touch-and-go maneuvers and a landing on runway 32, according to the Daily Mail.

Moments later, the jet rolled into Hangar 18 as the huge doors parted like a scene straight out of a sci-fi movie. 

Recognizable by its rotund nose and humpbacked profile, the RAT55 probes the stealth of other planes midflight — a covert gig that may have backed the RQ-80 drone.

Normally in secret, the RAT55 prowls prohibited airspace near Edwards Air Force Base, ghosting flight trackers by turning its transponder off. 

The jet is a secretive US Air Force Boeing 737-200 aircraft often used as a radar testbed.

As per the Daily Mail, Rokita confirmed RAT 55’s call sign is ‘Saber 98,’ a smoking-gun link tying the mysterious jet to Area 51’s secretive Hangar 18. 

Dodging his devices’ power failures and the desert’s sweltering heat with a Nikon P1000 and a bespoke binocular-smartphone rig, he snapped proof of the radar-testing aircraft.

The jet is rumored to size up everything from B-2s to stealth prototypes like the B-21 Raider. 

RAT 55 hardly ever leaves Nevada, but spotting it roll into the infamous Hangar 18 just stokes decades of alien and black-budget rumors.


Area 51 warning sign prohibiting entry and photography.
Rokita captured footage of the radar-testing aircraft. Cloud Cap – stock.adobe.com

Back in April, The Post reported on Jerry Freeman, a cultural researcher who accidentally wandered into a restricted corner of Area 51— and lived to tell the tale. 

On a 1996 quest to track lost 1849 Gold Rush journals near the Nevada base, Freeman snuck in undercover at night — and instead of old writings, he may have stumbled on an alien spacecraft, he told UFO researcher George Knapp.

“It looked like a dry lake bed to me, nothing else, but at night it was a different story,” Freeman said to Knapp.

“I could clearly see what were security lights on the perimeters and I could see lights that opened and closed near the center of the lake,” the anthropologist went on.

Freeman only got a few minutes to watch — but felt the ground rumble beneath him, a sure sign something top-secret was being tested.

For decades, Area 51 was off-limits and off-the-record — until 2013, when the feds finally admitted it existed.

Nearly 30 years after Freeman’s brush with the base, conspiracy theories linking it to aliens are still flying.

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