Located 75 miles outside of Las Vegas, the base has never been acknowledged by the U.S. government--but Area 51 has captivated imaginations. Jacobsen had exclusive access to 19 employees, which makes it the seminal work on the subject.

Annie Jacobsen is the author of the New York Times bestsellers Area 51 and Operation Paperclip and the Pulitzer Prize finalist The Pentagon's Brain. She was a contributing editor at the Los Angeles Times Magazine. A graduate of Princeton University, she lives in Los Angeles with her husband and two sons.