Hangar 18
You might have heard of Area 51, and, who knows, maybe if you’re reading this, you stormed it. But, while they may keep the bodies there…apparently, all things aliens aren’t under the same roof. If you make your way east, you’ll pop into more and more lore about Hangar 18. Located in Dayton, Ohio, at the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, it is said that the remains of crashed UFOs lay within this hangar.
You might wonder what makes Dayton, Ohio, a perfect place to store UFOs. Still, the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base became the home to the US Air Force intelligence unit dedicated to investigating UFOs. And it only gets better. Around January 1948, it would bring on Dr. J Allen Hynek, a young local astronomer, to act as a scientific advisor.
At first, the task force didn’t get that much attention, and it was essentially a paper warehouse collecting and collating all of the UFO reports. But rumors began to swirl when the hangar they occupied was too large for paperwork. What were those intelligence and science folks hiding? Were there enough UFO reports to fill an entire hangar? The consensus soon learned towards something, and no. In fact, at one point, it was believed that the wreckage of Roswell was covertly shipped to and stored at Hangar 18.
If you believe the rumors, soon enough, Hangar 18 was also under heavy and consistent guard. Some people also began calling it the Blue Room, perhaps after Project Blue Boo, which would begin to gain infamy.
Military Pilots would begin to tell tales of what they carried covertly to the base. One of those pilots was Oliver Henderson, who boldly claimed to his wife he flew a plane “loaded with debris,” including seven small alien bodies, from Roswell to Dayton.
In the 1980s, a fictional film called Hangar 18 was released. It was about the government cover-up of a UFO crash and the chain of evidence that led to the right to Hangar 18.
Of course, no paper trail or hard evidence confirms that Hangar 18 ever stored any UFO debris. It is important to note that the base is also the home of what would become the beloved Project Blue Book and alien and UFO investigative work that took place through 1969.
The base and the Airforce at large have categorically denied any claims of harboring UFO or alien material and maintain that Hangar 18 never existed. However, Building 18 does.
The image is Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Area B, Building 4, Modification Hangar & Flight Research Lab, South end of flightline between Thirteenth Street & Loop Road, Dayton, Montgomery County, OH. Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, HABS [or HAER or HALS], Reproduction number [e.g., "HABS ILL, 16-CHIG, 33-2 "]