"Everyday[sic] powerful artifacts are being discovered by people who have no idea what to do with them. Something has to be done."―Man in suit[src]
Officially a storage facility for replacement B-series aircraft parts, Hangar 51 was in actuality a repository of items kept in secret by the US government.
Hangar 51 was in operation as early as 1934, the year intelligence agents Eaton and Musgrove met with the protegé of Adventure Society professor John Allen to propose that Allen's group become their "top men."
It was the latter which Irina Spalko and her band of Soviet soldiers forced Indiana Jones to find for them in 1957. During the battle in the warehouse, many crates, including the one containing the Ark, were damaged.
The facility had an external perimeter which was guarded by military police while hangar basement contained a rocket testbed which Indiana Jones and Antonin Dovchenko accidentally activated while fighting each other.
Hangar 51 personnelEdit
- Main Guard station
Behind the scenesEdit
The warehouse first appeared briefly at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark, a scene which has since has been parodied multiple times. The building is given a name and seen much more elaborately in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, where it is recursively connected with more recent pop culture: "Hangar 51" is an obvious reference to both Area 51 and Hangar 18, places traditionally connected with US national secrets and UFO remains in recent conspiracy theories and urban legends. Like Hangar 51, the real-life Area 51 is also located in Nevada.
However, a direct connection is difficult to be made since Area 51 is believed to have been established during the '50s, two decades after the supposed appearance in Raiders.
According to the Crystal Skull DVD feature, Iconic Props, a prop of the Staff of Kings based on the staff of Moses from the 1956 film The Ten Commandments was created and put into crate 4054504. The staff goes unseen in the final cut of the film.
- Indiana Jones Adventure World
- Raiders of the Lost Ark (First appearance)
- Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (First identified as Hangar 51)
- Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull novel
- LEGO Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures (Non-canonical appearance)
- LEGO Indiana Jones 2: The Adventure Continues (Non-canonical appearance)
- Close Encounters of the Random Kind (Ambiguously canonical source)
- The Lost Journal of Indiana Jones
- Indiana Jones: The Ultimate Guide
- Iconic Props