Area 51 Veterans Face Devastating Illnesses Amid Silence Over Secret Radiation Exposure

• by Arlen Fitzpatrick
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Veterans Expose Area 51’s Dangerous Legacy

It’s not just UFO rumors and sci-fi tales swirling around Area 51 anymore. Real people are stepping forward, and their stories are darker than any legend about little green men. A group of U.S. Air Force veterans, once stationed at the Nevada Test and Training Range—better known as Area 51—are grappling with catastrophic health problems that go way beyond normal veteran struggles. We’re talking brain atrophy, aggressive tumors, birth defects, and severe DNA damage. Most shocking? Many say the root cause is a top-secret project involving long-term, low-dose ionizing radiation.

David Crete, a former sergeant who served at Area 51 from 1983 to 1987, might be the hardest hit. Before he hit forty, he’d survived multiple tumors—including one as large as a grapefruit yanked from his back. He suffers from brain atrophy, a shrinking of the brain usually seen in much older folks. His story doesn’t end with him: his wife has dealt with three miscarriages, and all four of their children are struggling with medical issues or birth defects. Crete lays the blame squarely on his service, saying the radiation exposure twisted his DNA in ways no doctor can fully reverse.

How Secrecy Adds to the Trauma

What makes this even more gut-wrenching is the bureaucratic wall these veterans hit when they try to get help. Their records have been ‘Data Masked’ by the Department of Defense. That means vital details about their assignments and exposures are literally blocked out, making it impossible for Veterans Affairs to verify what happened—or to offer treatment. During a 2016 reunion in Las Vegas, Crete and seven other veterans compared notes: all of them had developed tumors. One, Randy Groves, even discovered his own back lump when he saw Crete’s scar. It’s like a grim club nobody wants to join, bound together by shared secrets and matching illnesses.

The conditions these men claim to have developed aren’t mild. Along with cancers and tumors, some are dealing with neurological decline and unexplained fatigue. And for those who started families, the impact continued: miscarriages, children with rare disorders, and a web of unanswered questions about their own genetics. The government, meanwhile, washes its hands—no compensation, no medical support, saying there’s not enough proof anyone was exposed to anything harmful. That’s hard to accept for people who spent years handling classified material, following orders, and now can’t even get a clear copy of their own service history.

• Eight veterans at one reunion—all with tumors
• Medical records systematically hidden by ‘Data Masking’
• Department of Defense refuses compensation, demanding proof that can’t be produced

What’s striking is how this isn’t just about a few unlucky individuals. The problem is baked into the system: work in total secrecy, risky assignments, and when things go wrong, there’s no paper trail you can actually use. It leaves families like the Cretes battling both the diseases and the institutions that trained them.

As the debate rages on about national security and the need for secrecy, these veterans are stuck in the shadows, living proof of the human cost hiding behind blacked-out lines in classified documents.