Published On 5/6/2026
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Last update: 16:54 (Mecca time)
The US military “Area 51” has returned to controversy again, after speculation that secret nuclear tests conducted there were responsible for a series of earthquakes (17 earthquakes) in the state of Nevada during the last days of last April.
Area 51, which belongs to the US Air Force, is located in the southern Nevada desert and has been associated for decades with theories related to flying saucers and secret experiments. Historical reports also indicate that it was a site for the development and testing of advanced spy planes such as the U-2 and A-12, according to documents filed by the US Central Intelligence Agency in 2013, which confirmed the use of the site within the framework of military programs.
This historical legacy of the region was used to link sudden earthquakes to secret nuclear tests being conducted in the region, especially since some experts who analyzed these tremors admitted that there was a “some degree of ambiguity” in the data that required further study, without providing evidence of any abnormal activities occurring underground.
According to data from the US Geological Survey, the tremors began with the strongest earthquake in the series, which occurred at a depth of approximately 2.5 miles below the surface of the Earth, followed by successive seismic activity in the same region, which continued until the dawn hours of last Thursday, when the last tremor was recorded at exactly 5:38 am Pacific time.
Confirm suspicions and then deny them
According to geophysicist Stefan Burns, the location of the earthquakes, just a few miles from the base of Area 51, is “geologically unusual,” noting in a video he posted on his official account on the “X” website (formerly Twitter), that the region is not usually known for intense seismic activity compared to active fault zones in the western United States.
He also pointed out that the shallow depth of the strongest tremor makes the event remarkable from a scientific standpoint, especially since earthquakes and underground explosions may produce similar seismic signals in some cases.
Despite the facts that Burns mentioned that raise doubts, he came back and said that the scientifically closest explanation for the phenomenon is that it is a “series of cluster earthquakes” resulting from the movement of stresses along nearby faults, a pattern known in active tectonic areas such as the Nevada Desert, where the Earth’s crust gradually expands and intermittent tremors occur.
The first part of the analysis by geophysicist Stefan Burns was the most popular, and this feeling was helped by the conspiracy theories that dominate the thinking of some after the death or disappearance of a number of American scientists who had access to sensitive materials, incidents that are being investigated by the FBI and Congress.
This is supported, according to a report published by The Independent newspaper, by US President Donald Trump repeatedly expressing interest in resuming local underground nuclear testing, especially after the expiration of the last remaining nuclear arms control treaty between the United States and Russia in February 2026.
For his part, Martin Pfeiffer, a nuclear weapons researcher, denied this scenario to Popular Science magazine and said: “It is almost certain that they are not nuclear weapons.”
He added: “Nuclear weapons have a relatively distinct seismic signal.” The nuclear option is also unlikely because the United States usually detonates nuclear weapons underground at very shallow depths.
For its part, the US Geological Survey tended to interpret the “series of earthquakes” as cluster earthquakes that occurred as a result of the movement of stress on geological faults in the Earth’s crust, but this brief explanation did not put an end to the speculation that is still increasing on social media.
