Wright-Patterson AFB / Hangar 18

A name born from one man's claim

In 1974, researcher Robert Spencer Carr began telling reporters that recovered wreckage and bodies from the 1947 Roswell incident had been flown to Wright Field, now part of Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton, Ohio, and stored in a building he called Hangar 18. The name stuck instantly, helped along by a 1980 movie of the same title, and decades of UFO researchers have repeated and expanded the claim since.

Official denial, persistent believers

The Air Force has stated flatly that no such hangar exists, and Wright-Patterson's actual Building 18 has never been shown to contain anything unusual. Even prominent skeptics within government, including Senator Barry Goldwater, said publicly that they were denied access to secure storage on base when they asked. That refusal, more than any direct evidence, is what keeps the theory circulating.

You can visit the museum, just not the legend

Unlike most alleged government secrets on this list, Wright-Patterson hosts the National Museum of the United States Air Force on base, free to the public and drawing roughly a million visitors a year, with real aircraft, missile, and space exhibits. The supposed hangar, if it exists at all, is not part of the tour. The closest most visitors get to the mystery is standing on the same base the legend is built around.

The National Museum of the United States Air Force is free, open year round, and does not require a base visitor pass to enter; check current hours before visiting Dayton, Ohio.