A restricted military area or military out-of-bounds area is an area under military jurisdiction where special

security Security is protection from, or resilience against, potential harm (or other unwanted coercion). Beneficiaries (technically referents) of security may be persons and social groups, objects and institutions, ecosystems, or any other entity or ...

measures are used to prevent unauthorized entry.

Legal restrictions

Restricted military areas are associated with strict legal restrictions. In Australia, military bases cannot be sketched, drawn, photographed and people who do so are subject to 6 months imprisonment. Even approaching a base with equipment capable of doing those things is forbidden. In the United States, trespass of a military base without permission is punishable by six months imprisonment. Restricted military areas have been relied upon as a legal justification for the eviction of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.

In popular culture

Restrictions against access to military bases has been a source of pop-culture myths, as in the case of

Area 51 Area 51 is the common name of a highly classified United States Air Force (USAF) facility within the Nevada Test and Training Range in southern Nevada, north-northwest of Las Vegas. A remote detachment administered by Edwards Air Force B ...

in the United States. Classified activities on such bases and the secrecy surrounding those activities have captured public imagination. One such example is the

Roswell incident The Roswell Incident started in 1947 with the recovery of debris near Roswell, New Mexico. It later became the basis for conspiracy theories alleging that the United States military recovered a crashed extraterrestrial spacecraft. The debri ...

, where debris from a classified military balloon became a UFO myth.: Olmsted writes "When one of these balloons smashed into the sands of the New Mexico ranch, the military decided to hide the project's real purpose." In 1994 and 1997, official government reports (Weaver & McAndrew 1995) concluded (p. 9) "... the material recovered near Roswell was consistent with a balloon device and most likely from one of the MOGUL balloons that had not been previously recovered.": "Flight 4 was launched June 4, 1947, from

Alamogordo Army Air Field Alamogordo () is a city in and the county seat of Otero County, New Mexico, United States. A city in the Tularosa Basin of the Chihuahuan Desert, it is bordered on the east by the Sacramento Mountains and to the west by Holloman Air Force Ba ...

and tracked flying northeast toward

Corona Corona (from the Latin for 'crown') most commonly refers to: * Stellar corona, the outer atmosphere of the Sun or another star * Corona (beer), a Mexican beer * Corona, informal term for the coronavirus or disease responsible for the COVID-19 ...

. It was within of the Brazel ranch when contact was lost." Works of fiction have been written about prominent military bases. The Australian TV series ''

Pine Gap Pine Gap is a joint Australian–United States satellite communications and signals intelligence surveillance base and Australian Earth station approximately south-west of the town of Alice Springs. It is jointly operated by Australia and ...

'' is one such series; with a narrative centring on joint defence operations at the international intelligence facility Pine Gap, south-west of

Alice Springs Alice Springs () is a town in the Northern Territory, Australia; it is the third-largest settlement after Darwin, Northern Territory, Darwin and Palmerston, Northern Territory, Palmerston. The name Alice Springs was given by surveyor William ...

, Australia.

List of notable restricted military areas

The following is a list of notable restricted military areas:

Legal restrictions

In popular culture

List of notable restricted military areas

See also

References

Further reading