By JOE TACOPINO

The long-fabled facility known as Area 51 has finally been acknowledged by the CIA in newly declassified documents.

Though conspiracy theorists will be disappointed at the lack of mention of space aliens, the papers show the Nevada site was a government testing ground for surveillance during the Cold War.

The revelation was made when George Washington University’s National Security Archive obtained a history of the CIA U-2 spy plane program in which references to the site were no longer blacked out.

All mention of Area 51 had been redacted in 2002 when archive senior fellow Jeffrey Richelson reviewed the history.

But Richelson says he requested the history again in 2005 and received a version a few weeks ago with mentions of Area 51 appearing in the documents.

Officials have already acknowledged in passing the existence of the facility in central Nevada where the government is believed to test intelligence tools and weapons, but never with detail.