The reason Area 51 is so popular is because it's the only government facility that has been proven to do something weird.

They're always talking about aliens and this and that. But the real reason Area 51 is so mysterious and popular is that this is the only facility that we KNOW is used to secretly develop and test things we aren't supposed to know about. It's proven that they lied about doing this, and have only admitted to it afterwards every time they did. This raises questions like "what else do they lie about?"