The site began in 1955 as a test center for the U-2 spy plane an aircraft developed after WWII. It was capable of carrying out surveillance over the Soviet Union, and practice flights were carried out using the runways built onsite. When it began operations over the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, a cover story was made to portray it as a weather research plane.
Every thinking human with a bit of imagination and knowledge about our solar system can't be a complete sucker about outer life in whole universum.