They’re coming to Area 51. Not the aliens, but the alien enthusiasts.
Almost 2 million people clicked the “going” button on a Facebook page set up by a California man seeking to storm Area 51, the super-secret military base in Nevada, to “see them aliens.” The date for this “raid” is Friday.
The page’s creator disavowed the whole thing, and Facebook took down the page, but events are still planned, and that’s led officials in Nevada to worry that thousands of people really will try to get onto the base, potentially creating a crisis situation in the middle of the desert.
The creator underestimated the allure
Matty Roberts was just joking. He didn’t believe anyone would take him seriously when, on June 27, he created a Facebook page for an event entitled “Storm Area 51, They Can’t Stop All of Us.”
But Roberts may have underestimated the allure of Area 51, the highly classified US Air Force base in southern Nevada. It’s long been a topic of fascination for conspiracy theorists and paranormal enthusiasts who believe it to be the location where the US government stores and hides alien bodies and UFOs. Just this week, the US Navy acknowledged that some videos of UFOs are indeed images of objects that can’t be identified.
Roberts said he came up with the idea for the meme page after podcaster Joe Rogan interviewed Area 51 whistleblower Bob Lazar and filmmaker Jeremy Corbell. Lazar claims that he worked with an alien spacecraft while he was employed in one of Area 51’s underground facilities.
“We could probably handle it, but it could definitely cause issues. Heaven forbid the number is 5,000 people where you almost double the size of the county,” he said.
But the number of people isn’t even Lee’s primary concern. He said exposure to the environment is what he is worried about.
“I could see people with a lot of heat-related issues, and with our limited resources up here, it could definitely jeopardize their safety. The number of people could overwhelm our EMS in a hurry,” he said.
Two people have already tried to get on the base. Earlier this month, two Dutchmen were arrested about three miles deep into the Nevada National Security Site, which is near Area 51. They pleaded guilty to trespassing and illegal parking. They told authorities they just wanted to get a good look at Area 51.
“We just wanted … to go there,” one of the men told CNN affiliate KTNV.