It was the Facebook invite seen ’round the world.
Bakersfield, California resident Matty Roberts created the joke call to storm the gates of Area 51 in June. Soon, more than 2.1 million people RSVPd to go “see them aliens,” as the invite put it. Another 1.5 million expressed interest in the September 20 event.
Rural Nevada consequently found itself at the center of an unwanted viral moment. Two small counties, Lincoln and Nye, declared states of emergency. “It’s caused our county officials and emergency response people a lot of headaches and … the price tag, so far, on bringing in the needed emergency personnel is at $250,000,” Ben Rowley, a spokesperson for the Lincoln County Authority of Tourism, said before the event. “Our county is on a very tight budget, so an unexpected hit like that is not good.”
In the end, the original event didn’t go as planned — Roberts spent the day not in Rachel, the small town where Area 51 raiders were to gather, but at a Las Vegas event that popped up in its stead. But some who believe in the existence of extraterrestrial life, or who are just curious about the mysterious U.S. Air Force facility in the middle of the southern Nevada desert, did get an opportunity to witness the power of going viral on the internet — even in one of the most secretive, protected places in the country.
“The way it happened this year made a lot of people frustrated, uneasy, and stressed,” Rowley said. “I think it could potentially be an annual thing, and if done well, could be an economic boost, but it’s going to take a lot of planning and cooperation between all the stakeholders.”
When Roberts created his “Storm Area 51, They Can’t Stop All of Us” event on June 27, the engineering student claimed he “was just joking around on the internet.” He had just finished a Joe Rogan Experience podcast episode featuring whistleblower Bob Lazar, who since 1989 has claimed he was hired to reverse-engineer alien aircraft near Area 51 (the feds have actively denied the assertion).
Roberts, 21, was inspired to post a mock event invite for 2:30 a.m on September 20 to find the alleged aliens at Area 51. “If we naruto run, we can move faster than their bullets. Lets see them aliens,” he wrote, referencing the forward-leaning, backward-arms run of anime character Naruto Uzumaki, a popular internet meme, and the bullets of very real guards at Area 51.
Word spread. Memes ensued. RSVPs multiplied. The blend of a genuine conspiracy theory, general alien interest, and apt podcast timing “created the perfect storm,” Roberts told Bitterroot.
Much of the internet was in on the joke, but the Air Force wasn’t laughing. In July, Air Force spokeswoman Laura McAndrews told The Washington Post “we would discourage anyone from trying to come into the area where we train American armed forces.”
Area 51 houses a good deal of top-secret military research yet is no stranger to attention. Located within the Nevada Test and Training Range more than 100 miles north of Las Vegas, the hush-hush nature and remoteness of the base has long bred conspiracy theories about aliens and UFOs — flames fanned by Lazar’s claims.
The facility’s existence remained unconfirmed until 2013, when the Central Intelligence Agency finally responded to an 8-year-old Freedom of Information Act request and acknowledged that Area 51 was indeed a thing. The Air Force has since referred to the base as a training range, though many surmise it is also used for developing and testing experimental aircraft and weapons systems.
“My suspicion … is that some of the most cutting-edge science and technology programs are being tested at Area 51 today,” Annie Jacobsen, author of Area 51: An Uncensored History of America’s Top Secret Military Base, told Vox. “We won’t know about them for decades.”
Drive the desolate 98-mile stretch of state Highway 375, officially dubbed the Extraterrestrial Highway in 1996, and you happen upon Rachel, Nevada. Population: 54. Nearest gas station: 50 miles away. You’d easily miss it if not for a quirky alien-themed restaurant, motel, and souvenir shop called the Little A’Le’Inn. Die-hards know the spot from countless alien documentaries. Tourists head to the self-proclaimed “UFO Capital of the World” in search of “the truth.”
After “Storm Area 51” took off on Facebook, the inn’s owner, Connie West, teamed up with Roberts and event promoter Frank DiMaggio to plan a three-day festival in Rachel called Alienstock. She began renting camping spaces and booking bands.
Then, ten days before the event, Roberts and DiMaggio pulled out, citing “lack of infrastructure, planning, and risk management, along with concerns raised for the safety of the expected 10,000+ attendees.” Two days later, Roberts announced he was partnering with the Downtown Las Vegas Events Center and Bud Light on an Area 51 celebration on September 19. Roberts and DiMaggio issued cease and desist orders to West for use of the Alienstock name.
West, who did not respond to requests for comment, persisted, as did area law enforcement, who prepared to deploy around 300 first responders over the course of the event.
Meanwhile, George Harris, who owns the Alien Research Center in Hiko, near the eastern terminus of the Extraterrestrial Highway (he claims he was involved firsthand in the renaming), planned his own two-day event that promised speakers, bands, food vendors, and a documentary screening.
An Army veteran, Harris said one of his jobs while in the service was to interview people who claimed to be abducted by aliens. Of the thousands he says he interviewed, he only believed about five, but he does believe the lore about Area 51. So he was not at all surprised by the enthusiastic response to the Storm Area 51 page. He expected big crowds of believers to head to his Basecamp event, as well, in search of camaraderie, UFO education, and DJ Paul Oakenfold, his Friday-night headliner.
“For us to believe we are the only species in this universe is obtuse — it makes no sense,” said Harris, who also hawks his Alien brand of tequila (“An abduction in every bottle”).
Ultimately, attendance at the Hiko Basecamp event was so low, the second day of musical acts was cancelled, and at times it seemed like there were more police officers and members of the media than actual attendees. But the event in Rachel brought more than a trickle of tourists to the remote Nevada desert — albeit many fewer than the millions who expressed interest on Facebook. That weekend, an estimated 3,000 YouTubers, conspiracy theorists, road trippers, retired adventurers, and alien enthusiasts descended on Rachel.
Among them was Bakersfield resident Aaron Michael. “As soon as I found out about it, I said, ‘No matter what, we’re going to … see how this goes,’” he said. “We’re not going to go to a military base, but I will hang out on the fringe with all the smart people.”
Michael had previously visited Roswell, the extraterrestrial hub in New Mexico, but this was his first time in Rachel. “Of course I believe there’s life besides ours,” he said, donning an aluminum foil hat. “I don’t know if they’re little green people, but I like the hype of it.”
At 2:30 a.m. on the 20th — the start time of Roberts’ original event — a group of about 150 people visited the heavily guarded gate to Area 51 near Rachel. Others took selfies and shot video there at various times over the next few days. Law enforcement was patient and accommodating, according to Will Tryon, a Las Vegas tour guide.
Three senior women from Wendover, Utah, camped in Rachel and showed up at the Hiko Basecamp on Friday afternoon wearing metal colander hats and carrying a sign reading: “Green Lives Matter.” “We’re just having a ball!” one of them said.
University of Arizona student Ali Alshehri skipped four classes, a career fair, and two days of work to drive the 560 miles to Rachel in an $850 van covered in $150 worth of alien stickers. Dressed in a green wingsuit and wobbly antennae, he posted an Instagram video of himself and five others pretending to storm the gate on September 22 with the caption: “WE CAME. WE SAW. WE CONQUERED.”
Why make the trek? “When I do something, I do it once, and I do it well,” Alshehri said. That, and that he finds school “depressive and limiting to my creativity.”
The official Rachel website took a more critical view of the event, describing the event as “a dusty dirt lot with amateur bands playing on a makeshift stage and a couple of food vendors.” But apart from overflowing trash cans and six misdemeanor arrests, the internet invaders mostly came and left in peace.
More than 100 miles away in Las Vegas, nearly 11,000 people attended Roberts’ event downtown. West, meanwhile, filed a complaint in Nevada District Court against Roberts, DiMaggio and others, alleging that they made defamatory comments about the event in Rachel and played a role in the low attendance numbers.
Those who attended hope it happens again. Tryon said he heard whispers of Rachel’s Alienstock becoming an annual occurrence. If nothing else, the event itself was certainly a product of its time.
“I think that this is kind of a historic moment for the internet,” said a Walla Walla, Washington, resident dressed in a yellow bodysuit, who only identified himself as Jared. “It shows how something can start off as a joke on the internet and spread and become a reality.”