10 Crazy Facts About Storm Area 51

10 Crazy Facts About Storm Area 51

Welcome to WatchMojo, and today were taking a deep dive into the notorious Storm Area 51 event.

#10: It Started on Facebook

This all happened many years ago now, in September 2019, so youd be forgiven for forgetting how, exactly, it began. But it was an event organized on Facebook back when Facebook was still a semi-usable website, that quickly became a meme and attracted unprecedented attention. The architect behind this plan was Matty Roberts, who well be hearing about more later, and it culminated in 2 million people saying that they were going to descend on Nevada to attend  and another 1.5 million who were thinking about it. It took months of build up, and was set to be one of the biggest events of the year. This didnt exactly pan out, but it was still impressive coming from Facebook.

#9: Warnings

Area 51  the existence of which was only acknowledged by the US government in 2013  is one of the USs most secretive bases, used to test classified, experimental aircraft. As such, the US Air Force wasnt particularly happy about people planning to raid its base. The area is heavily guarded by soldiers known as camo guys to ufologists and locals, and they ARE authorized to use lethal force. However, it would certainly be a bad look for the US military to start shooting its own public, so they did their best to warn people to stay far away from the base, saying that its illegal to break in. Various government agencies, including the FBI, were involved in trying to contain the situation.

#8: Flight Restrictions

Along with the FBI, the Federal Aviation Administration was also involved in the incident, with additional airspace restrictions placed over Homey Airport the official name of Area 51. Of course, the area is already restricted airspace, especially considering its an Air Force base that tests aircraft; you definitely dont want commercial or civilian planes seeing tests while theyre underway. But the restrictions were increased ahead of the event, all to prevent drones and media helicopters from getting too close. People were anticipating that millions would converge on the small towns of Rachel and Hiko, so you can see why news outlets wanted choppers in the air. In the end, though, the choppers were likely unnecessary.

#7: Fyre 2.0

The biggest failed event of 2017 was the Fyre Festival, when fraudster Billy McFarland organized an elite music festival in the Bahamas. Unlike Storm Area 51, thousands DID attend Fyre, overrunning the locals. Ahead of this event, many claimed that it was going to end up being Fyre Festival 2.0, with locals similarly put-out; while thousands did live on the island where Fyre was meant to take place, Rachel and Hiko had populations of less than 200 people combined. How they were going to cater for the 3.5 million who signed up for the Facebook event was anyones guess, though the owner of the Little ALeInn, Connie West, was going to allow as much camping as possible.

#6: Competing Events

The original event planned to coincide with Storm Area 51 was called Alienstock, a play on Woodstock, but it wasnt the only event that happened in Nevada that week. Alienstock sprung up in Rachel, the better known, but smaller, of the two nearby towns, while Hiko hosted the Storm Area 51 Basecamp event. However, there were some disputes over Alienstock, since organizer Matty Roberts actually canceled it and launched a third event, Area 51 Celebration, in Vegas itself certainly a location better suited to hosting millions of tourists at a time. Attendees werent happy, with many believing that Roberts took the money and ran, since hed apparently gathered tens of thousands of dollars in donations.

#5: Connie West & Matty Roberts

Despite Roberts being a self-confessed broke college student at the time he posted the Facebook event, he soon hired lawyers to go after Connie West, the previously mentioned owner of Rachels Little ALeInn. This was all over West still using the name Alienstock for the Rachel event, which she then said shed organized herself almost single-handedly. This is almost certainly true since the event went ahead as planned without Roberts. But he still wasnt happy, sending her a cease and desist over her use of the name. She didnt cease and desist, and talked to Vegas-based journalists about how much money she spent to fund an event that Roberts, who wasnt local, planned on a whim.

#4: Copycats

There were yet more events planned to capture the publics interest in storming secret facilities, some of them far away from the US. One of the more prominent events also supposedly planned in the States was to storm the vault of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Utah, as well as an event to storm the US Capitol  which looks a little chilling in hindsight. Further afield and there was an event to storm the Vatican and see what the Catholic Church is hiding, as well as an attempt to storm Loch Ness and find the famous monster. While Loch Ness isnt guarded, people were warned to stay away because of the dangers of unpredictable, cold lakes.

#3: Shooting Incident

Some necessary background for all of this is that earlier in 2019, somebody actually was shot by the so-called camo guys at an Area 51 checkpoint. Its believed he was trying to get into the base, and was pursued by deputies for eight miles until stopping at the checkpoint with a, quote, metallic cylindrical object. He was shot and tragically died, serving as a stark warning to anybody who might try to infiltrate the base, and its still not clear what the object was or what he was doing. But this apparently didnt dissuade any of the attendees heading to Lincoln county that weekend, because they remained gung-ho about their plan to break into the base.

#2: On the Day

So, what actually happened? Did anybody really storm Area 51? No. In fact, hardly anybody went at all, despite locals anticipating tens of thousands at the very least. In total, its been estimated that around 1500 people attended, far fewer than the 3.5 million who said they were interested on Facebook. Interestingly, one of the events  Alienstock, the one arranged primarily by Connie West was deemed a success, while the other was deemed a failure. Many of the attendees were also journalists there to cover the story, rather than actual enthusiasts, though the ones who were there looked like they were having a good enough time to say they were in the middle of the desert.

#1: The End Result

Nobody did storm Area 51, running like Naruto or otherwise, though apparently over a hundred people did go to one of the gates to try and get a sighting of one of the legendary camo guys. Only one person actually tried to get in, but unlike the man earlier in 2019, they were warned away and not harmed  probably because they werent carrying a suspicious object. There were some arrests, however, but they werent for trespassing, they were public urination and indecent exposure, among other things. Two people were injured in a car accident in Rachel and were able to quickly get help. It certainly wasnt Fyre Festival 2.0, drawing in next to nobody, despite marquee guests like the ufologist Jeremy Corbell.

Let us know in the comments whether you were one of the few who went to Area 51 that day.