The Viral Area 51 Raid

The+military+base+was+bracing+itself+to+be+stormed+on+September+20th.

Picasa, Flickr.com

The military base was bracing itself to be stormed on September 20th.

Ally Crosby, Staff Writer
October 4, 2019

The memes, jokes and plans to break into Area 51 had all birthed from one Facebook event by 21-year-old Matty Roberts. Although it was originally meant for some good, clean fun, millions of people announced that they would attend. As a result, the U.S. military highly discouraged people attending Alienstock from entering the base. 

Roberts came up with an alternative plan to host a music festival in Rachel, a small desert town approximately 27 miles north of Area 51. Campers and festival attendees rose to about 3,000. It seemed as though everyone enjoyed their time out in the desert.

Hundreds of the participants tried to jokingly storm Area 51. This was a far more watered down scenario of what the Air Force was originally expecting. Some of the raiders and their friends did the Naruto Run, which was the original plan of Roberts’ post. 

The meme, “Storm Area 51, they can’t stop all of us,” quickly spread from Facebook to Instagram, Tiktok, Reddit, Discord, and Twitter. This viral meme had people wanting to “see them aliens.” It wasn’t clear what percentage of the participants were the memers, the serious, the bored, the marketers, or all of those titles. 

“I think it was a very good idea,” Joshua Butler, an eighth grade student at McAuliffe Middle School, states. Most of the “earthlings” that came seemed to think so too. The Alienstock festival was mostly very peaceful, with less than 10 arrests. The participants who had driven down to Area 51 from Rachel had a merry time with the guards, who surprisingly were kind about the situation. According to Vox.com, some people even claimed they saw UFOs, but the sightings could have just been small blinking lights in the distance.

Roberts’ original intent was to spread some laughter around, and he would have least expected people driving out to the vast Nevada desert. Although deep down everyone knew it was just a fantasy, it appears that people genuinely enjoyed Alienstock. As the earthlings head back to their homes, the memes and stories will live on forever. Although these humans never got to meet any aliens, maybe somewhere, somehow, their wish will come true.