Tag: Storm Area 51

A Year Later, ‘Storm Area 51’ Still Affects Nevada Town

Article by Christopher Lawrence                                   September 18, 2020                                    (reviewjournal.com)

• September 20th marked the first anniversary of the ‘Storm Area 51’ Facebook event when over two million people responded to a college student’s ‘late-night goof’, and pledged to storm Area 51 to “see them aliens.” Leading up to the event, the world was obsessed with how many people would descend on a tiny town called Rachel, Nevada – 50 miles from anywhere – and what they’d do when they got there.

• The event was thrown into disarray just days before when the young man who coined the phrase “Storm Area 51” severed ties with it. Plans to “storm” the nearby gate at the secretive military facility morphed into a music and arts festival dubbed ‘Alienstock’ for the 2000 or so people who were curious enough to show up.

• As the proprietor of the only business in Rachel, Connie West and her Little A’Le’Inn restaurant and hotel were thrust into the international spotlight. “I’m still not unwound from it,” West says of that wild summer that found media from around the world wandering into her small cafe, “because I have to deal with the aftermath of it every day.” “In this last year (with COVID), we’ve been hit so hard, we’re barely treading water.”

• As a result of this random Facebook meme, Lincoln County, Nevada is out $200,000; two small-business owners lost a combined $250,000; litigation involving the meme’s creator is pending; and Rachel has become divided, with many of its residents no longer speaking to one another. “I’ve known these people for a long, long time,” said West. “Alienstock made me see some ugly in people that I never thought were that deep and ugly, right here in my community.” West estimates the event cost her $200,000, and that tab keeps climbing because of the legal bills. She’s due in court again in late February.

• None of that deterred West from attempting to host another festival in 2020, which was canceled due to the pandemic. “I put a hell of a lot of work into it,” said West. “I had some awesome sponsors.” Those sponsors seem willing to work with her again when it is deemed safe, in 2021 or 2022. “All year, people have reached out to me,” West says. “They want this to happen again.”

• Rachel resident Joerg Arnu says that “The event… deeply divided our town into two camps.” One group backs West and her plans. Arnu leads the other group who wishes that West would just throw in the towel. “There’s a lot of animosity all of a sudden,” says Arnu. “Rachel was a very friendly town, where everybody knew everybody, everybody greeted everybody, waved at everybody. Now it’s come down to the exact opposite. Nobody even wants to talk to anyone anymore.”

• Since the Alienstock festival, Arnu says he’s been harassed, had strangers trespass on his property and has been photographed inside his home via long lenses. He complains of tourists driving through the residential areas of Rachel, and he has reinstalled the security lighting he bought last summer. “Our town that was a very peaceful and quiet place, and friendly place, has changed. I don’t know if it will ever mend, if it will ever go back to how it was,” says Arnu. “I will fight another Alienstock with everything I have.”

• Aside from the town of Rachel, the ‘Area 51 Basecamp’ at the Alien Research Center in Hiko, Nevada also had grand ambitions. British DJ Paul Oakenfold was so excited about the event that he flew from England on his private jet to perform for free on opening night at the center. But so few festival-goers showed up, plans were scrapped and tickets were refunded.

• “I don’t think we have anything to be embarrassed about,” says George Harris, the owner of the Alien Research Center. “And, by the way, I lost a lot of money, because I really thought there was going to be about 25,000 or 30,000 people, so we prepared for a lot.” Instead, 8,500 people stopped by over the course of a couple of days. That discrepancy cost him $42,000, and Harris says it will take him four or five years to pay off the bank loan. But the Alien Research Center was busier than normal for the next several weeks, and Harris says visitors still can’t get enough of his “I Stormed Area 51” merchandise. Like West, he plans to do it again.

• Eric Holt had been Lincoln County’s emergency manager for 18 months when calls started pouring in about ‘Storm Area 51’. A predicted number of 100,000 people coming to Lincoln County was a logistical nightmare in a rugged environment with almost no infrastructure. “We spent a month and a half straight just dedicating all of our resources to planning efforts for this,” Holt recalls. Even the 6,000 people who showed up for the event was “still kind of unheard of for up here” where there are only about fifty permanent residents. Holt says the county’s final costs for that weekend topped $200,000, and that was only because several other agencies offered their services at no charge. “[I]t would have been over $1 million easy.” Holt says that, between the event and the pandemic, it could take years for the full economic impact to be felt. Nevada Governor Steve Sisolak has indicated that help from Carson City isn’t likely.

• The idea to storm Area 51 at 3 a.m. Sept. 20 was born out of late-night boredom as the 20 year old college student Matty Roberts played World of Warcraft while scrolling through Facebook and watching self-proclaimed Area 51 whistleblower Bob Lazar on Joe Rogan’s podcast. Then he watched as the Facebook challenge went viral all over the world. “I was just like, ‘Oh man, the FBI’s going to show up.’ And they did. And I’m pretty sure I’m still on a watchlist.”

• Now, a year later Roberts lives in Bakersfield, California working in a vape shop, waiting for his ‘in person’ college classes to resume, and hoping one day to become an electrician. “It almost feels kind of like a wild fever dream in a way,’ says Roberts. “But I lived that. And that’s kind of bonkers to me. That’s a story not a whole lot of people can tell. I kind of wanna write a book.”

• After he pulled out of the Rachel event, Roberts ended up hosting a party September 19th at the Downtown Las Vegas Events Center, which served as a launch for Bud Light’s limited-edition Area 51-themed beer. Similar parties were planned in Vegas for this summer, including escape rooms and obstacle courses, and a tour of the East Coast. But COVID-19 stopped all of it in its tracks. “I’ve had quite a few people that kind of mentioned that they thought I made millions from this thing,” says Roberts. But in reality, he only sold a few t-shirts.

• Roberts’ legal rights to the term ‘Alienstock’ are part of the legal dispute with Connie West. But would he do the whole thing again some day? “Absolutely. I mean, if we can, I would love to,” Roberts says. “I think whenever it is, and if it is safe to gather again, I’d really like to kind of just keep pursuing the dream.”

 

                        Joerg Arnu

It seems closer to a generation ago than 12 measly months.

Long before the 2020-ness of life began pulverizing us on a daily basis — back when the biggest thing many of us were concerned about was whether we’d ever get our hands on one of those Popeyes chicken sandwiches — the world was obsessed with how many people would descend on a tiny blip on the Nevada map, 50 miles from anywhere, called Rachel and what they might do when they got there.

Sunday marks the first anniversary of the day on which more than 2 million Facebook users, responding to a college student’s late-night goof, had pledged to storm Area 51 to “see them aliens.”

           George Harris

As a result of that random joke, Lincoln County is out $200,000, two small-business owners lost a combined

                      Connie West

$250,000, litigation is pending and Rachel has become divided, with many of its residents — all of whom could safely gather without violating the state’s 50-person coronavirus guidelines — no longer speaking to one another.

‘I’m still not unwound’

“In this last year, we’ve been hit so hard, we’re barely treading water,” Connie West says.

As the proprietor of the only business in Rachel, the nearest thing

                      Matty Roberts

resembling a town to Area 51, she and her Little A’Le’Inn were thrust into the international spotlight in July 2019 as that Facebook prank went viral.

Plans to breach the nearby gate of the secretive military facility morphed into an ambitious music and

                          Eric Holt

arts festival dubbed Alienstock. The event was thrown into disarray days before, on Sept. 9, when the man who coined the phrase “Storm Area 51” severed ties with it. The resulting four-day festival, put together at the last minute, offered the couple of thousand people curious enough to attend more of a DIY vibe.

“I’m still not unwound from it,” West says of that wild summer that found media from around the world wandering into her small cafe, “because I have to deal with the aftermath of it every day.”

That aftermath includes a lawsuit and countersuit involving the meme’s creator and his team, as well as the wrath of some members of her once-close-knit group of neighbors who remain angry with the way things played out.

“I’ve known these people for a long, long time. … Alienstock made me see some ugly in people that I never thought were that deep and ugly, right here in my community.”

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How Military Base Area 51 Became the Heartland of Alien Conspiracy Theories

Article by Jayden Collins                                   September 4, 2020                                     (happymag.tv)

• A secret military base sits in the middle of the Nevada desert, about 82 miles northwest of Las Vegas known as ‘Area 51’. It has become the subject of endless pop culture references and memes, as well as the epicentre of the world’s most famous alien conspiracies. How did this Air Force facility become linked with extraterrestrial folklore, and are they really holding tea parties with alien lifeforms inside the base?

• The government used the desolate Nevada desert region as a weapons test range during World War II. In 1954 it was commissioned Area 51 by President Eisenhower as an Air Force base that tested spy planes, such as the U-2, far away from the public and Soviet spies. Perhaps today’s conspiracy theories are rooted in the base’s history of Soviet espionage.

• In 1947, there were reports of a weather balloon crashing on a ranch in southeastern New Mexico near a town called Roswell. But rumors abounded that the US military had taken a crashed UFO craft to Area 51. Then in the late 1980s, Robert Lazar came forward to claim that he had been one of the scientists reverse engineering alien spacecraft at Area 51. Lazar even claimed to have seen an alien himself. Lazar became a cult hero among conspiracy theorists, and while his credentials were pretty quickly discredited, it was his interview that would forever link Area 51 to the unknowns of outer space.

• The phenomena of Area 51 grew in the ’80s and ’90s, and took on a life of its own within popular culture. The science fiction television series The X-Files continually referenced the facility and the government’s agenda to keep the existence of extraterrestrial life a secret. In 1996, Area 51 was prominently feature in the film Independence Day, about an alien attack on Earth. In 2011, the comedy Paul depicted an extraterrestrial who has escaped from Area 51. The secret base was even referenced in the kids’ movie Lilo & Stitch, with the aliens in the film choosing to name planet Earth, Area 51. Barack Obama was the first US President to publicly acknowledge Area 51 in 2013.

• In June 2019, 20-year-old student Matty Roberts created a Facebook event called ‘Storm Area 51, They Can’t Stop All Of Us’. The event was set for September 20, 2019, and quickly turned into a trending meme, with 2 million people clicking ‘going’, and 1.5 million clicking ‘interested’. What was initially intended as a joke turned into a serious issue for the US government. The military’s public relation office made a Twitter post with a photo of military personnel and a B-2 stealth bomber. The caption read: “The last thing #Millenials will see if they attempt the #area51raid today.” The tweet was later deleted. However, only 1,500 people showed up to the hastily assembled music festivals, while only 150 people ventured to the gates of Area 51.

• So, what is really going on at Area 51? Apart from the creation of U-2 and A-12 aircraft and an early spy mission, we don’t officially know. However, according to Annie Jacobsen, author of the book Area 51: An Uncensored History of America’s Top Secret Military Base, it’s a whole lot of reverse-engineering – and not just of alien craft. Foreign technology captured on battlefields is often brought back to the facility to be tested and re-created. Jacobsen believes that Area 51 is still the location used by military intelligence to create counterterrorism tactics, weapon systems, and surveillance platforms, all of which are hidden from the public.

• Yet in July of this year, the Pentagon released three videos of UFO-like objects moving quickly through the air. They were accompanied by a report which stated the objects were “off-world vehicles not made of this world.” Since then, the Pentagon has set up a UFO task force in an attempt to discover the nature and origins of these objects, further fueling the fire of UFO-related suspicions surrounding Area 51.

 

Located 134km northwest of Las Vegas is a dirt road leading out from Nevada’s ‘Extraterrestrial Highway’ and down towards Homey Airport, the home of a notorious US military base.

              ‘Storm Area 51’ revelers

What lies within this military base is mostly a mystery to the public. It goes by various names including Paradise Ranch, Red Square, Nevada Test and Training Range, and of course, the one most commonly used in myth and legend, Area 51.

This secret base sits in the middle of the Nevada desert and has become the subject of endless pop culture references and memes, as well as the epicentre of the world’s most famous alien conspiracies.

But just how did this air force facility become linked with extraterrestrial folklore, and are the United States really holding tea parties with alien lifeforms inside this bewitching base?

A Soviet spy station

Commissioned in 1954 by President Eisenhower, Area 51 was created in order to test spy planes far away from the public eye, with the ultimate goal of infiltrating the Soviet Union’s nuclear weapons program.

The area within the Nevada Test and Training Range was already used for nuclear weapon testing back in World War II, and as such, it was the perfect location to ensure the public would keep their distance. What came out of the espionage work done at Area 51 would ultimately be significant in maintaining the United States’ superpower status.

First up was the commissioning of the U-2 spy plane, an aircraft that could fly as high as 70,000 feet in the air (an unfathomable feat at the time), travel across the US without needing to refuel, and carry cameras that could spy on Soviet land below.

       The movie “Independence Day”

From its expeditions, the U-2 plane discovered that the Soviet military was not as advanced as what was claimed by its leaders, leading the United States to believe that they weren’t too far behind their military rivals. However, the plane was shot down in Soviet airspace in 1960. Both the pilot and aircraft were recovered, keeping them out of the hands of the Soviet Union; however, US authorities were forced to admit the purpose of the mission.

This lead to the creation of the Lockheed A-12, an aircraft that could fly across the US in 70 minutes at an altitude of 90,000 feet, photographing objects on the ground that were just one-foot long. With the number of A-12 flights coming in and out of Area 51, reports of unidentifiable flying objects grew in the area. The aircraft’s titanium body and bullet speed resembled nothing seen in the US before.

With the nature of these military aircraft, coupled with the secrecy surrounding these espionage missions, it’s easy to see why conspiracy theories arose around the goings-on inside the military base.

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Gallup Polled Americans About UFOs For the First Time in Decades

 

Article by Anna Merlan                           February 25, 2020                           (vice.com)

• U.S. Social Research for Gallup, commonly known as the “Gallup poll”, is an organization that has been conducting public opinion survey polls on various topics since it was created in 1935. Ever since then, Gallup has asked the public about their beliefs in fringe topics including the paranormal, aliens and UFOs. Just three years after its creation, Gallup found that 70% of the public were aware that Orson Welles’ War of the Worlds broadcast was a radio play, while 30% thought that they were listening to a real alien invasion.

• In 1965, Gallup polled Americans about “flying saucers”.  91% of the people they polled said they’d never seen one.  5% said that they had seen one. And 4% didn’t know what a flying saucer was. In 1996, Gallup asked the American public the same thing. This time, 87% said they had never seen a UFO, 12% said they had seen one, and 1% were oblivious.

• In 2019, Gallup once again asked Americans about UFOs, seeing that so much UFO news had hit the mainstream press with the ‘Tic Tac UFO’ in 2017/18 and ‘Storm Area 51’ in the summer of 2019.  60% of the public believe that these so-called ‘UFO’ sightings can be explained by human activity or natural phenomena. But 33% attribute UFO sightings to alien visitation. “This group is potentially sympathetic to those who want to uncover what the government knows about alien landings, once and for all,” wrote Gallup director Lydia Saad, though she is not a believer herself.

• In a geographic breakdown, the Gallup poll revealed that the percentage of people who believed in alien UFOs was 40% on the West Coast of the US, while 32% of Americans in the East and South believe, and 27% of people in the Midwest thought that aliens were buzzing us. People in the West were also more likely to say they’ve seen a UFO themselves. Saad suggests that, since the West is home for ‘Area 51’, “perhaps there’s more talk and awareness.” Saad also notes that “They have better visibility in some of those Western states than we have out East. It’s hard to see the stars out here in Connecticut.”

• Gallup also surveys Americans’ paranormal beliefs. In 2005, Gallup asked people about ghosts and ESP. Their responses have shown that the American public is receptive to the unknown. “A certain percent of people believe in a lot of things,” says Saad. “People aren’t straitlaced or very literal. There’s quite a lot of openness out there to things that we cannot see.” Over the past thirty years, Gallup has periodically surveyed Americans on the JFK assassination. A majority believe there was more than one shooter. As Saad put it, “the fact [is] that people don’t trust the government to tell the truth. That’s been an ongoing dimension of public opinion.”

 

In 2019, the public opinion polling company Gallup decided to directly ask the American public about their experiences with UFOs again, for one simple reason: semi-credible evidence of their existence was back in the news.

         Lydia Saad

“Between the ‘Storm Area 51’ phenomenon and the New York Times articles about the Navy changing its protocols for pilots reporting unidentified things in the air—there was news of pilots seeing bizarre planes traveling at hyperspeed—maybe we’re at the point where some of this is getting more credence,” Lydia Saad told VICE, recalling what she was thinking at the time.

Saad is the director of U.S. Social Research for Gallup, and she oversees polls about a lot of things that don’t involve aliens. But in 2019, she advocated for asking about them again, reasoning that the amount of UFO news flooding the atmosphere might have changed people’s opinions. (She’s not a believer herself, she said: “I’m boring.”) The company conducted two surveys, in June and August of that year. They found that a majority of Americans—60 percent—think UFO sightings can be explained by human activity or natural phenomena. But a full 33 percent think otherwise, saying they believe some UFO sightings can be attributed to alien visitation.

“This group is potentially sympathetic to those who want to uncover what the government knows about alien landings, once and for all,” Saad wrote at the time.

Those numbers were particularly high in the West, where 40 percent of residents believed some UFOs can be attributed to aliens, compared to 32 percent of residents in the East and South, and 27 percent in the Midwest. People in the West were also slightly more likely—20 percent—to say they’d seen UFO themselves, versus 12 percent in the East and 15-16 percent elsewhere.

Saad hesitates to say precisely why that regional difference exists, but she does have some theories. “The home of Area 51 conspiracy is the West, so perhaps there’s more talk and awareness,” she said. She also proposed another theory, laughing: “They have better visibility in some of those Western states than we have out East. It’s hard to see the stars out here in Connecticut.”

“I wouldn’t want to say conclusively,” she added.

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Top UFO Stories in 2019

Listen to “E202 Top UFO Stories in 2019” on Spreaker.

Article by Chris Ciaccia, James Rogers                       December 18, 2019                           (foxnews.com)

• 2019 was a big year for UFO coverage, ranging from the U.S. Navy acknowledging for the first time that leaked videos were real to a wave of people attempting to “Storm Area 51.” Public interest in UFOs has never been higher. Here is some of what we saw.

• FIRST QUARTER – In January, declassified DIA documents of ‘38 research titles’, procured through a FOIA request, revealed that the Department of Defense’s ‘Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program’ had funded projects that investigated UFOs, wormholes, alternate dimensions and a host of other subjects. (see ExoNews article) A Pentagon spokesman said the UFO program ended in 2012, though The New York Times says that the DoD still investigates UFOs.

• SECOND QUARTER – The U.S. Navy announced it was drafting new guidelines to allow pilots and other personnel to report encounters with “unidentified aircraft.” (see ExoNews article) Said a Navy spokesperson, “[T]he Navy and the [U.S. Air Force] takes these reports very seriously and investigates each and every report.” The Navy also said it will take a more proactive approach in briefing lawmakers. And the Pentagon admitted that it was still investigating UFOs as part of the AATIP.

• Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Intelligence, Christopher Mellon, told Fox & Friends in May the Navy has a right to be concerned about the unexplained sightings. “We know that UFOs exist. This is no longer an issue,” said Mellon. “The issue is why are they here? Where are they coming from and what is the technology behind these devices that we are observing?” (see ExoNews article)

• According to Mellon, the objects seen by Navy pilots were doing things that aren’t possible in this physical realm. While military aircraft are sustainable for about an hour in the air, these objects would be flying around all day long. “Pilots observing these craft are absolutely mystified…” said Mellon.

• In June, former Senator Harry Reid urged lawmakers to hold public hearings into what the military knows. “They would be surprised how the American public would accept it,” Reid said in a radio interview. “People from their individual states would accept it.” (see ExoNews article)

• THIRD QUARTER – More than 2 million people signed up on Facebook pledging to “Storm Area 51” in Nevada. But on September 20th, only about 100 “alien-chasers” converged on the back gate of the secret government site. “We figure Mars needs women, so we’re here if they want to beam us up,” one woman told Fox News.

• FOURTH QUARTER – A September Gallup poll revealed that more Americans think that the government knows more about UFOs than it is letting on. ‘To the Stars Academy of Arts & Sciences’, co-founded by former Blink-182 singer Tom DeLonge, revealed in September that it had obtained “exotic material samples from UFOs”. In October, To the Stars Academy signed a deal with the U.S. Army to study these exotic materials. (see ExoNews articles here and here)

• In September, the U.S. Navy acknowledged that the three UFO videos taken by Navy jets, obtained by ‘To the Stars Academy’, and published by The New York Times, known as “FLIR1” (taken on Nov. 14, 2004); “Gimbal” (taken on Jan. 21, 2015); and “GoFast” (also taken on Jan. 21, 2015) are of authentic “unidentified” objects. It was reported in November that two “unknown individuals” told several Naval officers who witnessed the 2004 Nimitz UFO incident, to delete the evidence. (see ExoArticles here and here)

 

2019 was a big year for UFO coverage, ranging from the U.S. Navy acknowledging for the first time that leaked videos were real to former and current politicians weighing in on what the military knows, and a wave of people attempting to “storm Area 51.”

No one can say for certain whether life exists outside of this planet, but the public’s interest levels in the subject have likely never been higher.

FIRST QUARTER

January saw the release of newly declassified documents from the Pentagon that revealed the Department of Defense funded projects that investigated UFOs, wormholes, alternate dimensions and a host of other subjects that are often the topics of conspiracy theorists.

The Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) released 38 research titles on Jan. 18, following a Freedom of Information Act request from Steven Aftergood, director of the Federation of American Scientists’ Project on Government Secrecy. The research was funded by the Department of Defense under its Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP).

The existence of AATIP was initially described by The New York Times and Politico in 2017. It was subsequently reported by Fox News and a number of other news outlets that the Pentagon had secretly set up a program to investigate UFOs at the request of former Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev.

A Pentagon spokesman said the UFO program ended in 2012, though The New York Times said the Defense Department still investigates potential episodes of unidentified flying objects.

SECOND QUARTER

Several months later, the U.S. Navy announced it was drafting new guidelines for pilots and other employees to report encounters with “unidentified aircraft.”

“There have been a number of reports of unauthorized and/or unidentified aircraft entering various military-controlled ranges and designated air space in recent years,” the Navy said in an April statement to Politico, which first reported the move.

“For safety and security concerns, the Navy and the [U.S. Air Force] takes these reports very seriously and investigates each and every report.”
“As part of this effort,” it told Politico, “the Navy is updating and formalizing the process by which reports of any such suspected incursions can be made to the cognizant authorities. A new message to the fleet that will detail the steps for reporting is in draft.”

The Navy also said it’s taking a more proactive approach in briefing lawmakers, including several senators who were briefed in June.
One month later, the Pentagon admitted that it was still investigating UFOs as part of the AATIP.

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Hundreds of UFO Enthusiasts Sign Up to Storm Top-Secret American Base Dubbed ‘Australia’s Area 51’

 

Article by Charlie Coe                           November 26, 2019                            (dailymail.co.uk)

• Pine Gap (seen above) is an American military intelligence base near Alice Springs, Australia. The mysterious satellite surveillance base has been dubbed the ‘Australian Area 51’. Now, a Facebook event reminiscent of last summer’s “Storm Area 51” in Nevada, several hundred people have signed up to storm the top-secret base in the middle of the Australian outback.

• The Facebook administrator writes: ‘Don’t worry my fellow Australians, you don’t need to travel to Nevada because we have our own Area 51! It’s the same as in America, the government is hiding shit from us. We need to rescue the aliens! Who’s with me? I say fuck the government and let’s storm that shit. They can’t arrest all of us.’

• Northern Territory agricultural official Gerry Wood warned that the base is a ‘secured site’, and people can get in trouble for storming it. Wood says that the alien-hunters would be disappointed to find there is no extraterrestrial life at Pine Gap. “I don’t think the Americans are worried about (people) finding aliens,” said Wood. “I think they’d be more worried about China and the Middle East.” “Besides, Alice Spring would be an uncomfortable place for aliens…it’s too hot.”

• More than two million people said on Facebook that they were ‘going’ to the event in the Nevada desert on September 20, and on the day just 75 people turned up at the facility.

 

UFO enthusiasts have signed up in their hundreds to storm a top-secret American base in the middle of the Australian outback.

Two Facebook events promising to invade the mysterious satellite surveillance base dubbed the ‘Australian Area 51’ have been set up – and so far more than 300 people are down as ‘going’.

Pine Gap, near Alice Springs, is used by the USA to gather military information and perform intelligence tasks.

One of the events entitled ‘Storm Pine Gap AKA Australian Area 51’ tells followers they had the opportunity to perform their own version of America’s viral craze from two months ago.

‘Don’t worry my fellow Australians, you don’t need to travel to Nevada because we have our own Area 51!’ the event administrator wrote.

‘It’s the same as in America, the government is hiding s**t from us.

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Area 51 Festival Wraps Up in Nevada; Earthlings Head Home

Article by Associated Press                   September 22, 2019                    (latimes.com)

• Although more than 2 million Facebook users clicked their interest, and local officials anticipated a crowd of at least 30,000, only about 3,000 people made the trip to the small desert city Rachel, Nevada to “Storm Area 51”. Authorities said no more than 1,000 people visited Area 51 gates near Rachel on Thursday and Friday. No one was arrested there.

• Visitors hailed from France, Russia, Germany, Peru, Sweden, Australia and many U.S. states. A few hundred more camped and attended one night of an abbreviated music festival about 40 miles away in Hiko, Nevada. “It seems like a lot of good people chilling and having a good time,” observed Dave Wells, a 56-year-old stonemason from Cincinnati wearing a Day-Glo green festival T-shirt and taking in the scene Saturday in Rachel.

• Connie West, proprietor of the Little A’Le’Inn at the epicenter of the Alienstock event, said “[W]e found peace and friendship” as campers packed up to leave and volunteers began cleaning up. West wants to do it again next year. “As well as it turned out? Why the heck not?” she said. At a festival clinic in Rachel, one man was treated for dehydration, and one woman was treated for a drug-related issue.

• The “Area 51 Basecamp” at the Alien Research Center souvenir shop in Hiko, didn’t fare as well. Organizers pulled the plug Saturday on a second concert after drawing only about 500 ticket-buyers for a Friday show. Preparations had been made for up to 5,000.

• Sheriff Kerry Lee said he watched about 20 people feign a rush before dawn Saturday toward a base gate outside Rachel, before stopping short. In Lincoln County, six people were arrested for misdemeanors, mostly trespassing beneath the floodlights and cameras of two military base gates and the watchful eyes of sheriff’s deputies.

• Officials had feared unruly crowds would overwhelm water, electricity, food, fuel, internet and telephone service in a county with just 5,200 people covering an area the size of Massachusetts. “I’m going to call it a success from our end. It’s because we got out in front of it,” said Varlin Higbee, a Lincoln County commissioner who signed an emergency declaration to allocate $250,000 in emergency funds. Higbee said they might sue to recoup costs.

• Matty Roberts, a 20-year-old from Bakersfield, Calif., made the Facebook post to Storm Area 51 as a hoax, then promoted it, then broke away from the event just weeks before. Roberts hosted a Thursday evening event at an outdoor venue in downtown Las Vegas, also using the “Alienstock” name. He said he wants to trademark the name and take it on tour to reach people who couldn’t travel to Nevada. “That’s pretty much the plan for me,” Roberts said. “It’s been a ton of fun.”

 

HIKO, Nev. — The festivals are over and Earthlings from around the globe headed home Sunday after a weekend camping and partying in the dusty Nevada desert and trekking to remote gates of Area 51, a formerly top-secret U.S. military base long the focus of UFO and space alien lore.

They left in peace, officials and the host of a free “Alienstock” festival said Sunday.

Visitors hailed from France, Russia, Germany, Peru, Sweden, Australia and many U.S. states — many toting cameras — in answer to an internet post in June suggesting that if enough people rushed a military base to “see them aliens” at 3 a.m. Sept. 20, authorities couldn’t stop everyone.

More than 2 million Facebook users clicked their interest, but in the end only a few thousand made the trip to the tiny Nevada desert city of Rachel, population about 50, more than two hours north of Las Vegas by car.

Campers and festival-goers in Rachel peaked at about 3,000 on Friday, said Eric Holt, the Lincoln County official who headed planning for a feared influx of at least 30,000.

A few hundred more camped and attended one night of an abbreviated festival about 40 miles away in Hiko, population 120.

“It seems like a lot of good people chilling and having a good time,” observed Dave Wells, a 56-year-old stonemason and festivals-seeker from Cincinnati wearing a Day-Glo green festival T-shirt and taking in the scene Saturday in Rachel.

Did anyone find actual extraterrestrials or UFOs? (As if anyone could really tell among the masked and costumed beings posing for photos and cavorting in the desert.)

“We didn’t,” said Little A’Le’Inn owner-turned-“Alienstock” festival host Connie West, proprietor of the 10-room motel and cafe that became the center of the extraterrestrial-seeking universe.

“But we found peace. And friendship,” she said Sunday as campers packed up to leave and volunteers began cleaning up.

4:45 minute video of people interviewed at Storm Area 51 event (Fox News YouTube)


10:16 minute video of the Storm Area 51 event (‘Explore With Us’ YouTube)

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You Can Literally Drink the ‘Aliens Are Real’ Kool-Aid With New Area 51 Kool-Aid

Article by Kat Thompson                  September 19, 2019                 (thrillist.com)

• Kool-Aid has launched an alien-themed drink of Intergalactic Green Kool-Aid and they’re giving away the neon green powder canisters via registeration on Twitter for a chance to win some. Go to #UFOYeah and #promo staring September 19th. Intergalactic Green allegedly tastes like sour green apple.

• The launch follows a summer of increasingly erratic alien conspiracies, including a Facebook event created to “storm Area 51” that resulted in memes and spin-off alien products, like this Kool-Aid.

Have you ever had a thirst for something when you’re up at 3am watching UFO conspiracy videos, but you don’t exactly know what it is you need? Is it clarity? Is it answers? Or could it perhaps be… Intergalactic Green Kool-Aid?

Well, if for some reason it’s the latter, you’re in luck. Kool-Aid is launching an alien-themed drink for all those parched by the lack of truth out there. The company is giving out the the neon green powder canisters are being given away on September 19 to celebrate the launch of this extraterrestrial beverage; all Area 51 truthers have to do is head to Twitter and use #UFOYeah and #promo for a chance to win a special package of the sugary beverage.

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The Storm Area 51 Festival Has Been Canceled to Avoid Creating “Fyrefest 2.0”

Article by Reid McCarter                     September 11, 2019                    (news.avclub.com)

• Alienstock is no more. The event’s website states: “Due to the lack of infrastructure, poor planning, risk management, and blatant disregard for the safety of the expected 10,000+ AlienStock attendees, we decided to pull the plug on the festival.”

• The cancellation is ostensibly due to a permit holder failing to provide the appropriate planning documentation. The organizers didn’t want the event to turn into a “humanitarian disaster” like the Fyre Festival (the May 2017 Bahamas festival that left visitors stranded and led to a fraud conviction for the organizer).

• The organizers are urging people to an alternate gathering. “[AlienStock] can only promise absolute safety and peace, and we need to move the Festival to guarantee that.” Accordingly, the whole thing’s been moved to a September 19th party at the Downtown Las Vegas Events Center.

• The world was set to be changed forevermore from September 19 to 22 when Matty Roberts created the “Storm Area 51, They Can’t Stop Us All” Facebook event, which morphed into a music festival in Rachel, Nevada called AlienStock. Critics of the event say that the whole thing seemed like a complete ‘shitshow’ from the beginning, with hazy planning for a gathering of thousands of attendees in the tiny desert town.

 

The forces responsible for hiding aliens from us have triumphed once again. We thought they were finally on the ropes after internet mavericks announced a plan to storm Area 51, gathering huge masses of truth-seekers to Naruto-run past government bullets directly into an exciting new era of human/extraterrestrial coexistence. We thought it would work, even as alien whistleblower Bob Lazar (clearly compromised by the Men In Black) called the public invasion “not the way to go about trying to get information.” But now, despite overcoming such adversity and showing such ingenuity, the bastards have defeated the public for a final time.

Their tool? A permit holder whose interference in the planning process has caused the event organizers to withdraw in fear of causing, in their own words, “Fyre Fest 2.0.”

The world was set to be changed forevermore from September 19 to 22 when Matty Roberts, creator of the “Storm Area 51, They Can’t Stop Us All” Facebook event, decided to organize his ramshackle army into a festival held at Rachel, Nevada called, obviously, AlienStock. As Vice’s MJ Banias reported a few weeks ago, the whole thing seemed like a complete shitshow with hazy planning meant to accommodate thousands of attendees staying outside of a tiny desert town.

Now, with the highest echelons of the American government seizing on this instability, AlienStock has been canceled outright. The event’s website states: “Due to the lack of infrastructure, poor planning, risk management, and blatant disregard for the safety of the expected 10,000+ AlienStock attendees, we decided to pull the plug on the festival.”

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‘Storm Area 51’ Creator Pulls Out of His Own Event, Calling it Fyre Festival 2.0

Article by Hannah Knowles                    September 10, 2019                     (washingtonpost.com)

• When “Storm Area 51 – They Can’t Stop All of Us” post got over 2 million Facebook responses, the original organizer, 21 year-old Matty Roberts (pictured above), turned it into a music festival in neighboring Lincoln County, Nevada called “Alienstock” for September 20-22nd. Then Frank DiMaggio stepped up to plan a competing music festival in nearby Nye County called “Peacestock 51”.

• But Nye County denied a permit for the Peacestock 51 event. So DiMaggio partnered with Roberts to make Alienstock, centered in Rachel, Nevada, a success. Although the county asked for state emergency support to accommodate the potentially hundreds of thousands of people, the organizers assured the public that this would not be another Fyre Festival (the May 2017 Bahamas festival that left visitors stranded and led to a fraud conviction for the organizer).

• When DiMaggio arrived in Rachel to meet with the third organizing partner, Connie West, the owner of the ‘Little A’Le’Inn’ in Rachel, he quickly deemed the event ‘beyond help’. DiMaggio says that West, who was handling most of the logistics for the event, became increasingly evasive about her preparations. West, in turn, accused DiMaggio and Roberts of betraying her after she’s confirmed the musical performers, paid for security and medical services, and sold 2,400 campsites. Other preparations include 130 portable toilets and additional police officers to support more than 250 first responders from state and local government.

• But DiMaggio and Roberts say they have seen no proof of any preparations made by West. Says Roberts, “There’s no safety or security that can really be promised.” Calling the event a potential “humanitarian disaster,” Roberts has pulled his name and support from the event.

• West still plans to go ahead with the event in Rachel. In a tearful interview with Action 13 News, West said Alienstock is still on. But the townspeople in Rachel are not surprised at the falling out. They have been dubious about the Storm Area 51 phenomenon from the start. The town’s website declares, in red lettering, the outcome was “just as we had predicted.”

• Roberts believes that anyone going to Rachel will find a “pretty sad affair with no bands, very little infrastructure and a lot of unhappy campers.” But if people do want to come to Nevada for a gathering, Roberts suggests that they go to Las Vegas for an “Area 51 Celebration” that is scheduled at a downtown events center for September 19th. Roberts himself may even attend the Las Vegas affair.

 

When the college student behind the online sensation “Storm Area 51” announced plans for an alien festival out in the Nevada desert, organizers tried to fend off worries that thousands of people would overwhelm the resources of a tiny town without a store or gas station.

Or, as they put it to The Washington Post: This is not Fyre Festival 2.0.

But that was before a public falling-out between organizers made the weird story of the Area 51 craze even weirder, months after the meteoric rise of a joke Facebook event that got more than 2 million to say they’d raid a secretive Air Force base for rumored extraterrestrials. Dueling accusations of dishonesty and sabotage have derailed “Alienstock” — a Woodstock for alien watchers — which creator Matty Roberts promoted as alternative programming to any plans to storm the base on Sept. 20 despite officials’ warnings.

                           Connie West

With just over a week to go until the event, Roberts and the host town’s website are both comparing Alienstock to the Fyre Festival, which was supposed to be held in April and May of 2017 in the Bahamas but became synonymous with “epic failure” and led to a fraud conviction. Roberts has pulled his name and support from the three-day gathering in Rachel, Nev., but the owner of a motel in the town who had signed up as a partner plans to go ahead.

“There’s no safety or security that can really be promised,” Roberts told The Post on Tuesday, calling the event a potential “humanitarian disaster.” “I didn’t feel comfortable with inviting even my friends and family out to this event, let alone these thousands of strangers.”

For Roberts, it all fell apart unexpectedly. But the town of Rachel — where residents were reportedly less than pleased with the “Storm Area 51” media swarm — has expressed less surprise.

The outcome was “just as we had predicted,” the town’s website declares in red lettering. Officials in two counties prepared earlier to declare emergencies, unsure how many people might descend on rural Nevada.

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Festivals Planned for Nevada Towns Near Area 51 Get the Final Local OK

Article by Ken Ritter                      September 4, 2019                        (time.com)

• People in the small rural areas of Lincoln County and neighboring Nye County in Nevada are bracing for hundreds of thousands of visitor to the “Alienstock” music festival September 20-22 near Area 51. Both Lincoln and Nye counties have prepared emergency declarations to seek state help if needed. The impromptu festival began with the Facebook posting to ‘Storm Area 51’ to which over 2 million people responded.

• Lincoln County commissioners adopted a plan for a 5,000 person music festival in the town of Hiko, and 10,000 people in the town of Rachel. But the possibility of unmanageable crowds looms large. Nye County Commissioners denied any festival permits for what organizers were calling “Peacestock 51”.

• Despite the restrictions imposed by county commissioners, event organizers urged the counties and the state of Nevada to ensure that there will be enough food, water and entertainment on hand to help people survive in the desert, three-hours drive north from Las Vegas. Most concede that cellphone service will be overwhelmed.

• George Harris plans to repurpose his Alien Research Center gift shop into a music venue off of the road dubbed the ‘Extraterrestrial Highway’. Said Harris, “We’ll give people something to do so they don’t run amok.” Portable toilets, water, food, trash bins and security staff will be trucked in.

• Connie West, the owner of the Little A’le’Inn motel in Rachel, said she plans to collect parking fees to pay for security and medical personnel, and turn away people who bring guns or drugs. West told reporters outside Lincoln County Courthouse, “I’m elated and shaking inside”.

• The event organizers and business owners in the Nevada counties agree that they don’t want people to trespass on Area 51. People will be arrested if they approach Area 51’s gates. Lincoln County Sheriff Kerry Lee said that more than 150 law enforcement officers would be on hand during the events. Nevada Governor Steve Sisolak promised that Nevada Guard units would be available for logistical help.

• Commissioner Keith Pearson remarked, “It could be ugly or it could be decent.” Commissioner Bevan Lister concluded, “The biggest thing is, people just have to be respectful and everyone will have a good time.”

 

PIOCHE, Nev. (AP) — A rural Nevada county approved strict guidelines Tuesday for a pair of festivals later this month in a desolate desert area well-known by UFO and alien hunters.

Lincoln County commissioners took the action amid concern about the possibility of unmanageable crowds attracted by an internet hoax dubbed “Storm Area 51” involving the nearby military installation that has been the focus of UFO conspiracy theories.

Matty Roberts, Facebook originator of “Storm Area 51”

The plan adopted by the commission involves a music festival for 5,000 people in tiny Hiko, and projections by Connie West, owner of the Little A’le’Inn motel in Rachel for as many as 10,000 people camping on her property for another event in the town closest to Area 51.

Event organizers said there needs to be food, water and entertainment on hand to help people survive in the desert that’s a nearly three-hour drive from Las Vegas. Most conceded that cellphone service could be overwhelmed.

“We’ll give people something to do so they don’t run amok,” said George Harris, who plans to repurpose his Alien Research Center gift shop into a music venue off a road dubbed Extraterrestrial Highway.

West said she has 700 camping reservations so far, and will allow eight people per campsite. She also plans to collect parking fees to pay for security and medical personnel, and turn away people who bring guns or drugs to her event dubbed “Alienstock.”

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UFOs in Santa Barbara ― Are We Part of the Military’s ‘Soft Disclosure’ Strategy?


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” on Spreaker.
Article by Gwen Rigby                   August 20, 2019                    (independent.com)

• This writer, Gwen Rigby, began to research the UFO phenomenon after she visited Roswell, New Mexico and attended a UFO Congress in Phoenix where she found “normal people who had extraordinary things happen to them”. She became convinced that there was truth out there, and she became less of a skeptic and more of a believer.

• Rigby has noticed that UFOs have been in the news a lot lately. But she suspects that this is due to a “soft disclosure” narrative that the military is pursuing, to reveal the extraterrestrial presence in drips and not a flood of information that might cause a panic. The Navy has released video of a “Tic Tac” UFO seen by Navy pilots, and eased its guidelines for Navy personnel to report UFOs. Still, in response to this measured disclosure, two million people signed up to Storm Area 51 on September 20th.

• Santa Barbara County, just north of Los Angeles, California, is no stranger to UFO or USO sightings. In February 1942, it witnessed “the Battle of LA” when military artillery shot 1,440 rounds of anti-aircraft shells at an anomalous UFO craft in the sky.

• While multiple UFO sightings have been reported since the atomic bomb was developed in the 1940’s, there have been no reports of actual attacks or threats to humanity. In fact, it appears that extraterrestrials have worked to stop us from nuclear self-annihilation. In 1967, Lieutenant Robert Salas reported that a hovering UFO disabled 10 missile silos under Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana. In 1964, a test missile was destroyed shortly after launch at Vandenberg Air Force Base. And in 1982, Lieutenant Robert Jacobs revealed a film clip he took of a UFO shooting beams at a dummy missile. (see 18 second video below) Jacobs later stated that “they” were telling us “to stop messing with nuclear weapons.”

• Santa Barbara has seen hundreds of “USOs”, or “unidentified submersible objects” off of the Pacific coast. It is alleged that an undersea alien base has existed there for decades. Preston Dennett, author of the books UFOs Over California and Undersea UFO Base, claims that in the 1970’s families would head to the Point Dume beach at night to watch the multicolored show for entertainment.

• MUFON investigator, Richard Browman, tells the story of a man in Point Mugu, near Los Angeles, receiving a telepathic message to “go outside and look.” When he did, he and his family reportedly saw five or six red orbs come down the coast and hover over the naval base. The orbs danced around and then sped off. The fellow later learned that the base had gone on alert and scrambled its jets.

• Investigations have shifted from focusing on the nuts and bolts of spaceships to studying what they are and why they arrived. More contactees are speaking out. Former soldiers have come forward with fantastic stories of secret space programs and direct contact with aliens. Rumors of pyramids, ancient civilizations, and even giant motherships under two miles of ice may soon be verified as the Antarctic ice continues to melt, according to Dr. Michael Salla in his book Antarctica’s Hidden History.

• People can learn of all the UFO activity on our planet by going to UFO conferences or reading some of the many books on the subject. California conferences include ‘Dimensions of Disclosure’ organized by Corey Goode in Ventura, California in August 2019; ‘Portal to Ascension’ in Irvine in October; ‘Conscious Life Expo’ in Los Angeles in February 2020; ‘Contact in the Desert’ in Palm Springs in early June 2020; and ‘UFO Con’ in Los Angeles in mid-June.

 

UFOs have been in the news a lot lately, and not because of what is happening in the sky, but because of what is happening on Earth. It has been called a “soft disclosure,” meaning the military is leaking bits of information on UFOs to the public rather than making a major announcement and causing a panic.

This April, the U.S. Navy acknowledged guidelines for how their pilots can report encounters with anomalous ships without fear of reprisal. This comes after a New York Times article about numerous sightings of Tic Tac–shaped UFOs around the USS Nimitz south of San Diego. According to a spokesman for naval operations, there has been an overall “uptick of interaction with aerial phenomenon” since 2014. There have been less controlled responses, too. Over two million people have signed up on Facebook to storm Area 51 on September 20 to “see them aliens.”

Santa Barbara County is no stranger to sightings and played a part in the famous Battle of Los Angeles. Two days after the Japanese shelled the Ellwood Pier near Goleta in 1942, and just a few months after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, a giant ship appeared over Los Angeles. According to UFO researcher David Marler in his book Triangular Ships, it was first spotted over Santa Maria before heading south on an inland path. Already jittery, and thinking it was the Japanese, the U.S. military fired 1,440 anti-aircraft shells on the mysterious ship. The Japanese denied having any planes over the U.S. The event has never been fully explained, though a referral to weather balloons was made.

Multiple UFOs sightings have been reported since the atomic bomb was developed in the 1940s. Yet there have been no reports of actual attacks or threats to wipe out our civilization. In fact, according to many who have studied UFOs, extraterrestrials have worked to stop us from self-annihilation. They point to three alleged incidents of UFOs shutting down our nuclear missile bases. In 1967, Lieutenant Robert Salas, a commanding officer at Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana, reported that a hovering UFO disabled 10 missile silos on his watch. He said he saw it as an anti-nuclear war message.

A similar incident occurred at Vandenberg Air Force Base in 1964, when a test missile was destroyed shortly after launch. Lieutenant Robert Jacobs came forward in 1982 to describe a film he took of a space object approach the missile and shoot a plasma-type beam at the dummy warhead from four different angles. The warhead then fell off into the ocean. After he submitted the film to his superior officers, one called him in and asked if he and his “boys were screwing around up there.” The officer ordered Jacobs to say nothing of the film or the incident. Jacobs later spoke out because he felt unjustly treated and that “they” were telling us “to stop messing with nuclear weapons.”

Hundreds of unidentified submersible objects (USOs) have reportedly emerged from the waters between Santa Barbara and Santa Monica, and it is alleged that an undersea alien base has existed there for decades. Preston Dennett, author of the books UFOs Over California and Undersea UFO Base, has documented more than 50 water sightings, claiming that in the 1970s families would head to the Point Dume beach at night to watch the multicolored show for entertainment.

18 second video of a UFO shooting beams at missile (A N K H YouTube)


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‘Storm Area 51’ Event Pushes Rural Nevada County to Declare Emergency

Article by Ed Komenda                    August 19, 2019                     (rgj.com)

• In June, California resident Matty Roberts created the Facebook event called “Storm Area 51, They Can’t Stop All of Us”. Area 51 is a classified military facility set inside a test and training range roughly the size of Connecticut. Intrigue surrounding the base has fueled conspiracy theories and local lore about what exactly goes on there. The tongue-in-cheek event scheduled for September 20th has generated over two million accepted invitations.

• The gathering is set to take place in the town of Rachel, the self-proclaimed “UFO Capital of the World”, in Lincoln County. But Lincoln County leaders are apprehensive about an unknown number of people coming from unknown corners of the country to the small rural Nevada town. There’s a chance more people will show up than local authorities can handle.

• On August 19th, Lincoln County Commissioners voted unanimously for an emergency declaration ahead of the “Storm Area 51” invasion. Commissioner Kevin Phillips said, “We’re just trying to do the best we can to prepare for something we know not of. We have no pickin’ idea what we’re going to face – if anything.” The emergency declaration will allow the state of Nevada to supply resources if the town is overwhelmed.

• Air Force spokeswoman Laura McAndrews said in a statement to USA TODAY that military officials were aware of the event that aims to uncover conspiratorial secrets of the military installation. McAndrews warns that, “Any attempt to illegally access military installations or military training areas is dangerous.”

 

LAS VEGAS – Commissioners in Nevada’s rural Lincoln County have voted to pre-sign an emergency declaration ahead of the “Storm Area 51” raid event that’s so far drawn more than 2 million RSVPs on Facebook.

On Monday, the county board unanimously voted, 4-0, to approve the declaration in preparation for a mysterious affair that could draw thousands of curious visitors to the desert.

“We passed this with the caveat that this may or may not happen,” said District D Commissioner Kevin Phillips. “We’re just trying to do the best we can to prepare for something we know not of. We have no pickin’ idea what we’re going to face – if anything.”

California resident Matty Roberts created the event – called “Storm Area 51, They Can’t Stop All of Us” – in June after listening to an episode of the Joe Rogan Experience podcast. The tongue-in-cheek event scheduled for Sept. 20 quickly generated millions of accepted invitations.

Lincoln County is home to the town of Rachel, the self-proclaimed “UFO Capital of the World,” located on State Route 375 – dubbed in 1996 the “Extraterrestrial Highway.”

The actual Area 51 site is a classified military facility set inside a test and training range roughly the size of Connecticut.Intrigue surrounding the impenetrable desert compound for decades has fueled conspiracy theories and local lore about what exactly goes on there.

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He Got 2 Million People to Say They’d Storm Area 51. Now He’s Planning an Alien Festival.

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Article by Hannah Knowles                  August 12, 2019                      (washingtonpost.com)

• Mathew Roberts sounded a call to “Storm Area 51” in Nevada, as a joke. Then 2 million people signed on to the Facebook event, the Air Force warned people not to raid a military base, and things got out of hand. So now, he and Arkansas college student Brock Daily are turning the entire September 20th event into a three-day festival called “Alien Stock”.

• Alien Stock is expected to attract anywhere from 5,000 to 30,000 people to the small town of Rachel 65 miles east of Area 51, and a couple of hours drive north from Las Vegas on the Extraterrestrial Highway. The festival promises surprise performances, art installations and camping. It is also expected to overwhelm a tiny town already overrun by media attention.

• Connie West, co-owner of the ‘Little A’Le’Inn’ in Rachel says, “Of course it’s scary… But I’m excited… How can I not be?” Rachel has long embraced the rumors of hidden aliens and their spacecraft. An anonymous business owner in Rachel wasn’t as excited. “We live in a quiet little place because we like it quiet,” she said. A notice on the town’s website warns festival-goers: “There is no gas and no store. … We expect cell service and the Internet to be offline… Credit card [processing] will not work, so bring enough cash.”

• Daily and Roberts are working to make sure that people who show up will have access to basics such as water, bathrooms and space. Daily notes that Alien Stock is not looking to make a profit. It isn’t charging entrance fees, although attendees will have to rent a parking spot or campsite. They are taking donations however.

• Alien Stock bills itself as “a meeting place for all the believers” — or at least those intrigued by the possibility of extraterrestrial life. Most details on the entertainment have yet to be released. Roberts told a California news station that he wants the event to be “positive, enjoyable, safe and profitable for the rural area of Nevada.

 

The call to raid an Air Force base for aliens was a joke, drawing on decades of conspiracy theories.
Then 2 million people signed on to the Facebook event.

Authorities warned against any attempt to enter the base. And now, unless plans go awry, hordes of strangers will, indeed, gather in the Nevada desert next month near a secretive government facility called Area 51.

The man who created the Internet sensation, Storm Area 51 — They Can’t Stop All of Us, is planning a real-life festival called Alien Stock near the remote base within the Nevada Test and Training Range, a couple hours’ drive northwest of Las Vegas. The three-day festival set to start Sept. 20, a celebration of aliens that promises surprise performances, art installations and camping, is expected to pack a tiny town already overrun by media attention and a spike in extraterrestrial enthusiasm.

With just over a month left to plan and some residents reportedly less than thrilled about the attention, the organizers are focused on the logistics of bringing thousands to a town of 54 people, as counted in the last Census. They’re fending off suggestions they could be planning the next Fyre Festival, the 2017 event that fell apart spectacularly and led to fraud charges.

And the Internet frenzy over Storm Area 51 has thrust Rachel, Nev., into a new limelight and tested residents’ patience.
“Of course it’s scary,” said Connie West, whose alien-themed inn declares on its website that it is “BOOKED SOLID FOR ALIEN-STOCK.” “But I’m excited,” she told The Washington Post. “How can I not be?”

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Communities Near Area 51 Brace for Influx of UFO Tourists

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Article by Anita Hassan                        July 27, 2019                        (nbcnews.com)

• A Facebook event entitled “Storm Area 51, They Can’t Stop All of Us” has created an internet frenzy. To date, almost 2 million people have RSVP’d for the September 20th gathering. The event’s organizer, Matty Roberts, claims it was a hoax. The Air Force has warned against anyone breaking into the property at the Nevada Test and Training Range, Nellis Air Force Base, commonly known as Area 51.

• Vern Holaday, 59, owns the Alamo Inn in Alamo, Nevada, north of Las Vegas. Holaday recalls that in the fall of 2009, his hotel hosted an annual UFO conference, and the secretive goings on at Area 51- about 35 miles to the west of Alamo – inevitably came up. A man from Ohio suggested that they storm Area 51 on motorcycles to outrun the military guards. Nothing ever came of it.

• Tourism from extraterrestrial enthusiasts began to boom in 1989 when an Area 51 engineer by the name of Bob Lazar told a Las Vegas television station that he’d worked on extraterrestrial aircraft at the facility. Since then, business owners and residents have welcomed tourists hoping to get a peek at the military facility or spot a UFO in the sky.

• When Holaday heard about the recent Facebook event, “All I thought was, ‘Here we go again.” Holaday has only two rooms still available for the event. Other local motel and campground owners are receiving scores of calls every day. Many are excited for the potential business. Some, though, are concerned about the lack of infrastructure to accommodate the potential crowds.

• “This is the most overwhelmed I’ve ever felt in my entire life,” said Connie West, co-owner of the motel, bar and restaurant called Little A’Le’Inn, located in a small town called Rachel on State Route 375, named the “Extraterrestrial Highway”, about 50 miles northwest from Alamo. She has been inundated with calls about everything from room bookings to bands that want to play on her property during the event. Like Holaday, she’s heard the conspiracy theorists’ talk of invading Area 51 for years, but nothing of this magnitude. “It’s a frenzy,” she said.

• The Little A’Le’Inn being the only bar within 100 miles, Connie West is stocking up on food and alcohol, as well as t-shirts, mugs and other novelty items for the gift shop. West is also in the process of clearing more land to make room for campers. Says West, “… conspiracy theorists, UFO believers and astronomy buffs… All are welcome.”

• But West is concerned about people getting hurt or arrested trying to make their way to Area 51. Some have speculated that local law enforcement will shut down roads leading to the military facility to prevent anyone from getting close. Lincoln County Sheriff Kerry Lee said he could not discuss the details, but that the agency was prepared. Nellis Air Force Base said in a statement that “any attempt to illegally access the area is highly discouraged.”

• Misty Ingram, who works at the Alien Research Center novelty shop about 40 miles south of Rachel, said she hasn’t been able to keep t-shirts on the rack in the last few weeks. The best-selling items are the black T-shirts with red and white lettering that read: “Area 51, Groom Lake Research Facility S-4, WARNING, restricted area, use of deadly force authorized.” Ingram says, “I think it’s ridiculous that anyone thinks they are going to get into Area 51.” Ingram believes the event will morph into more of a makeshift festival than a raid.

• One night a while back, Holaday and some UFO-seeking guests drove down the Extraterrestrial Highway into Tikaboo Valley to a black mailbox in a dusty lot on the side of the road. Holaday said the mailbox belonged to a local rancher, but somehow over the years many came to believe it was a spot where aliens communicated with humans. Although the mailbox has been replaced since then, on a recent visit it was still stuffed with hand-scrawled notes, including one that read, “Dear Aliens, please take Donald Trump.”

 

ALAMO, Nev. — The first time Vern Holaday heard people talk about trying to storm Area 51, he was sitting around a campfire with about a dozen UFO enthusiasts outside the motel he owns in Alamo.

It was the fall of 2009, and the 15-room Alamo Inn was hosting an annual UFO conference. As it usually did, the conversation turned from alien life forms to conspiracy theories about Area 51 — the secretive military facility about 35 miles west of Alamo.

That night, a man from Idaho, who worked on motorcycles for a living, suggested to the others around the campfire that they could rush the facility on motorcycles, believing the military guards wouldn’t be able to stop them that way, Holaday recalled.

Nothing ever came of that scheme beyond campfire chatter, but Holaday, 59, thought of it recently when a Facebook event, titled “Storm Area 51, They Can’t Stop All of Us,” set off an internet frenzy. Even though the event’s creator, Matty Roberts, claimed it was a hoax and the Air Force warned against anyone breaking into the property — located within the Nevada Test and Training Range at the Nellis Air Force Base — almost 2 million people have RSVP’d on Facebook for the Sept. 20 gathering.

“All I thought was, ‘Here we go again,’” Holaday said, chuckling. As of this week, his motel, about 90 miles north of Las Vegas, had only two vacant rooms left for the days of the event.

 Misty Ingram at the Alien Research Center

Tourism drawn by talk of extraterrestrial activities has been a part of the economy for decades in the small towns that dot the valleys near Area 51. The boom began around 1989, when Bob Lazar, a self-described engineer, claimed to a Las Vegas television station that he worked on extraterrestrial aircraft that were housed at Area 51. Since then, business owners and residents have welcomed tourists hoping to get a peek at the military facility or spot a UFO in the sky.

But the Facebook event has ramped up buzz to levels residents have never witnessed, with motel and campground owners receiving scores of calls a day. If the event brings the masses it’s promised, many in the area are excited for the potential extra business. Some, though, are also concerned about the lack of infrastructure to accommodate the crowds that could attend.

“This is the most overwhelmed I’ve ever felt in my entire life,” said Connie West, who co-owns a motel, bar and restaurant called Little A’Le’Inn with her mother in Rachel, a tiny town about 50 miles from Alamo. Since the end of June, her business has been inundated with calls about everything from room bookings to bands that want to play on her property during the event. Like Holaday, she’s heard the conspiracy theorists talk of invading Area 51 for years, but nothing of this magnitude. “It’s a frenzy,” she said.

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“Let’s See Them Aliens”: The Comic Futility of #StormArea51

Listen to “E43 7-27-19 “Let’s See Them Aliens”: The Comic Futility of #StormArea51” on Spreaker.

Article by Kate Knibbs                      July 17, 2019                      (theringer.com)

• Believing in aliens used to automatically catapult a person into kook territory, but things have changed. Prominent public figures are treating the UFO and extraterrestrial phenomenon seriously, from Harvard astrophysicist Avi Loeb, to aerospace billionaire Robert Bigelow, to the New York Times, to members of Congress demanding briefings. All of this has lent credence to a Facebook event called “Storm Area 51, They Can’t Stop All of Us.” (see previous ExoArticle) Well over a million Facebook users have pledged to show up at a Nevada tourist spot, to invade en masse the secret military base known as ‘Area 51’ at 3 am, September 20th.

• A similar online phenomenon happened in 2017 as Hurricane Irma approached the Florida coastline. Ryon Edwards created a Facebook event called “Shoot at Hurricane Irma.” Over 80,000 people responded with interest in attacking the hurricane, though no one did. It was a way to diffuse a frightening situation with a lighthearted meme.

• Like the Irma event, this is an obvious stunt. The post reads: “If we naruto run (like an animated video game character), we can move faster than their bullets.” And the Facebook page itself is called “Shitposting cause im in shambles”. Many attendees responded tongue-in-cheek: “I only RSVP’d for the memes” and “Let’s see them aliens.”

• Samantha Travis, the manager of the Little A’Le’Inn tourist spot where the invaders are scheduled to convene, said people have been calling “nonstop, all day,” and all of their rooms are booked. University student, Jackson Weimer, imagines that it will turn into a big party. Travis noted that there is plenty of available campground space.

• While the vast majority of participants are openly kidding around and not seriously planning to attack a military base, the military itself appears to be treating this as a matter of real concern. An Air Force spokesperson told the Washington Post that it is “ready to protect America and its assets.”

• There’s a good chance “Storm Area 51” will be a distant memory by the time September 20th actually rolls around. In the same way that people took a moment to laugh at the concept of attacking a hurricane, the punch line to “Storm Area 51” is how cartoonishly futile life can feel. It is the sort of joke that can puncture the terrors of climate change and evil governments. The popularity of “Storm Area 51” reflects a larger mood of low-grade fatalism and hyperbolic violence that is percolating online this summer.

 

Over a million people have RSVP’d to an event on Facebook called “Storm Area 51, They Can’t Stop All of Us.” The military has warned people to stay away. It’s just a gag—but one particularly well-suited to this summer.

In 2017, as Hurricane Irma twirled menacingly toward the Florida coastline, a young Floridian named Ryon Edwards coped with storm-related anxiety in a very modern way. He logged onto Facebook and created an event called “Shoot at Hurricane Irma.” Over 80,000 people responded that they were interested in staging an attack on the “GOOFY LOOKING WINDY HEADASS NAMED IRMA.” No one ever opened fire on Irma; at least, there is no documentation of such an event. The Facebook post was a joke, a way to diffuse a frightening situation with a lighthearted meme. Despite some hand-wringing by local authorities, it wasn’t actually worth fretting over.

In recent days, a similarly playful Facebook event has reached an even greater height of popularity. “Storm Area 51, They Can’t Stop All of Us,” an event scheduled for 3 a.m. on September 20 at the famously mysterious Nevada military base, has racked up over 1.4 million RSVPs over the past week, with more than a million other people expressing interest in storming Area 51 en masse. “We will all meet up at the Area 51 Alien Center tourist attraction and coordinate our entry. If we naruto run, we can move faster than their bullets,” the post reads. (“Naruto” is a reference to Naruto Uzumaki, an anime character who runs with an awkward stride.) “Lets see them aliens.”

Like the Irma event, it’s an obvious stunt. The viral appeal is equally obvious, as it is fun to imagine a ragtag group of strangers liberating Martians from one of the most notoriously locked-down places in the country, like the plot of a pleasantly stupid action movie.

“Honestly I only RSVP’d for the memes,” one event attendee told me via Facebook Messenger. A Discord chat room created to “strategize” about the attack is filled with memes about adopting aliens and chatter about role-playing. “I think we need a division of vapers. To make an escape cloud,” one participant suggested. “I don’t think no one is going to this,” another said. When I identified myself as a journalist and asked people on the event page whether they’d speak with me, I was repeatedly called a “Fed”—exactly what I deserved for posting on an event page co-created by an account called “Shitposting cause im in shambles.”

But for all the jokes, the event has sparked real-world uptick in interest in traveling to the Area 51 region. People have been calling the local hotel and bar Little A’Le’Inn, for instance, “nonstop, all day,” manager Samantha Travis told The Ringer. “Our rooms have been booked for a few days now.” (Travis noted that the area does have plenty of available campground space.) “I think that people actually might go and have a party,” Jackson Weimer, a University of Delaware student who runs a popular meme account and accepted that I was not a cop, told me. “Some idiots will probably take it too far and try and rush the base but I hope everyone is smart enough to realize when a meme is a meme.” While the vast majority of participants are openly kidding around and not seriously planning to attack a military base, the military itself appears to be treating this as a matter of concern. An Air Force spokesperson told the Washington Post that it is “ready to protect America and its assets.” (The Air Force did not respond to The Ringer’s request for comment.)

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Bud Light Offers to Give Free Beer to ‘Any Alien That Makes it Out’ of Area 51

by Aris Folley                    July 18, 2019                     (thehill.com)

  • In response to an online campaign to “Storm Area 51”, referring to a Nevada military base where some believe the US government holds extraterrestrial craft and possibly ET beings, the beer company, Bud Light, is offering free beer to any aliens that make it out of Area 51.

  • The “Storm Area 51” Facebook event, which was conceived by Matty Roberts as a ‘joke’, has accumulated well over a million people who plan to meet up at the Area 51 Alien Center tourist attraction to coordinate their mass invasion of Area 51 on September 20th.

  • In a series of tweets, the beer maker first joked that it would “… be the first brand to formally announce that we will not be sponsoring the Area 51 raid.” Days later, the company changed its tune, tweeting: “Screw it. Free Bud Light to any alien that makes it out.”

  • Bud Light released a photo of what it referred to as its “Area 51 Special Edition” beer, showing a green and black beer bottle with a label reading: “Greetings Earthlings. This is the famous Area 51.” The beer label reads: “We know of no space beer by any other life form which is brewed and aged to be more refreshing. Our cryogenic aging produces a light bodied space lager with a fresh taste, a crisp, clean finish, and a smooth drinkability.” I then adds, “Take us to your leader. We come in peace.”

  • A spokeswoman for the base said, “[Area 51] is an open training range for the U.S. Air Force, and we would discourage anyone from trying to come into the area where we train American armed forces. The U.S. Air Force always stands ready to protect America and its assets.”

 

But Light is offering to give free beer to any aliens that make it out of Area 51 in Nevada, as an online campaign to “storm” the site has attracted the attention of millions.

The beer maker made the announcement in a series of tweets about the military base, which conspiracy theorists have long believed to be a place  where government officials hold secret information about extraterrestrial beings.

In one tweet on Monday, the company joked that it would “like to be the first brand to formally announce that we will not be sponsoring the Area 51 raid.”

But later in the week, the company changed its tune, tweeting: “Screw it. Free Bud Light to any alien that makes it out.”

The company then released a photo of what it referred to as its “Area 51 Special Edition” beer.
The photo showed a green and black beer bottle with a label reading: “Greetings Earthlings. This is the famous Area 51.”

“We know of no space beer by any other life form which is brewed and aged to be more refreshing,” the label continued. “Our cryogenic aging produces a light bodied space lager with a fresh taste, a crisp, clean finish, and a smooth drinkability.

“Take us to your leader,” it added. The promotion also featured the message: “We come in peace.”

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