The town of Rachel, Nevada, is a small settlement, home to just over 50 people. It also happens to be the town closest to an infamous and highly classified United States Air Force facility – which has birthed several conspiracy theories over the years – Area 51.
It’s no wonder then that the local residents and authorities felt that they were woefully unprepared for the ‘thousands of visitors’ who were about to swamp their town on Friday, 20 September, because of a Facebook event someone had created as a joke.
But what was, at worst, expected to be a violent confrontation between thousands of civilians and the US military, turned out to be a 3000-strong crossover between a music festival and a cosplayer convention, that wrapped up quite peacefully in the end.
Low Turnout, Handful of Arrests
The ‘Alienstock’ event, which consisted of revelers in costumes and live band performances, concluded peacefully on Sunday, 22 September, with fewer than ten arrests made, mainly for trespassing and, in one instance, for public urination, reported the Associated Press.
The timeline on Rachel’s website noted, “the event is rather unremarkable and ends without major incidents; a few people are arrested for trespassing into Area 51.”
From left, Alex Clark, Carolyn Milner, Audrie Clark and Lucinda Clark dance near their car outside of the Storm Area 51 Basecamp event Friday
(Photo: AP/John Locher)
“It seems like a lot of good people chilling and having a good time,” 56-year-old Dave Wells, told AP. "It's been a great turnout, and it wasn't the humanitarian disaster that everyone claimed it would be."
For the organisers in the neighbouring town of Hiko, however, the dwindling crowd meant that the event wasn’t a financial success. Only about 500 attended.
“We put on a safe event for the people that showed up. It was a gamble financially. We lost.”Keith Wright, promoter, speaking with AP
For the authorities, which had reportedly dipped into a $2,50,000 emergency fund to deal with the expected 30,000-strong crowd, the low turnout and cooperative organisers was a best case scenario.
Though visitors did run up to the gates, there wasn’t an actual attempt to storm Area 51, as authorities had feared.
“The guards were unbelievably nice. They took photos with everyone and were pretty much just smiling,” Danny Philippou, a 26-year-old YouTuber from Australia, told TIME.
Meanwhile, the US military, on Sunday, apologised for a tweet made by Defence Visual Information Distribution Service, which jokingly insinuated the use of a bomber against “millennials” when they attempted to storm Area 51.
The tweet reportedly stated: “The last thing millennials will see if they attempt the Area 51 raid today" along a photo of a B-2 stealth bomber, reported BBC.
A Raid Which Became a Festival
‘Storm Area 51, They Can’t Stop All of Us’ was a Facebook event which originally invited people to “move faster than their bullets” in order to “see them aliens.”
It was created as a joke by 21-year-old Matty Roberts from Bakersfield, California and quickly took the internet by storm, inspiring over two million RSVPs and a storm of memes ranging from the strange to the truly bizarre.
Many of these involved jokes about rescuing, befriending and even marrying aliens from Area 51.
The magnitude of response prompted the US military to issue warnings discouraging people from approaching the area, officially used to “conduct advanced training in support of US national interests”.
It also prompted Roberts to think about the people who would actually be heading to Nevada. In August, he transformed the Facebook event into the ‘Alienstock’ music festival, a more viable physical interpretation of the meme.
The event was planned in partnership with Rachel’s The Little A’Le’Inn, according to Vox, and about 30,000 people were expected to attend.
With little more than a month to go and no concrete plans, ‘Alienstock’ was looking like a logistical nightmare in the making.
Roberts eventually pulled the plug on the festival in favour of a more manageable affair down in Las Vegas.
“Due to the lack of infrastructure, planning, and risk management, along with concerns raised for the safety of the expected 10,000+ attendees, we decided to transition Alienstock away from the Rachel festival towards a safer alternative,” proclaims the event’s website.
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