It’s all fun and games until someone gets hurt. A silly event entitled “Storm Area 51, They Can’t Stop All of Us” popped up on Facebook earlier this month, encouraging people to meet up and storm the United States Air Force facility located in the Nevada Test and Training Range. The hope is that the sheer number of people would overwhelm those protecting it and finally reveal the long-rumored existence of aliens that is believed by some to be available at the site.
Well, what may have started out as a joke has now quickly spiraled out of control. In the past week alone, the number of people who claim to be going has skyrocketed from 300,000 to 1,000,00 with nearly another million users saying that they’re interested in attending.
This viral stunt has caught the attention of the entire Internet and several mainstream media outlets, too, as well as the U.S. Air Force. In fact, the branch of the armed forces has recently responded to the movement through spokeswoman Laura McAndrews, saying:
“[Area 51] is an open training range for the US Air Force, and we would discourage anyone from trying to come into the area where we train American armed forces… The US Air Force always stands ready to protect America and its assets.”
This basically means that any attempt to storm the site will fail even worse than the movie Area 51. In other words, anyone stupid enough to actually go through with this plan will be met with lethal force, if necessary. Hopefully everyone involved realizes that this is just a joke and doesn’t actually try anything that will surely get them killed.
The creators of the page have quickly realized the madness that they’ve unintentionally inspired as well. Their original post reads:
“We will all meet up at the Area 51 Alien Center tourist attraction and coordinate our entry… We can move faster than their bullets. Let’s see them aliens.”
Since then, the geniuses behind this deluded plan have released a follow-up statement on the page, writing:
“P.S. Hello US government, this is a joke, and I do not actually intend to go ahead with this plan. I just thought it would be funny and get me some thumbsy uppies on the Internet.”
Unfortunately, at least a few of these million users will take the idea a little too seriously and probably get themselves into trouble. Once they’re apprehended though, their punishment should be to watch the godawful Area 51 film on repeat.
The ill-fated raid, if you wish to attend it, is scheduled for September 20th, 2019.