Storm Area 51
Overview
Storm Area 51 is a satirical Facebook event that calls for an assembly of a flash mob to infiltrate the top-secret American military airbase in Lincoln County, Nevada, scheduled to commence at 3:00 a.m. on September 20th, 2019. Since its launch in late June, the Facebook page went viral and millions of people have signed up to attend.
Background
On June 27th, 2019, three anonymous Facebook users “Shitposting cuz im in shambles,” “Smyleekun” and “The Hidden Sound” created the event page “Storm Area 51, They Can’t Stop All of Us,” scheduled to commence at 3:00 a.m. on September 20th, 2019. The description reads, “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. Let’s see them aliens.”
Developments
Viral Breakout
According to Matty Roberts, a 20-year-old California resident and Bakersfield College student who co-created the event, the Facebook page saw little traction during the first 72 hours of listing and then suddenly took off. By July 8th, more than 120,000 Facebook users had RSVPd for the event, and by July 10th, the list of attendees had nearly doubled to 222,891. By July 22nd, the number had once again doubled to more than 400,000 guests. As of July 22nd, the event has garnered more than 1.8 million RSVPs.
Tactical Discussions
Over the following two weeks, “attendees” of the group made shitposts and satirical plans to storm the base. On July 5th, user Jackson Barnes made a satirical plan to storm the base that gained over 10,000 reactions. The plan reads:
Ok guys, i feel like we need to formulate a game plan, Ive put together this easy to follow diagram here for a proposed plan.
The basic idea is that the Kyles form the front line, if we feed them enough psilocybin and monster energy and say that anyone in camouflage is their step dad, and the entire base is made of drywall then they will go berserk and become an impenetrable wall.
Then the Rock Throwers will throw pebbles at the inevitable resistance (we don’t want to hurt them, we just want to annoy them enough to not shoot the Kyles as often). While this is all happening, the two Naruto runner battalions will run full speed around the north and south flank, and shadow clone jutsu, effectively tripling our numbers, and overwhelm the base (red circle).
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. I’m not responsible if people decide to actually storm area 51.
During the first month, thousands of satirical posts elaborating on the plan of the attack were posted on the Facebook page.
Media Coverage
The plan was covered by Mysterious Universe on July 5th, noting that the last time someone attempted to storm Area 51, the intruder was shot by the police. It was also covered by Metro UK. The planned “raid” was also covered by /r/OutOfTheLoop, gaining over 7,400 points. A number of other news publications also picked up the story on July 9th and 10th, including Live Science, The Daily Mail, and Newsweek, with the highlight of their articles being the high number of those that clicked ‘Going’ to the event, but without acknowledging the joke elements of the event post.
Online Reactions
As the event grew popular, social media users created dozens of memes which grew popular on Reddit. In particular, /r/dankmemes saw a wave of posts related to the event grow popular. For example, Redditor frozen_pope posted a still from the Sonic 2019 as a reaction image, gaining over 38,000 points (shown below, left). User SkepticalAcquiesce posted an edited still from Harry Potter about the raid, gaining over 42,000 points (shown below, right). This led to a post in /r/OutOfTheLoop inquiring about the surge in memes about the raid that gained over 5,400 points. It was also covered in a Twitter Events page.
Official Response
On July 12th, The Washington Post published an article titled “Half a million people signed up to storm Area 51. What happens if they actually show?” The article contained a statement from Air Force spokeswoman Luara McAndrews, who issued a warning to those wanting to actually participate in the raid on the facility.
“[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.”
Advertisements
On July 12th, Companies began using the Storm Area 51 memes to advertise their product on Twitter. That day, Kool-Aid posted a posted a tweet featuring the Kool-Aid Man breaking through the area 51 wall (shown below, left). The tweet gained over 164,300 likes and 36,500 retweets in five days. That same day, Funyuns took to Twitter to post an image of an alien holding a bag of Funyuns (shown below, right). The tweet gained over 4,300 likes in five days. Five days later, Mashable posted a list of brands “storming” area 51 memes like Wendys, Burger King and ASOS.
Lil Nas X Concert
On July 13th, GoFundMe user Miel Tal created a campaign titled “GET LIL NAS X TO PERFORM AS WE STORM AREA 51.” The campaign says, “If we can raise $100,000 before then, we are going to book Lil Nas X to perform, on horseback, just outside of the compound. The concert will be free to every brave bastard who made the trip.” The GoFundMe also lists supplies including:
Saddles
Saddle oil
Bits and bridles
Whips
Bails of hay
Canteens
Jerky
Death ray
They added that if the concert did not happen for whatever reason, the money raised would go to “Casa Carmelita, a new community space in El Paso, TX that provides support to migrant families.” Twitter user @JakeCapano alerted Lil Nas X to the campaign, gaining over 960 retweets and 8,600 likes (shown below, left). Lil Nas X responded that he would perform “for free” (shown below, right). The GoFundMe has raised only $277 of its $100,000 goal.
Old Town Road Area 51 Video
On July 16th, Lil Nas X uploaded a new Old Town Road animated music video to YouTube featuring Billy Ray Cyrus, Young Thug, and Mason Ramsey (shown below). The video references various meme characters including Keanu Reeves and Thanos. The video accumulated over three million views and 244,000 likes in a day.
On July 16th, Twitter user @Billiam9192 responded to the music video saying, “Keanu Reeves Naruto running through Area 51 in an Old Town Road music video with the yodelling Walmart kid is the extra spice this simulation needs” (shown below, left). The tweet garnered over 70,800 likes and 11,000 retweets in a day. Twitter user @szar_salad called for an alien to be featured in the next remix (shown below, right). The tweet gained over 300 likes in a day.
Creator’s Response
On July 17th, Law Vegas Now reported on the effects the event and memes were having on the community surrounding Area 51. Joerg Arnu, webmaster of Dreamlandresort.com, a conspiracy theory website focusing on Area 51, government secrecy and other government black sites, noted a sharp increase in traffic on his website. He continued, “We had an event right at the gates. About 50 people showed up, maybe 30 vehicles on Groom Lake Road on a dirt road, and we had a minor traffic jam on our hands. We had to regulate traffic. Now imagine you have a million people show up and try to park? That’s not going to work.”
The creator of the Facebook event, Matty Roberts, also noted his concerns about the spread of the satirical storming. He said, “I posted it on like June 27th and it was kind of a joke. And then it waited for like three days, like 40 people, and then it just completely took off, out of nowhere. It’s pretty wild […] The FBI is going to show up at my house and it got a little spooky from there.”
On July 18th, KLAS published a clip of the interview on YouTube (shown below):
PornHub Statistics
According to the adult video streaming website PornHub, interest in pornographic material relating to extraterrestrials increased dramatically on the site following the viral spread of the event (stats below). They write, “Since July 12th, searches for “Area 51” have surged from zero to 160,000 in just 4 days. July 16th alone had nearly 59,000 searches.” The continued to note that an increase in memes regarding “aliens” were also reflected in searches:
Our statisticians then probed further into all “alien” related searches, and found that this was a surprisingly popular genre even before going viral. Over the last year, an average day sees more than 30,000 people shoot their rockets off to “alien” videos.
As the Area 51 memes made their way around the internet, the popularity of “alien” searches increased by 217% on July 2nd, and then again by 199% on July 15th.
Spin-off Events
The popularity of Storm Area 51 also led to a string of copycat Facebook events urging people to raid other regional landmarks that are similarly known for paranormal activities, including the Bermuda Triangle Loch Ness and Mount Everest. In Tasmania, Australia, a Facebook event calling on the locals to take over a pile of industrial-grade woodchip at the port was shut down after the local authorities officially intervened. On July 19th, Oklahoma City Animal Shelter created a Facebook post calling on people to “storm the shelter” by making a donation or adopting a pet. Within 72 hours, the post raised over $2,300 in donation and received over 1,600 comoments and 11,000 shares.
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