<p>What&#8217;s your take on Area 51? For so many years now, the public has placed their bets on what they think is beyond the guarded government facility in Nevada&#8217;s Lincoln County. If you&#8217;ve kept yourself updated with the latest news on this front, you&#8217;ll be well aware of the global alien hunt set up online, that quickly turned viral.</p>

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<p>After one student jokingly invited people to raid the Air Force it wasn&#8217;t long before he had captured the world&#8217;s interest. Fast forward to September 20th of this year, and people started traveling near and far to the Western U.S. state. Did any aliens get spotted along the way? Or did people just want to go for a good time? Popular Everything has the answers you need.</p>

<p>Let&#8217;s get familiarized with the place in question. Much to many people&#8217;s annoyance, the elusive &#8220;Area 51&#8221; location has pretty much kept itself under wraps since it came into being. It&#8217;s pretty impossible to do so, given the number of guards surrounding the place, but what would happen if someone did try to break into the Royal Air Force?</p>

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<p>Well, you wouldn&#8217;t be welcomed with a smile, to say the least! Given that it&#8217;s a federal offense to enter the installation, you&#8217;d be looking at a hefty fine and time behind bars. As it&#8217;s hard to enter the place, the public has been left with no choice but to speculate. The most common theory? Area 51 is home to crashed alien spaceships. It may sound crazy, but who really knows?</p>

<p>If this location has been around for years, why are we bringing it up now? Well, it’s all thanks to one man named Matty Roberts. On June 27th, 2019, the college student from Bakersfield, California set up an open Facebook event, named “Storm Area 51, They Can&#8217;t Stop All of Us.” In the beginning, Mr. Roberts didn&#8217;t really give much thought to his outlandish event.</p>

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<p>What’s funny is that Matty created the event purely for comedic purposes, hoping to get a few laughs out of his friends. In reality, this student had just invited the world to get involved in one of the most viral events of the year! In a matter of moments, Matty&#8217;s event was getting huge levels of recognition; with over 2 million people responding &#8220;going&#8221; to the event. </p>

<p>Even if it was all a joke, did Matty have any plans about how his Area 51 raid could work? Paying a visit to the Facebook event, the student jotted down what he predicted could be the perfect plan to beat the military base. The event&#8217;s description reads: &#8220;If we naruto run, we can move faster than their bullets. Let&#8217;s see them aliens.&#8221;</p>

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<p>Matty incorporated his love for video games with the storm into Armagosa Valley! The “Naruto” anime character was known for running around with his arms stretched out. Matty believed this was the fault-proof plan people needed to storm the base! After learning that hotels in the area were taking bookings, and people traveled to this desert, Roberts thought up a plan.</p>

<p>It must be a pretty awesome feeling for Matty to know that his own event had become an internet meme. Despite intending the event to be a small joke between friends, people were taking it 100% seriously; a raid was going to happen! News quickly spread about the Area 51 event, so lots of preparation needed to take place, and we mean lots!</p>

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<p>To get ready for the rebellious raid, officials were updated immediately. Of course, government members and Nevada law enforcement tried as hard as they could to discourage the public from stepping foot into a military property, but these people were adamant about storming in. The public had been kept in the dark for so long, it was time to see some aliens!</p>

<p>Government officials may not have been so keen on the event taking place, but business owners were certainly a little excited. With potentially millions of new people paying a visit to southern Nevada, this meant only one thing: a boom in the economy! To make the most financial bonuses out of the Area 51 raid, plans for several visitor attractions came into being.</p>

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<p>What kind of attractions are we talking about here? It was Mr. Roberts’ very own decision to set up the first music festival at the elusive location! Pairing the extra-terrestrial theme of Area 51 with the iconic 1960s music festival “Woodstock,” Matty had big plans to attract visitors into the new “Alienstock” festival. It has quite the ring to it, don’t you think?</p>

<p>Much to his complete and utter surprise, the Californian’s satirical Facebook event on Area 51 had quickly turned into a viral phenomenon; with memes spreading on every social media platform out there. Just to add a little more to his acclaim, it wasn’t long before some headline-makers started to recognize the huge event, too.</p>

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<p>Which famous faces got in the know about the “Storm Area 51” event? Well, not long after the event turned viral, the country music rapper and chart-topper Lil Nas X showed his support to Mr. Roberts by releasing a music video for the remix of his hit single “Old Town Road,” completely based around the alien raid! Now, that’s quite something.</p>

<p>It’s safe to say, by the time “Storm Area 51” day started to get close, the whole of Nevada got busy with all of their planning! Lincoln County officials created their very own emergency declaration so that they could get their hands on the necessary resources from nearby counties, to accommodate the thousands of visitors set to head their way.</p>

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<p>Alongside Matty’s own Alienstock festival, a second concert named Storm Area 51 Basecamp in Hiko, Nevada was set to get the crowds going. To prepare for the event, officials had arranged for an extra 300 paramedics and 150 police officers around Nevada would be brought to the venue. It’s better to be safe than sorry; wouldn&#8217;t you agree?</p>

<p>We can only imagine the night before the Area 51 raid was an evening filled with excited anticipation. Would they beat the military officers? Would anybody get to see some aliens? There was just so much to look forward to! Here are the statistics you need to know, to understand fully how much prep went into the organized Facebook event.</p>

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<p>Once it reached the crack of dawn on September 19<sup>th</sup> (the day before the event) visitors began flocking in their large groups, both riding through miles of roads into Rachel, Nevada, and then camping out at the event so that they were ready for the busy day of alien-hunting ahead. We bet all those military officers at the base were shaking in their boots!</p>

<p>Here it is, the moment we’ve all been waiting for! September 20<sup>th</sup>had finally arrived, and it was time for student Matty Roberts’ viral Area 51 storm to really happen. Out of the millions of people who expressed an interest in the Facebook event, it may come as a surprise to learn that just 150 people made the trip over to those strictly guarded gates.</p>

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<p>It turns out, not everyone who entered this part of Nevada wanted to storm into the government facility. In fact, most people just wanted to have a little fun with likeminded people! It was recorded that approximately 1,500 members of the public showed their interest in the other planned events scattered around the venue. The raid is really only half the story!</p>

<p>We’re going to have to break some bad news to you. Sadly, after months of anticipation and millions of gained interest from the public, the plan to storm into Area 51 didn’t quite happen. The military officers proved relentless, and quite frankly, nobody was willing to face an arrest of any sort. In all honesty, we don’t blame them!</p>

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<p>Another thing that didn’t go to plan was Alienstock. Why? Matty failed to complete the necessary planning, so the music event couldn’t carry out. On the bright side, a safer event took its place! In the Downtown Las Vegas Events Center, Alienstock took the form as an EDM show, on the eve of September 19<sup>th</sup>. Alien-themed celebrations ensued!</p>

<p>So, we didn’t get to see any real aliens step onto the scene, but we sure got to see a lot of impressive costumes. People had traveled near and far to show off their most impressive alien gear while rocking out some of Nevada’s most unique tourist events. It may not have gone 100% to plan, but this day turned out to be an occasion like no other!</p>

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<p>While the official Alienstock festival ceased to happen, there were a couple of alternatives! Alongside the EDM event in Sin City, Nevada&#8217;s own town of Rachel planned a little fun of their own. A newly named “Alien-Stock” festival was open to any alien-enthusiast willing to dress head to toe in their outer-space uniform, and party in a desert. It sounds like a lot of fun!</p>

<p>It turns out, the alien fans were so consumed in getting to know one another, that it didn’t even matter nobody made it past the Area 51 gates! Instead, people remember the raid as a place where a very specific community could finally unite, admire one another’s extraterrestrial costumes and throw some shapes in the middle of the desert.</p>

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<p>We’ll say it loud and clear: The Area 51 raid wasn’t really much of a raid, but a place where new friendships were made, and to these people, that was more important than getting any sort of real-life alien sighting! Given that planning on the event wasn’t quite as refined as Matty had initially made out, a lot of these meme lovers learned to make their own fun.</p>

<p>Alien fanatics are an inventive bunch! What kinds of methods did Nevada’s visitors use to entertain themselves on this September weekend? For starters, throwing hatchets at wooden targets generated a pretty big crowd, while others flocked to play a reconstructed game of beer pong, with garbage cans and basketballs replacing the original tools.</p>

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<p>Being situated in the middle of a desert all weekend, people needed to keep themselves hydrated 24/7. If you asked anyone present at Alien-Stock festival what the most common drink was, they’d probably tell you it was Bud Light’s limited edition alien beer, released just before the event took place. What a fitting refreshment for an event like this!</p>

<p>It’s pretty vital to note that Matty Roberts was just a mere college student before, and indeed after the Area 51 raid. We’re not sure it even entered this Californian’s wildest dreams to become an event planner! For this reason, one key member Rachel’s community, Connie West, stepped up to save the day.</p>

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<p>If it wasn’t for the hotel owner, alien fans might have entered a totally different event! All thanks to this Nevada local, the refurbished Alien-Stock festival was able to take place. What’s more, Miss. West even granted visitors a little shade amid the soaring Nevada heat, with the many trees scatted across her hotel.</p>

<p>We can’t get through this report of the Area 51 raid without mentioning another doubt that existed. Alongside law enforcers who worried deeply about people breaking into the military base, a couple of local residents expressed their uncertainty about holding a party in their hometown. Rachel wasn’t exactly a large, metropolitan city! Quite the opposite.</p>

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<p>Sometimes, things should just be left as a dream; and the local members of Rachel certainly hoped that would apply to Alien-Stock! Being just a small town, these groups feared the large crowds entering would overwhelm their peaceful home. Despite this, the fans managed to keep their noise to a minimum, and very little fuss was created!</p>

<p>You’d only expect that an event of this sort would feature a couple of musical tunes for the Nevada visitors to bop their heads along to. So, what were the alien fans in store for at Connie West’s Alien-Stock festival? Hopping up on the small stage on Friday afternoon was the three-member rock band, Wily Savage.&nbsp;</p>

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<p>Sadly, this band turned out to be the only act that performed to the crowds, out of the 20 music groups that were set to make an appearance, but the show must go on! A DJ followed up onto the stage with a rendition of a couple of mainstream tunes from the likes of Justin Bieber and Skrillex.&nbsp;It may have been small, but people still had a good time.</p>

<p>What sort of people flocked to this alien-themed festival in the middle of the desert? While the aforementioned extraterrestrial fans certainly showed their faces here and there, the majority of visitors were actually a little more official. In other words, most people attended the event because they had a purpose to report.</p>

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<p>Members of the press, German journalists and Peruvian vloggers arrived at the rural town of Rachel quicker than you could even say the words “alien spaceship.” For these people, it was important to cover every corner of how Matty’s viral Facebook event had turned out; sending off their conclusions to U.S. news outlets.</p>

<p>We don’t need to tell you twice how much anticipation Matty Roberts’ whimsical Facebook event had conjured up, no one could have predicted this student’s popularity! Over time, it’s no surprise that all the preparation caused a pretty hefty paycheck to be paid out. Law enforcement ensured plenty of officers were on duty during the festivities.</p>

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<p>Here’s a shocker for you all. It turns out, there were so many members of Lincoln County police officers and highway patrol members, that they actually outnumbered all the visitors at the event! For this reason, it was soon concluded that total costs covering the entire alien party could near a whopping $300,000. Talk about pulling out all the stops!</p>

<p>Connie West is one of those positive kinds of people we all need in our lives. Despite the high costs that her organized event racked up, this ambitious hotel owner from Nevada has recently disclosed big plans for the future, to relive all the fun of the Alien-Stock festival! Here’s everything you need to know.</p>

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<p>According to West, Alien-Stock 2020 is very much a consideration. The hotel owner disclosed in a statement: “My mom already told me I was [doing it again.]” Despite her confidence, it appears not everyone is 100% onboard with the future idea. Having no prior experience in the party planning industry, who knows whether the local will pull it off again?</p>

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