Women are dressed as aliens at a 'Storm Area 51' spinoff event called 'Alienstock' on September 20, 2019 in Rachel, Nevada. (Mario Tama/Getty Images/AFP)
RACHEL, Nevada, United States — Several dozen people — rather than the two million feared — showed up on Friday near a secretive US military base in the Nevada desert, answering a meme-inspired Facebook event to storm the site in search of aliens.
The revelers, some wearing alien masks or tin foil hats, began gathering at the suggested time of 3 a.m. Friday near the base known as “Area 51,” but they did not attempt to storm the heavily guarded site.
One woman who attempted to pass under a gate was briefly detained, as was a man who urinated nearby.
The event had been posted on Facebook as a hoax in June but it quickly got out of control when more than two million people answered the call to storm the remote base, long the subject of UFO conspiracy theories.
A US police officer keeps watch near an entrance gate to the Nevada Test and Training Range, the government’s official name for what is known as Area 51, on September 21, 2019 near Rachel, Nevada. (Mario Tama/Getty Images/AFP)
“They can’t stop all of us,” quipped the post, later taken down by Facebook. “Let’s see them aliens.”
Get The Times of Israel's Daily Editionby email and never miss our top stories
The military issued a stern warning ahead of the event saying lethal force would be used against anyone who tried to trespass at the site, which the government only acknowledged existed in 2013.
The “Storm Area 51” invitation has meanwhile spawned weekend festivals in the two tiny Nevada towns of Rachel and Hiko which are located near the site, about a two-and-a half-hour drive from Las Vegas.
Attendees dance to music during Alienstock festival on the “Extraterrestrial Highway” in Rachel, Nevada on September. 20, 2019. (Photo by Bridget BENNETT / AFP)
Advertisement
Discover Israel's most beloved poet
She died more than four decades ago, but Leah Goldberg remains a magnetic and enigmatic figure: Israel’s most beloved poet, a powerful woman who lived with her mother and never married, who reinvented herself from the ashes of World War I through her magical writing.
You can screen 'The Five Houses of Leah Goldberg' June 4-11. Join The Times of Israel Community today to support our work and watch this and other outstanding documentary films in our DocuNation series.
We’re really pleased that you’ve read X Times of Israel articles in the past month.
That’s why we started the Times of Israel - to provide discerning readers like you with must-read coverage of Israel and the Jewish world.
So now we have a request. Unlike other news outlets, we haven’t put up a paywall. But as the journalism we do is costly, we invite readers for whom The Times of Israel has become important to help support our work by joining The Times of Israel Community.
For as little as $6 a month you can help support our quality journalism while enjoying The Times of Israel AD-FREE, as well as accessing exclusive content available only to Times of Israel Community members.
Thank you, David Horovitz, Founding Editor of The Times of Israel
