They’ve got a plan to raid Area 51 and “see them aliens.” But what will happen if they actually do it?
Over one million people have signed up to a joke Facebook event, calling on users to meet at Area 51, the US Air Force base in Nevada that’s long been a source of alien conspiracy theories, in September.
“If we Naruto run, we can move faster than their bullets,” the page says, referencing the Japanese manga-inspired running style with arms outstretched backwards and heads forward. “Let’s see them aliens.”
A pinned post on the page attempts to cover its bases, reading “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.” But as the event has gained traction—inspiring dozens of memes and jokes—the profile of the situation has risen, so much so that the US Air Force has been made aware of the potential impending raid.
And they’re not as lighthearted about the situation as folks on the internet are.
“[Area 51] is an open training range for the U.S. Air Force, and we would discourage anyone from trying to come into the area where we train American armed forces,” a spokeswoman told The Washington Post. “The U.S. Air Force always stands ready to protect America and its assets.”
CIA Declassifies Area 51 Documents
After decades of extreme secrecy surrounding the site, the CIA lifted its veil on Area 51 in 2013 in response to a public record request from George Washington University scholars in Washington.
The university’s National Security Archive released a 400-page CIA history containing the first deliberate official references to Area 51, also known as Groom Lake, as a site developed by the intelligence agency in the 1950s to test fly the high-altitude U-2 reconnaissance plane.
Other top-secret aircraft were tested there later, including the supersonic reconnaissance A-12 aircraft, code-named OXCART, and the F-117 stealth ground-attack jet, said archive senior fellow Jeffrey Richelson, who asked for the CIA’s U-2 history in 2005.
“It’s the first time that there must have been a senior-level decision to acknowledge the term ‘Area 51’ and its specific location,” he told Reuters.
The CIA has also declassified a trove of UFO-related documents and published them online, inviting interested sleuths to “Take a Peek Into Our X-Files.”
A separate CIA catalog headlined “UFOs Fact or Fiction?” contains decades of documentation relating to the agency’s dealings with reports of alleged alien spacecraft.
“Most of the documents concern CIA cables reporting unsubstantiated UFO sightings in the foreign press and intra-Agency memos about how the Agency handled public inquiries about UFO sightings,” the agency said.
Former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) contractor T.D. Barnes, who allegedly served at Area 51 as a radar expert, was cited by The Las Vegas Review-Journal as saying that besides Area 51, other unofficial names used for the facility include Dreamland, Home Base, Watertown Strip, Groom Lake, and Homey Airport.
The CNN Wire, Epoch Times reporter Tom Ozimek, and Janita Kan contributed to this report.
