(L-R) A screenshot of the Facebook event calling for a raid on Area 51 and a photo taken on March 12, 2000, showing a warning sign marking the boundary of Area 51, in Rachel, Nevada. (Dan Callister/Getty Images)
A UFO expert said the plan to storm Area 51 has gotten “somewhat out of hand” and is a “recipe for disaster.”
Nick Pope told Fox he doubts whether the people who’ve vowed to raid the secretive Area 51 military facility in search of proof of aliens will actually proceed with their plans, adding that he believes the ploy could spiral out of control.
Pope, whose alien-hunting credentials include investigating flying saucers for Britain’s Ministry of Defense, told “Fox & Friends First” that even if people do break into Area 51, it’s unlikely they'll find any green men.
“They won’t go, of course. ... I think this just shows the huge level of interest in this subject,” Pope said, according to Fox. He added that if they were to go, what the Area 51 raiders would find would probably be drones and “next-generation aircraft.”
Pope also spoke to the British news outlet The Metro, saying, “‘Storm Area 51’ clearly implies illegal trespass onto a military installation and that’s a recipe for disaster. I utterly condemn such an action. It’s irresponsible, illegal, and potentially dangerous.”
“Trespass on a military base is a federal offense and people run the risk of getting jail time, a fine and a criminal record,” Pope continued. “Warning signs at Area 51 even state that the use of lethal force is authorized.”
Pope said it’s unlikely guards would shoot to kill, but added that in the extreme case that they believe they’re in imminent danger, things could “get out of hand.”
At the time of reporting, more than 1.2 million people had signed up to the “Storm Area 51” event as interest mounts in what appears to be a satirical ploy to raid the secretive military facility and “see them aliens.”
Another 1 million people have expressed their interest.
‘We Can Move Faster Than Their Bullets’
According to the event page, the alien enthusiasts will meet at 3 a.m. on Sept. 20 “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,” the event said in the description of their page, referring to the popular Japanese anime series “Naruto” in which characters run with arms stretched behind them.
According to HuffPost, the page was started by a social media user who goes by the name “SmyleeKun” who is best known “for posting memes and streaming to fans on Twitch,” which is a streaming video platform used by video gamers. While appearing to be a joke, the event has sparked enough online buzz for the Defense Department to take seriously.
″[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,” Air Force spokeswoman Laura McAndrews told The Washington Post on July 12. “The U.S. Air Force always stands ready to protect America and its assets.”
Area 51, the mysterious United States military base nestled between mountain ranges north of Las Vegas, Nevada, has for decades been a lightning rod for UFO buffs and believers in government-led alien coverups. While in 2013 the U.S. government admitted to the existence of Area 51 in a declassified CIA history of its U-2 spy plane program, no acknowledgment was made of interstellar spaceships or little green men.
Access to the facility remains highly restricted. According to inverse.com, about the closest place interested parties can get to view Area 51 on land is Tikaboo Peak, around 26 miles away. But now the hundreds of thousands of “Storm Area 51, They Can’t Stop All of Us” participants appear to want to get far closer.
A warning sign marking the boundary of Area 51, in Rachel, Nev. in a file photo. (Dan Callister/Getty Images)
The assembly point for the Area 51 raiders is the Area 51 Alien Center, a restaurant and souvenir shop located near the intersection of US-95 and Nevada State Route 373 in Amargosa Valley. It’s got 3.5 stars out of 5 on Trip Advisor and such glowing reviews on Google as “Such a cute stop in the middle of nowhere!” and “the restrooms are clean & neat” and “had one of those put your head on/in alien figure for photo things.”
The Alien Center souvenir shop and restaurant near a junction that leads to Area 51, at Amargosa Valley, Nev. in a file photo. (Sean Gallup/Getty Images)
After meeting up at the Alien Center, the group will supposedly charge toward Area 51, which the DoD has advised them sternly not to do.
Area 51 on Google Maps. (Google Maps)
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 records 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.
Tom Ozimek is a senior reporter for The Epoch Times. He has a broad background in journalism, deposit insurance, marketing and communications, and adult education.
