Matty Roberts Created a Facebook Event Inviting People to Storm Area 51 — Here's What Happened
"The U.S. Air Force always stands ready to protect America and its assets."
Published July 30 2025, 2:57 p.m. ET
There must have been something in the air back in June 2019 that caused a ridiculous joke to morph into a situation monitored by various government agencies. The story begins with aliens and Area 51, but don't worry, we're not about to launch into a conspiracy theory about extraterrestrial technology hiding inside the government compound. Well, not really.
When Matty Roberts started listening to an episode of his favorite podcast, The Joe Rogan Experiment, he was blown away by one of the former comic's guests. Rogan was speaking with Bob Lazar, who claims he worked on alien technology near the desert site. As a self-described s--tposter, what Lazar was saying piqued Roberts' interest. Suddenly, the 21-year-old was creating a Facebook event inviting folks to storm Area 51. What happened next? Let's get into it.
It looked like a lot was going to happen at the Storm Area 51 event.
Like many kids in college, Roberts lived to start trouble online, and he did so while monitoring the "S--tposting cause I’m in shambles" Facebook group. With that in mind, Roberts created the "Storm Area 51, They Can't Stop All of Us" event on June 19 and scheduled it for Sept. 20. "Let’s see them aliens," he wrote in the description, per Vox.
Things were relatively quiet for a few days until suddenly, the event had more than a million RSVP's. It's unclear if anyone was taking it seriously, but the viral sensation was a bit alarming. The event was picked up by the media, who made sure to say this was a joke. Unfortunately there was no shortage of concerning comments on the Facebook event that suggested Area 51 should be raided.
Air Force spokeswoman Laura McAndrews told The Washington Post that trying to breach the security of Area 51 is a bad idea. "The U.S. Air Force always stands ready to protect America and its assets," she added. Roberts told Nevada’s KLAS-TV that the event is definitely a joke, but he's worried about the government. "I was like, the FBI is going to show up at my house," said Roberts. "And it got a little spooky from there."
Various local and federal government agencies got involved in the Storm Area 51 event.
A public information officer at Nellis Air Force Base told KNPR that "any attempt to illegally access the area is highly discouraged." When a branch of the military respectfully asks you not to raid a government facility, it's probably best that you listen. The Federal Aviation Administration took things a step further when they closed airspace around the facility ahead of the weekend in September 2019, per Business Insider.
The BBC reported that Lincoln County Nevada pre-signed an emergency declaration because they weren't sure how many people were actually going to come. Local businesses were also preparing for an onslaught of tourists.
Ultimately, all of the fuss was completely unnecessary as roughly 200 people showed up for the event, per The Independent. According to Time, authorities expected people to try to raid the base at 3 a.m. and were worried about things turning violent. People did run towards the base at that time, but just as a joke. They stopped before the authorities to take pictures. Two people were arrested at the facility's perimeter, but most left peacefully.
