U.S. Air Force Says Don’t Even Think About Storming Area 51!

What started as an apparent "joke event" put up on Facebook by folks trying to be funny, has taken on such a life of it's own, that the United States Air Force has had to step in and warn people against joining this activity.

What am I talking about? Let's back up for a minute.

If you've been on social media at all the last week, you've likely seen, at the very least,  memes about "storming Area 51". Well, they exist because of the event page Storm Area 51, created earlier this month, which calls for people to gather in Nevada on September 20th, and "all meet up at the Area 51 Alien Center tourist attraction and coordinate our entry. If we naruto run, we can move faster than their bullets. Lets see them aliens."

For anyone coming REALLY late to the game, people want to storm Area 51 (jokingly or not) because of the mystery which surrounds it, which is somehow always connected to aliens, UFOs and alien technology of sorts.

So, over a million people have responded that they plan to attend, with almost a million more "interested" in the event. Now, in the case of weddings or parties, we all know that you send out invites, and even if folks RSVP, you only get a certain percentage that actually show up to the thing you invite them to. But with A MILLION people, even if 1% of the people who clicked "going" are actually nuts enough to show (I can't help but think of events like Woodstock, which ended up so much larger than anticipated) you still have a ridiculous number of folks ready to descend upon this little desert town in Nevada, and make their way towards an ACTIVE U.S. Military base.

This does not make for a good plan. And the U.S. Air Force isn't laughing. In fact, they're warning people not to get caught up in the frenzy of this "joke" event.

Air Force spokeswoman Laura McAndrews told the Washington Post in an article earlier this week, that the Air Force has been keeping an eye on the event, and says they are ready, should anyone try to actually storm this active base, saying "...we would discourage anyone from trying to come into the area where we train American armed forces...The U.S. Air Force always stands ready to protect America and its assets.”

Basically, the Air Force stands ready to do what they do best, use FORCE....um...it's in their name. They're not called the U.S. Air Laugh-a-millions, or the U.S. Air Clowns. I wouldn't necessarily poke that bear. But that's just me. I like being alive!

Now, storming Area 51 could be logistically a lot more difficult then simply running a bunch of people up to a gate, as Area 51 itself is part of the Edwards Air Force base, and sits in the middle of the desert, almost 80 miles from Vegas. And according to an article put out by the BBC.com, "Its primary use is hidden from the public, like many military bases across the US. Storming the site as per the comments on Facebook might prove a bit difficult - it's restricted to the public and has armed guards patrolling the perimeters. It's also impossible to enter the airspace above without permission from air traffic control, which won't be given."

So, there you are. All caught up on why the military is sending out warnings, and your friends are sending out Storm Area 51 memes. Feel free to carry on about your day.