Trainwreck- Storm Area 51

 

Netflix have produced a documentary about the "Storm Area 51- They Can't Stop All of Us" phenomenon. With the accurate title Trainwreck, it provides a good portrait of the internet meme that turned into a national security crisis. It began as a casual social media joke by a young man called Matty Roberts, but it spiralled out of all control, as these things sometimes do. Over three and a half million people signed up and on the chosen date, a proportion of them headed for the secret base in Nevada USA determined to "see them aliens!" It seemed to come out of nowhere. Matty was living a non-descript life running a vape stand at a shopping centre when he happened to come across Joe Rogan's interview with Bob Lazar; I have covered this in full myself in the background link below. He wrote something on a shitposting website about it almost as an afterthought, not intending for it to become what it did. It blew up overnight. Matty's mother was shocked by her son's unintentional call to arms. An entire community grew up within the next three months with different people proposing frolics and tactics, again in a half-humourous way that's typical of the internet. Even celebrities like Elon Musk and Miley Cyrus joined in on the fun. Plans were drawn up for the gathering. But it didn't stay fun for long. All kinds of problems emerged such as the sheer logistics of hosting a million people in a very remote and inhospitable area, making sure they had enough food, water and fuel to travel. The government became very concerned. The Nevada Test and Training Range Groom Lake facility is one of the most secretive places on earth. Its defenders will use deadly force if necessary should a large number of people attempt to invade it. That's when the brakes went on; potential attendees started dropping out and there were attempts to cancel it. Joerg Arnu of the Dreamland Resort website, who lives in Rachel, was one of the most vocal naysayers. The movement divided and the usual anonymous threats started circulating. The police were very concerned and Nevada declared a state of emergency. The FBI got involved, and not Mulder and Scully; real life "mean dudes". Matty was very perturbed by all this and took personal steps to deescalate the situation. He rebranded the meme from a raid into an outdoor party and festival called "Alienstock". The problem was that this new project was going to be a lot more expensive. In the end he had to get the pornography industry to sponsor it. There was also a plan to move the venue to the city of Las Vegas where organization would be a lot easier. At the eleventh hour Alienstock separated into two events, one in Vegas and one out in the desert. On September the 20th the storm broke, but luckily only a few hundred people actually congregated at the base entrance. There were a few arrests. One man was stopped with a collection of guns in the back of his truck. What would he have done if he had managed to carry on? See here for the trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHcLSh9nTD0.

A huge amount of money was lost in security preparations, lawsuits and expenses, but it all ended happily. I think a lot of this trouble was caused by Matty's youth and inexperience. He himself admits he'd never heard of Bob Lazar before he saw him on the Joe Rogan Experience in 2019. I first came across Lazar on television in 1990. I know how the world of UFOlogy works and that there is an entire spectrum of people from the very good to the very bad; highly intelligent to profoundly dim, fairly level-headed to completely insane. I also know that UFO secrecy is a very serious matter and challenging it should be taken with much caution. In my own coverage at the time, I implored people not to approach the Area 51 border. This is also a warning about how modern online culture is a minefield. A slip of a thumb on a touchscreen can light the fuse that leads to a detonation that blows your life sky high. The line between reality and fantasy, necessity and fun, gets blurred. Storm Area 51 is similar to the "Boaty McBoatface" fiasco, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RRS_Sir_David_Attenborough#Naming_poll. As I've said before, it's also encouraging that the notion of the ET cover-up is now so popular. The truth has to come out in the glare of so much public scrutiny. Covid hit a few months later and all this mess was forgotten. Despite the grave dangers of the phenomenon, I can't help feeling disappointed that it never evolved into an annual event.
See here for background: https://hpanwo.blogspot.com/2022/12/area-51-portal.html.