Storm Area 51 went from 2 million RSVPs to 150 at the gates

In June 2019, a man in Bakersfield, California, made a joke Facebook event about running into a secret Air Force base. Within three weeks, more than a million people had signed up, and by August a rural Nevada county was drafting an emergency plan. The gap between those clicks and the crowd that came is the story.

October 31, 2026 · 4 min read · TruthRanking

The first source

On June 27, 2019, Matty Roberts created a Facebook event titled "Storm Area 51, They Can't Stop All of Us." Roberts lived in Bakersfield, California, and worked at a vape kiosk in a shopping mall, according to Wikipedia. ABC30 called him a 20-year-old college student in July; the Las Vegas Review-Journal gave his age as 21 in September.

The event was set for 3 a.m. to 6 a.m. on Sept. 20, 2019, according to Wikipedia. The plan, as reported by NPR, was for participants to run at the base in the style of the anime character Naruto. Roberts said he got the idea after watching Bob Lazar and Jeremy Corbell on a June 20 episode of The Joe Rogan Experience, Wikipedia reports.

Roberts presented the event as a joke. Speaking to NPR under a pseudonym in July, he said the page was satire, Time reported. Roberts later said the page had about 40 responses three days after he posted it, according to Wikipedia.

How it spread

The event went viral in July. By July 15, more than 1 million people had signed up, NPR reported. An Air Force spokesperson told NPR that "any attempt to illegally access the area is highly discouraged." On July 18, Time counted 1.6 million people marked going and 1.2 million interested.

The totals kept rising. By Aug. 22, the page showed about 2 million going and 1.5 million interested, according to Wikipedia. KTVU reported on Sept. 10 that more than 3 million had marked going.

The joke turned into logistics. Lincoln County, Nevada, which has about 5,000 residents, drafted an emergency declaration in August and asked commissioners to pre-sign it, the Associated Press reported. The commission chairman said 35,000 to 40,000 people might show up. The county had 184 hotel rooms. The FAA issued temporary flight restrictions near the base, and the FBI said it would monitor the situation, according to Wikipedia.

County commissioners approved a festival called Alienstock at the Little A'Le'Inn in Rachel, with camping for perhaps 10,000 people, KTVU reported. On Sept. 9, Roberts withdrew from it. He cited poor planning and safety concerns, and moved his part of the event to a free party in downtown Las Vegas on Sept. 19. The Las Vegas organizer counted about 9,000 RSVPs on its own Facebook invitation, and officials prepared for about 15,000 people, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported. A second festival, Area 51 Basecamp, went ahead in Hiko.

What it became

The crowd was a small fraction of the clicks. Lincoln County Sheriff Kerry Lee estimated about 1,500 people at the festival sites in Rachel and Hiko by late Thursday, Sept. 19, the Associated Press reported. Around 3 a.m. Friday, the hour the event page had set, about 75 people gathered at one gate. Lee said more than 150 people also drove several miles of dirt road to get near the gates, the AP reported.

No one got inside. Wikipedia reports that one person tried to enter and received a warning. The AP reported at least two people detained near a gate. Wikipedia gives six arrests in its text and seven in its summary box, mostly for offenses such as public urination and alcohol violations. Two people were hurt in a rollover crash near Rachel, and Wikipedia lists no deaths.

The bill came later. In December 2019, The Nevada Independent reported that Lincoln County's preparations cost close to $130,000 in supplies, with staff hours that could add $80,000 to $100,000. A state board took no action on the county's reimbursement request at that meeting. In September, the Review-Journal had reported a county estimate of about $250,000 for the Alienstock event alone. The FBI kept an 11-page file on the event, which The Black Vault posted in January 2020.

What the record shows

• An RSVP is a click. Marking an event as going on Facebook costs nothing and commits no one. The 2 million figure measured attention. It was never a crowd forecast.
• The numbers depend on the date. Reported totals ran from 1 million in mid-July to more than 3 million going in September. Quoting one without its date makes it look like a contradiction.
• Turnout counts measure different things. The sheriff's 1,500 counted festival sites on Thursday night. The Nevada Independent later put the total at about 3,000 for the area. The AP's 75 counted one gate at 3 a.m. Wikipedia's 150 counts both entrances. Against 2 million going, about 150 at the gates is roughly 1 in 13,000.
• Early reports drifted. ABC30 quoted Roberts as saying the event had more than 1 million interested three days after he created it. Wikipedia cites Roberts putting the count at that point near 40. Both figures come from the same person, so they cannot confirm each other. NPR and Time both place the million mark in mid-July.
• Arrest totals vary by report. Early AP copy reported at least two people detained. Wikipedia's own text and summary box give six and seven arrests. Detentions and arrests are different counts.

How to trace a claim like this

1. Start with the first source. Find the original event page, its creation date and the creator's stated intent. Our guide to finding where a claim started walks through it, and the first source entry explains why it matters.
2. Ask what the number counts. A Facebook RSVP, a hotel booking and a person at a gate are different units. Name the unit before comparing figures.
3. Attach a date and a place to every figure. "2 million going" on Aug. 22 and "75 at the gate" at 3 a.m. on Sept. 20 are both checkable.
4. Note who did the counting. A sheriff's estimate, a reporter's headcount and an organizer's RSVP list rest on different methods. Repeating one outlet's figure in many outlets is not new evidence.
5. Follow up after the event. The county's costs surfaced in December, months after the headlines. More cases like this are in our guide to jokes, hoaxes and lies that became movements.