What happens if you breach area 51

Its purpose has always been to "advance military science and technology faster and further than any other foreign power's in the world", Ms Jacobsen said. Its veil of secrecy leads others to different conclusions.

As Mr Roberts' Facebook event demonstrated, Area 51 remains a magnet for alien conspiracy claims. Mr Lee said an additional officers and paramedics are being brought in from across Nevada.

Usually, only 26 officers are at his disposal for the entire 10, sq mile 27, sq km county. Resources are being diverted from multiple local, state and federal agencies, including the FBI.

The FBI, according to Mr Lee, is gathering intelligence on "the numbers that may be coming to these events". If top-end estimates prove accurate, Lincoln County's population around 5, would increase fold overnight. In Rachel and Hiko, Mr Lee said, the amenities would be insufficient.

Aside from a few shops and a hotel, their medical, restroom, gas and internet services are non-existent or patchy at best. A statement on Rachel's website predicted that Alienstock would be "Fyre Festival 2.

Fyre Festival, held in , was billed as a glamorous party in the Bahamas, but ultimately promised more than it could deliver. Some believe that Alienstock could suffer a similar fate. Earlier this week, Mr Roberts officially severed ties with Alienstock, citing fears of a "possible humanitarian disaster".

Former Alienstock organiser Frank DiMaggio also distanced himself from the festival. She told KTNV she has paid for security, toilets and paramedics and, on Monday last week, announced 20 bands and two comedians on the line-up.

When asked if she had any regrets, Ms West broke down in tears on camera. Organisers of the second event, a two-day gathering of "believers", UFO experts and musicians at the Alien Research Center in Hiko, seem more sanguine.

Mr Wright, 49, said there's a "fair amount" of public space for tents, while water, electrical and sanitary needs are covered. There are a few small homes and trailers, and a single prominent business, but for the most part, Rachel is a large swath of dirt, with a view of the Tikaboo Valley mountains in the distance. Alien-Stock hardly changed that scenery. Entering Rachel at the start of Area 51 weekend, it was clear the event would not be a gigantic dance party in the desert.

Scattered across the open expanse of fenced-in dust were people of all ages mostly men, mostly white , many of whom had set up their own outdoor activities to keep themselves occupied. Twenty-somethings threw hatchets at a haphazardly constructed wooden target.

A group of friends played a game that resembled oversized beer pong, replacing the cups with garbage cans and the ping pong ball with a basketball.

It tasted exactly as I remember it tasting in college. The only trees in Rachel, it seemed, surrounded this small hotel, owned by a woman named Connie West. No one considered this very DIY weekend a success more than West, who became the de facto organizer of Alien-Stock after Roberts changed his plans.

West was painted as both a victim and a villain in the run-up to Alien-Stock. Roberts said he feared that Rachel would be overwhelmed by people who wanted to see a meme come to life. Residents did too, urging West and Roberts to call it off. Yet West insisted that the event would continue when asked by the Associated Press one week before Alien-Stock was scheduled to begin. A cease-and-desist letter came soon thereafter, with Roberts demanding that West stop using the Alienstock name, and West pressing onward with the hyphenated Alien-Stock.

I saw this Beetle a handful of times throughout the weekend, always parked in different spots; I never did catch Connie at the wheel. Not that there was much music anyway. On Friday afternoon, a band called Wily Savage played for a small crowd on what was otherwise a stage that held nothing but a turntable and laptop. Though 20 bands had reportedly signed on to perform, only one actually showed up. He first came to Area 51 on a day trip in , driving out from Las Vegas.

He wanted to make his findings, unlike pretty much everything else about Area 51, public. Thus was born DreamlandResort. Today, the website is a sprawling operation: It has extensive history sections, pilot audio captured on scanners, satellite images Arnu commissioned, trip reports, maps, and panoramas taken from the one mountain peak—Tikaboo—from where you can see inside Area Around , he actually live-streamed a broadcast from the top of that mountain, relaying his radio transmission to the radio of a friend in Rachel, who had an internet connection and put it online.

Perhaps most importantly, though, DreamlandResort. Soon after Arnu started it, the forum became the go-to gathering place for Area 51 researchers. The curious passed knowledge of the site by word of mouth, email chains, and AOL message boards. The site also showed up higher in search results back then than it does now.

Trendy, you know, base-raiding. When I first met Arnu, in the fall of , I'd asked him if he'd be willing to drive me around the Area 51 perimeter and do an interview for a UFO culture book I'm writing. We spent a day cruising close to the security guards' Ford Raptor trucks, talking not at all about the ET narratives that largely trace their origin back to one man, Bob Lazar, who in the late s claimed he worked on reverse-engineering an alien craft and whose story has holes like those nuclear tests used to blast into the ground nearby.

Arnu is more intrigued by the verifiable tales told over the scanner in his Chevy Tahoe, revealed in satellite images, and detailed in declassified documents. He collects stories from the RoadRunners , a group of former Area 51 employees who meet biennially in Las Vegas to discuss the glory days.

He linked up with them early in his Dreamland career. At the end of the road was a drab military checkpoint flanked by concertina wire and threatening signs. The sign prohibiting photography was clearly a dead letter. They seemed relaxed, though, and looked like they were having as good a time as the ostensible Stormers.

After all, this was an excuse for them to hang out at Area 51, too. To my knowledge, no one actually raided Area 51, besides the two Dutch YouTubers who had tried to sneak through the perimeter two weeks earlier and ended up in jail instead. In addition to YouTube vloggers and Instagram influencers, there were more than a few actual journalists. Watching them scurry around diligently with tape recorders reminded me that I needed to find a Quirky Character who could give On-Scene Color.

A talkative UFO buff would be ideal but the other journalists had already claimed most of the good ones. The vloggers loved them, and the Pepes enjoyed mugging for the cameras. Under their frog heads, the Pepes were two young Latino guys from California.

The other nodded in recognition but claimed he just thought the symbol was fun. Tendrils of fog hung over Alienstock. The temperature was dropping fast and the sun was low and pink in the sky. The sunset was sublime but I had a long drive to my motel ahead and a sick feeling that I should have left half an hour ago. I bade farewell to the history podcaster. He reminded me that the area was open grazing land. It was time to get back to civilization, I decided.

Or at least Las Vegas. I stopped at the gas station in Alamo, near Rachel. The town felt hungover, and it still had a day to go. Most of the locals seemed unsure quite how to feel about the whole thing. It was a boon to the local economy, yes, but also a financial disaster for the county government. There were rumors that the district attorney was planning to sue Connie West, or Matty Roberts, or even Facebook.

Most, though, just seemed excited at the idea that their corner of the world might become something bigger than a gas stop on the way elsewhere. I 'stormed' Area 51 and it was even weirder than I imagined.