https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/201 ... ned-nevada
I 'stormed' Area 51 and it was even weirder than I imagined
Nevada
In the middle of the Nevadan desert, outside a secretive US military airstrip, I found the world’s strangest social media convention.
Dozens of young, good-looking, often costumed people were running around filming each other with semi-professional video rigs. They were YouTube and Instagram stars – or, more often, aspiring stars – here to “storm” Area 51 for the benefit of their followers and free the aliens held captive within. Or at least film themselves talking about it.
Joining them was a ragged army of hundreds of stoners, UFO buffs, punk bands, rubberneckers, European tourists, people with way too much time on their hands, and meme-lords in Pepe the Frog costumes – all here because of the Internet, the ironic and the earnest alike, for a party at the end of the earth...
It seems it ended up breaking into two parties, one near Area 51 and the other in Las Vegas, plus an opportunistic promotion of a local tourist attraction by a third group. And most of the people who went were pretty normal and just having fun. Not too surprising.
Even the Pepe the Frog characters were just a couple of Latino guys from California who seemed to have no idea it's associated in any way with alt-right stuff.
It seems the people guarding Area 51 were mostly having fun, too.
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.
Rotating shifts of law enforcement officers of every variety – sheriff’s deputies, state troopers, game wardens, park rangers – kept a watchful eye on everything. 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.