Photo: Mario Tama/Getty Images
Ninety miles northwest of the Las Vegas Strip, a dirt path veers off Highway 375 into the barren high desert. Called Groom Lake Road, it was unmarked on maps for decades. Even today there’s no sign, but most who make the turn at the base of Hancock Summit know exactly where they’re heading. The 14-mile stretch leads to the south gate of America’s worst-kept secret. It’s been referred to as Dream Land, Waterdown Strip, Paradise Ranch or simply “The Box,” but you probably know it as Area 51.
The approach to Area 51.Jordan Runtagh
Strange plants start to appear as we proceed down Groom Lake Road, and we pull over to take a closer look. Tryon tells me these are mutated Joshua Trees, stick straight at the base rather than the bush-like healthy variety. He says it’s a result of the atomic blasts that occurred at the Nevada Test Site, some 35 miles downwind, where at least 100 nuclear weapons were detonated between 1951 and 1962. “There was a lot of fallout that came through here” he says matter-of-factly. I look at my dust-covered shoes and wonder if they should be placed in a HAZMAT bag. Tryon senses my concern and assures me there’s nothing to worry about.
Mutated Joshua trees.Jordan Runtagh
The BBC got off comparatively easy in terms of camo dude justice. Former guardFred Dunham told National Geographicthat if anyone “demonstrated they were going to try to penetrate, [base management] gave me the all-clear to waste them.” It’s rare but fatalities have occurred,most recently in January 2019, when an unnamed man holding an unidentified “cylindrical object” was shot after an eight-mile car chase inside the restricted site. For years, signs lined the perimeter advising“use of deadly force authorized,”but the ominous warning has been left off the latest signage.
Security measures at the Area 51 perimeter. Note the white “camo dude” truck on the hilltop.Adventure Photo Tours
The newly-constructed gate at the Groom Lake Road entrance of Area 51.Jordan Runtagh
“No red dots on your shirt,” Tryon jokes, “so far so good.” The military facility is some 20 miles beyond the gate, but obviously I’m not getting any closer than this. For all intents and purposes, I have just stormed Area 51.
• • •
It was purely a joke, the kind of thing one posts at 2 a.m. to amuse friends. But something about the mix of hilariously straight-faced stupidity, F—k The Man brashness, and squint-and-it-almost-works reductive logic formed the perfect storm of internet virality. On July 2, the event was shared to Reddit, the so-called “front page of the internet,” where it began racking up a huge response. Within days it had snowballed into international news. By August more than 2 million people had pledged to attend the event, with more than a million more saying they were “interested.” I may or may not have been one of them.
“Dude, I was super giddy when it first took off, because I had never made a post that had gone that far,” Roberts tells me. “And my page only had about 62 likes before the event actually took off. So when I saw that this thing reached over 10,000 people, three days into it, I got super excited. I was sending screenshots to my buddies. It was just pure excitement.”
Matty Roberts.Ethan Miller/Getty
The Air Force was less than giddy about the whole thing. “The United States Air Force is aware of the Facebook post,” USAF. press officer Laura M. McAndrews told PEOPLE in a statement. “The Nevada Test and Training Range is an area where the Air Force tests and trains combat aircraft. As a matter of practice, we do not discuss specific security measures, but any attempt to illegally access military installations or military training areas is dangerous.” In other words, do not test the camo dudes.
The enormity of the situation became obvious to Roberts when the FBI showed up at his house one day, regrettably not in full Men in Black regalia. “They were dressed casual, just like you and me,” he says. “I had no idea that they were the FBI until they presented their badges. And even then, I was a little skeptical about it. I called the Sacramento office, just to verify that they were real agents, and they were. So I let them in, chatted with them for about 90 minutes, answered all their questions. They were concerned about me getting death threats. Mostly they were just trying to make sure that I’m not a terrorist.”
The USAF and the FBI made clear what common sense had already indicated: no one would be getting anywhere near Area 51. But both Roberts and the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Department were already preparing for the possibility of people not understanding — or caring — that it was all a joke. Even if a fraction of the two million (not counting the extra “interested” million-plus) made the trek, that still meant thousands stranded in a hostile environment, dangerously close to a top secret military base. The solution came in the form of a music festival, stocked with food and shelter to keep everyone safe, and far enough away from the base perimeter to ensure no one trespassed. Thus was born Alienstock, slated for Sept. 19 through Sept. 22.
The biggest event that Matty Roberts had organized up to this point was a rave back in Bakersfield, which had attracted about 350 people. Now he was working on a significantly larger scale with significantly less resources. The learning curve would be steep. The town of Rachel, Nevada, 27 miles south of Area 51, had been chosen as the de facto venue, given its status as the closest inhabited place. But its proximity is about the only thing it had going for it as a festival site. With a population of 54, Rachel boasts little more than the Little A’Le’Inn, a restaurant, bar, gift shop and 13-room motel that caters to particularly hearty UFO tourists. The nearest grocery store and gas station are more than 50 miles away, and the nearest hospital is all the way back in Las Vegas, a two-hour drive. Cell service is nearly non-existent. Emergency medical services are run purely on a volunteer basis. The town doesn’t even have a post office or a fire department, let alone the infrastructure to support thousands of inexperienced city dwellers expecting to party all weekend.
Rachel, Nevada. Population: 54.Bridget Bennett/Getty Images
Roberts initially partnered up with the Little A’Le’Inn owner Connie West to act as an on-the-ground planner and coordinator, but most of Rachel’s inhabitants weren’t enthused. “The locals are not on board, nobody asked us, and we don’t appreciate anyone threatening to take over our town,” Joerg Arnu, a resident who runs the town’s website,told TIME in August. “I’ll do anything in my power to prevent this…[Rachel] is going to get destroyed.” West herself wasn’t without misgivings. “I’m just as terrified as they are,” she said in reference to her neighbors. “I live here too, and I’m just doing my best.” In a bizarre twist,the tourism board for the nation of Belizetook pity on Rachel’s citizens and offered them a free trip to their country in order to escape the chaos.
The Lincoln County Commission took a similarly dim view of the proceedings, but ultimately gave their conditional approval for Alienstock. Far from a vote of confidence, it was a case of begrudgingly bowing to the inevitable. “The county feels like if they didn’t approve the event, it doesn’t matter,” Lincoln County Sheriff Kerry LeetoldThe Atlantic. “The people are coming anyway.” Lest anyone think they were gung-ho about the whole thing, they pre-signed a declaration of emergency just to be on the safe side.
To assist with planning, over half a dozen agencies at the local, state and federal level were called in, including the Las Vegas Police, the Nevada Department of Public Safety, and the state Highway Patrol. Sheriff Lee ordinarily has only 26 officers at his command to oversee the entire 10,000-square-mile county, but he’d enlisted 150 officers and 300 paramedics from across the state. A desert command post was assembled, complete with trailers, satellite phones and even cell boosters from Verizon. Four-thousand gallons of fuel were transported in for emergency response teams, and a plan was implemented for airlifting emergency medical cases. To cope with the disturbingly low toilet-to-person ratio, a venerable village of porta-potties was assembled.
The Alienstock command post on the outskirts of Rachel.Bridget Bennett/Getty Images
The planning did little to allay the fears of Rachel’s natives. A message shared on the town’s website made it clear that “in the absence of law enforcement, local landowners will step up to protect their property.” Even Roberts started to get cold feet, and on Sept. 9 — 10 days before Alienstock was set to kick off — he announced that he was pulling out. “Due to the lack of infrastructure, poor planning, risk management and blatant disregard for the safety of the expected 10,000+ AlienStock attendees, we decided to pull the plug on the festival,” Roberts and his team announced ontheir own AlienStock website. “We are not interested in, nor will we tolerate any involvement in a FYREFEST 2.0.” The following day he shared that he had signed on for a less-risky alternative, The Bud Light Area 51 Celebration, scheduled for Sept. 19 at the Downtown Las Vegas Events Center. “That was definitely the right decision,” Roberts tells me. “And I have no regrets there whatsoever.”
The move left a bad taste in the mouths of the Lincoln County dwellers who’d spent money and time on a scheme that had essentially been Roberts’ doing. The Little A’Le’Inn contingent was especially aggrieved, and Connie West quicklyput out a statementpledging her intent to hold Alienstock on her 30-acre property at the Inn. Robertsresponded with a cease-and-desistthat claimed her event was “in absolutely no shape to proceed,” leading to an ugly back-and-forth in both the press and the courts. West’s unshakable show-must-go-on attitude had less to do with a rabid passion for aliens and more to do with financial necessity. In tearful interviews she claimed that she’d paid thousands out of pocket for security and medical services, and already sold hundreds of spots for camping and parking. “No matter what it’s going to happen, there’s nothing I can do to stop it,”she told a reporter for KTNV News. (Westultimately filed a lawsuitagainst Roberts and his associates alleging, among other things, breach of agreement.The attorney for Roberts’ organization, Mitchell Bisson of Callister Law Group, disputes almost everything alleged in her complaint, andfiled a countersuit of their own“for their blatant and continued infringement of the Alienstock trademark, as well as the many defamatory statements being made about my clients.” The cases are still pending.)
Roberts may also face heat from the Lincoln County District Attorney. “The county could be spending upwards of a quarter of a million dollars and that’s not including the salaries of all these 300-plus first responders that are coming here.” SheriffLee toldGizmodoprior to Alienstock. Though the D.A. has hinted they may pursue legal action against Facebook, Lee says he holds Roberts personally responsible for the logistical headaches. “Matty Roberts is the one that started this on Facebook … He’s already told people that this is quote-unquote ‘his event.’ He told some of the other event promoters that this was his event. And so I guess if it’s his event and he’s taken ownership of it, then we know where legal action should go toward. I’m not an attorney, but that is what Lincoln County district attorney is saying.” (As of December 2019, no such action has been taken.)
Despite the legal threats hanging over his head, Roberts was ecstatic when I spoke to him. It was the day after the successful Bud Light Area 51 Celebration, and he was still riding high. “It was absolutely freaking amazing. I had the time of my life out there,” he said. “The crowd just loved it, man. The alien theme was just perfect. And everybody was dressing up.” Roberts plans to take the show on the road and develop an Area 51-themed musical production, akin to Warped Tour, Ozzfest and the Electric Daisy Carnival. “Honestly, at this point, man, I’m a professional partier,” he tells me. “I know there’s a lot of people that wished that they could have attended this party but couldn’t because of travel. So why not just take the whole show and travel with it?”
Surprisingly, Roberts doesn’t consider himself a hardcore alien truther. “I already knew about the mystery surrounding Area 51 and aliens. Just very basic stuff you get watching the History Channel late at night. But after the thing took off, it’s been a really interesting rabbit hole to dive down. All the mystery, the stories, the tall tales — it’s cool. I think aliens are out there somewhere, but I don’t necessarily believe that they’ve visited us.”
Full disclosure: I did not personally attend The Bud Light Area 51 Celebration. In the parlance of the times, I want to see them aliens — or at least try as hard as humanly possible. I knew I had to go a hell of a lot farther than Downtown Vegas.
Area 51 is a minuscule portion of the Nevada Test and Training Range, the largest government-controlled land parcel in the United States. At 4,687 square miles, the NTTR is slightly smaller than the state of Connecticut and serves as the U.S. military’s top secret playground. By all accounts, Area 51 is where the really expensive toys are kept. In the grand tradition of government secrets, its location was officially a dark spot on the map for decades. The CIA didn’t acknowledge its existence until June 25, 2013, in response to a Freedom of Information Act request submitted eight years earlier.The release includeda summary of some early projects developed at the base, as well asa map of the area.
In late 1955, President Dwight Eisenhower signed Executive 10633 Order to restrict the airspace above the base. In December 2013, PresidentBarack Obamabecame the first president to utter the phrase “Area 51” publicly. What occurred at Groom Lake during that 58-year period is, to put it mildly, hazy. The development of the U-2 was declassified in 1998, as was the development of the A-12 Oxcart spy plane in 2007. SR-71 Blackbird supersonic reconnaissance jets, as well as stealth fighters like the F-1117A and the B-2 were all tested at the site. In addition to building their own technology, technicians at Area 51 also studied and reverse engineered a number of captured Soviet aircraft, notably the MiG-17 and MiG-21. But from the late ‘60s onward, almost nothing is known about the Groom Lake programs. To this day, they remain classified.
The Area 51 facility lies adjacent to the dry bed of Groom Lake.DigitalGlobe via Getty
These days the authorities have grown more lenient with their imaging restrictions. Representatives for Maxar Technologies, an agency that provides satellite photos used on Google Maps, confirmed to me that their pictures of Area 51 are indeed the real deal. They reveal the immense development since the early “Paradise Ranch” days, including an impressive array of hangers and runways. But it’s not all business; a baseball diamond, tennis courts and a jogging track are also visible from the photos. According to former staffers, the base also featured (at one time or another) a small movie theater, bowling alley, gymnasium and a bar.
The top secret baseball diamond and tennis courts of Area 51.Google Maps
While there are many high-security government facilities in the U.S., none can match Area 51’s otherworldly mythology. According to journalist Annie Jacobsen, a longtime a national security reporter, Pulitzer-prize finalist and author ofArea 51: An Uncensored History of America’s Top Secret Military Base, the steady stream of experimental aircraft originating from the Groom Lake site is the simplest explanation for the now-legendary reports of UFO sightings in the area. “In the mid-1950s, civilian aircraft flew between 10,000 and 25,000 feet,” she says in a phone interview. “Quite low, right? So, imagine being a civilian, looking up and seeing an object flying at 70,000 feet in the air.” These sightings usually took place in the evening, when the setting sun reflected off the craft’s silver wings, creating the effect of a fiery bolt moving across darkened the sky. “Not only that, the U-2 had this massive wingspan that made it look like a flying cross. What could a civilian possibly think, other than that is an unidentified flying object? Which it actually was: It had not yet been identified.”
One could assume that Area 51’s unshakable place in popular consciousness relies on decades of apocrypha, morphed and expanded in the collective imagination. But the truth is even stranger: Area 51’s reputation as the government’s secret alien store can be traced to one man, a physicist named Bob Lazar. For good or ill, everything we know — or at least think we know — about the base is largely because of him.
Lazar’s interviews shattered network viewership records and his story quickly spread across the globe. It marked the first time that the vow of silence surrounding Area 51 had been publicly broken. “I think that Bob Lazar absolutely deserves credit for being the origin point of the public fascination with Area 51,” Jacobsen says. “Before that, it was a very elite place within the secret government agencies that worked there. There were very high-profile programs going on there, so it was well known within the community, but certainly not outside the community of people with top secret clearances who’d been invited there. Bob Lazar changed all that with these interviews.”
During his onboarding, he says he was placed into a small conference room and given upwards of 120 briefings to read through, “essentially a brief synopsis on some of the projects that were going on there.” The documents purportedly told him that the craft he was to examine originated from Zeta Reticuli, a binary star system located approximately 39.3 light-years from Earth. “I was completely shocked, I couldn’t believe it,” he said onEyewitness News. “It was a science dream.” The briefings also allegedly contained what appeared to be autopsy photographs of an alien. “A bust shot essentially, of head, shoulders and chest…The chest was cut open in ‘T’ fashion and one single organ was removed,” he said in a1997 interview with the SyFy Channel. “This was totally unrelated to anything I was doing, but from that photograph it looked like you see in UFO lore as the typical grey [men].”
Elsewhere in the briefing, Lazar claims to have read that extraterrestrial beings had resided at S4 until a violent altercation that occurred in 1979. “Allegedly there was some sort of information exchange going on where there were actual live aliens at the facility,” he told the SyFy Channel. One day, security guards with sidearms attempted to enter the quarters where these creatures were being held. “If they were to enter the area the bullets would have detonated,” Lazar explained. “And supposedly one of the creatures tried to stop the security personnel from entering and a fight ensued.” The security guards, he says, were all killed. “They died of head wounds, and that’s all I heard of that story.”
He also claims that his own predecessor met an untimely end. “I was told that I was hired to replace one of a couple [of] people that were killed while working on one of the reactors from one of the craft … They cut open one of the reactors and the device exploded, killing both of them. Apparently the detonation from the explosion was fairly large. It would have rivaled a small tactical nuke.” According to Lazar, the incident was passed off as unannounced nuclear test.
Lazar says he worked at S4 sporadically, studying power and propulsion of the crafts, between December 1988 and April 1989. It wasn’t until his third visit that he saw one of the discs with his own eyes. He estimated the vehicle, which he dubbed “The Sport Model,” to be approximately 50-feet in diameter and made of a metallic substance. Cold to the touch, “it had no seams; it was as if it was injection molded from one giant die.” Initially assuming this was merely another government prototype, he entered the disc and noticed that the seats were distressingly small, more suited to a 6-year-old child.
Lazar claims to have witnessed only one close range test flight, which took place inside the hanger at S4 just before sundown. “It was a low performance test,” he told SyFy. “The craft lifted off the ground, virtually noiseless other than a small corona discharge at the bottom of the craft indicating the presence of high voltage. That dissipated at about 30 feet and it stood there completely silently. It moved over to the left, to the right, and sat back down. That was the entire test. However, that was an extremely impressive test…This was quite a scientific feat to lift something completely silently, under control, and perform a maneuver like that.”
Lazar has frequently denied having a close encounter with an extra-terrestrial, but he does recall one notable incident. Passing a door in a hallway, he says he looked in and noticed two men in white lab coats “looking down and talking to something small with long arms.” Before he could get a better look, he was ordered to keep his head down and continue down the hall. He would never claim that what he saw was an alien (“I think those guys had a doll in a small chair,” he insisted in 2018) but he did say that employees at S4 had a nickname for non-human colleagues: “The Kids.”
In the midst of all this, he appeared on Knapp’s show. Upon arriving home after the broadcast, he says he received a phone call from his former Groom Lake supervisor. “Bob, do you have any idea what we’re going to do to you now?” the man asked. Then the line went dead.
Bob Lazar at a Los Angeles screening of Jeremy Corbell’s documentary on his life, December 2018.Jerod Harris/Getty Images
Given his high-profile appearances on Rogan’s podcast and in Corbell’s documentary, plus the publication of a memoir,Dream Land, it seemed like Lazar was embracing the spotlight at last. I thought perhaps he might be willing to speak with me, at least to publicize his book and expand on his thoughts concerning “Storm Area 51.” I thought wrong. His initial response to my email was cordial, but the correspondence quickly ceased. Perhaps he was busy preparing for a cross-country move, which he’d mentioned in his reply. Maybe he feared the fallout that seemed to accompany any media he does. Maybe he does have something to hide. Maybe he’s just tired and wants to move on.
The skepticism, even among the most ardent alien believers, is justified. To borrow a phrase from Carl Sagan, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and Lazar freely admits he has little back up his story. Many have challenged his claims, accusing him of being everything from a liar and an opportunistic charlatan to a government patsy. Some cite inconsistencies in his story, while others point to elements of his life that appear blatantly false.
The late Stanton T. Friedman, a nuclear physicist and bulwark of the UFO community, was vocal about the numerous discrepancies he says he found in Lazar’s background. Representatives from MIT and CalTech reportedly told Friedman that they had no record of Lazar, despite his insistence that he had received master’s degrees from both. Both Friedman and George Knapp also came up empty-handed when they sought proof of Lazar’s tenure at Los Alamos National Laboratory’s Meson facility, where he claimed to have worked on sensitive defense-related projects in the early ‘80s, prior to his time at Area 51. Further complicating matters is the discovery of a 1982 Los Alamos National Lab phone book.Though Lazar’s name is included, it appears to indicate that he was employed through Kirk-Mayer, a smaller contractor who supplied support staff like data entry personnel, machinists and electronic technicians to Los Alamos. Knapp’s attempt to procure records from Kirk-Mayer proved fruitless. Aside froma 1989 W-2 for $958.11made out to Lazar from the United States Department of Naval Intelligence, there’s not much of a paper trail.
At present, barring an unparalleled leak of classified information, Bob Lazar’s background is essentially unprovable. This is either because he’s as good at deceit as he is at storytelling, or because unknown agencies have taken steps to rewrite history. This is not without precedent. After all, only about a third of the government’s estimated $50 billion annual “black budget” is reportedly dedicated to developing new projects. The rest goes towards keeping secrets secret. Though Annie Jacobsen declines to comment on Lazar’s case specifically, she admits that “the Defense Department is great at hiding things.” She relays the story of Frank Murray, a CIA test pilot at Groom Lake who flew A-12 Oxcart espionage missions. “Frank Murray shared with me a document that shows that in the mid-‘60s, on a certain day, he was at the Pentagon working for General so-and-so. But Frank Murray never set foot in the Pentagon. He was flying the Oxcart over secret places around the world. But according to the Defense Department, Frank Murray was at the Pentagon.”
It’s worth noting that elements of Lazar’s storywouldultimately be corroborated, though with some important qualifiers. For example:
Perhaps the strongest piece of circumstantial evidence to bolster Lazar’s claim is the fact that he knew exactly when and where to observe the night test out in Tikaboo Valley — not just once but three times in a row. But what caused those mysterious lights in the sky cannot be known for certain. They could have been terrestrial-based experimental government aircraft, as confusing to Lazar and his friends as the high-flying U-2s would have been to civilian observers in the 1950s. Some have speculated that they were flashes from particle beams utilized as part of a radar spoofing project. Or they were exactly what Lazar was told they were: spacecraft from Zeta Reticuli.
Annie Jacobsen, who spoke to scores of scientists, engineers, pilots and other employees of Area 51 for her in-depth history of the base, tells me that no first-hand account ever mentioned aliens or their technology. “I have no information to suggest, and no one’s ever stated to me, that anything at Area 51 is out of this world,” she says. “Of all the people I have interviewed, I have never had a single person say that to me. As a historian and a storyteller, I don’t discount what other people say. But those are not my sources.”
The debate surrounding Lazar’s claims is too often broken down into the simple binary of “truth” and “lies.” However, Lazar himself admits that there’s a third category: He’s telling the truth, but it was a truth that intelligence serviceswanted him to believe. He’s said that everything he saw could have been a test to determine his suitability for working on highly classified projects. “They could do all kinds of background checks, but the surest way to see if I was capable of keeping information confidential was to provide me with a story and see if I kept it to myself,” he writes inDream Land.
It’s certainly possible that Lazar was hired as a contractor to perform low-level tasks at highly secure facilities and pieced together odd fragments of insider knowledge to weave a tale of pure fantasy, though to what aim remains unclear. He hasn’t exactly cashed in on his notoriety in the way that he easily could. As far as he’s concerned, the experience at Area 51 ruined his life. “I can make up a better lie, but I have no motivation to lie. This hasn’t helped me out,” he insists in Corbell’s documentary, and to all appearances that’s true. “It’s probably changed every aspect [of my life] for the most part negatively… At this point in my life, I’d probably lean towards not saying anything.”
While some have painted him as a hero alongside whistle-blowers like Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden, Lazar has routinely rejected these characterizations, saying that was merely acting on self-preservation rather than a desire to expose secrets. It’s a choice that appears to haunt him to this day. “I had a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to work at the forefront of science, and I pissed it away,” he writes inDream Land. “Sure, there are the ethical implications of what was going on out there, but at heart, I’m a scientist. I seek knowledge and understanding. All that’s been left in the wake of my time at S4 is other people’s doubts and uncertainties.”
There are many questions surrounding Bob Lazar and his ties with Area 51, but one thing is certain. Without him, Highway 375 probably wouldn’t have been renamed the Extraterrestrial Highway, the town of Rachel probably wouldn’t be a tourist hub, the filmIndependence Daywould probably have been about fireworks or something, and I wouldn’t be driving a hundred miles from Las Vegas into the middle of the desert.
I’m curious how one becomes the go-to guide for America’s most legendary secret site. Raised in Orillia, Ontario, Tryon made a living in the ‘70s as a folk singer in the style of hometown hero Gordon Lightfoot. (To this day he can still sing a formidable version of “Tequila Sunrise” when the need arises.) After coming to the States in the early ’80s, Tryon spent decades running a manufacturing company in Florida, producing aluminum parts for clients that included a NASA rocket scientist. After years of vacationing in the desert with his wife, they dreamed up their new profession while cruising the expanse of U.S. Route 50 — the so-called “Loneliest Road in America” — on their two-wheelers. “It was twilight, beautiful. I’m looking at my wife and she’s looking at me and I said, ‘Obviously our hearts are in the West. Let’s sell the company and move out here.’ And we just did. Popped an ad in the paper and away we went. I don’t regret it a bit.”
For close to 20 years, they’ve led Vegas tourists out of the casino and into the wildest sites the West Coast has to offer. Area 51 is just one of the jaunts on the menu. Through their affiliation withGetYourGuide, they’ve sent untold numbers of tourists on day trips to the Grand Canyon, Death Valley, Zion National Park, Hoover Dam, and even Los Angeles, ferrying their charges in a fleet of cars, limos, jet boats and helicopters. But despite the variety of options, the Area 51 tour has become their signature trek. “I wanted something that was just a little off the wall and different,” Tryon says of it’s genesis. “So I came out and investigated. I said, ‘Yeah, let’s give this a shot.’ It’s been a fun tour for us for all this time.”
I wonder aloud if the Area 51 trip attracts a slightly offbeat crowd; a hint of the tin-foil hat, perhaps, or maybe even folks who believe they’ve been abducted and want to reconnect with their extraterrestrial hosts. I’m disappointed to hear that this is not usually the case. “Most of the people who do the Area 51 tour are highly educated, scientifically minded individuals that say, ‘Let’s see. I’m looking up there at all these stars in the Milky Way galaxy. Many of them have planets circling them, and many of those stars aren’t stars — there are other galaxies outside of our galaxy. Let’s run the math on that. It’s mathematically impossible that there isn’t other life. Not only other life, butlotsof it.’”
A JANET Airlines 737 takes off from McCarran International Airport in full view of the Las Vegas Strip.Wikimedia
Though the 25-minute trip is probably just like any other bland commuter flight, it’s significantly shorter than the multi-hour drive. After a while there’s not much else to for me to do other than count the phenomenal number of police cruisers heading the opposite direction away from Rachel. Clearly there wasn’t much action, and now dozens of cops are returning to headquarters. “Those are all Metro cars! Was anybody watching Las Vegas?” Tryon exclaims. “If you wanted to rob a bank, this would have been the day to do it.” Preliminary news reports indicated that the turnout for the desert festival had been much less than anticipated, with only a few thousand descending on the town like an alien-loving, social media savvy plague. In a twist we probably should have seen coming, millions of people accepted an event invitation on Facebook and then never showed up. “They made such a stink about this,” says Tryon. “’Don’t come, don’t come. You’re going to end up in prison or dead if you try and storm Area 51!’ They scared the life out of a lot of these kids.”
Storm Area 51 Basecamp at the Alien Research Center in Hiko, Nevada.Jordan Runtagh
“Going,” one replies.
“Why?” I ask. They remain silent. I think I know the answer, but I press on. “Too hot? Bands not show up? Lack of turn out?”
“Probably lack of turn out,” the man mutters reluctantly before retreating towards his car. I’d arrived just in time for the event to be canceled. A crowd of a least 5,000 had been expected the night before, but just a fraction of that had come. “We put on a safe event for the people that showed up,”organizer Keith Wright said later that day. “But we had to make the decision today because it costs tens of thousands of dollars to staff each day. It was a gamble financially [and] we lost.”
With nothing left to see, Tryon peels out of the parking lot and points us towards the main event.
The establishment is difficult to miss when you pull into town. In addition to being the only commercial space in any direction for a considerable number of miles, there’s a vintage tow-truck parked out front, carrying a full-sized — and apparently broken down — flying saucer. Upon our arrival, we find a man in an alien mask helpfully gesticulating in the middle of the road. It’s unclear whether he’s associated with the festival or merely a pro bono weirdo, but we follow his lead to a parking spot.
Adventure Photo Touts
But anyone expecting a Fyre Fest redux would be immediately disappointed. Safety and order pervaded thanks to the efforts of the state and local authorities — not to mention the Lil Ale’Inn management, on whose land we’d gathered. The brush behind the main structure had been bulldozed flat and lined with a truly awe-inspiring wall of porta-potties. Festival-goers were freaky in a socially acceptable way, somewhere between Coachella and Burning Man, with a surplus of Grateful Dead shirts and neon spandex onesies.
Mario Tama/Getty Images
Plastic picnic tables served as makeshift concession stands, where enterprising individuals sold Twinkies, Pop Tarts, protein bars and more food stuffs bought in bulk from Costco. Other booths displayed nourishment of the mind, offering self-produced books and documentaries on supernatural phenomena, usually for free. A small bar operated out of the back of a semi truck, and another tent sold water without a price. “Make Me an Offer I Can’t Refuse” dared the sign.
Jordan Runtagh
The Main Stage at Alienstock.Jordan Runtagh
The Nartuo Race Semi-Finals, adult human division.Jordan Runtagh
I ask if Alienstock was everything they dreamed it would be.
“It wasn’t as big as I thought,” she says. “We met a cult leader, though. That was pretty cool.”
I think I know the one she’s talking about. “Was it the guy with the t-shirt that said ‘Let’s Start a Cult’?” I ask — a logical guess.
“No…I want to meethimnow!”
“So there’s another one? What’s the cult?”
“It combines magic and technology or something. It was pretty interesting. They’re giving away DVDs.”
I take a beat to ponder how to respond. Ultimately I go with an all-purpose “cool.”
“Yeah. They’re very open about being a cult.”
Downtown Rachel during Alienstock.BRIDGET BENNETT/AFP via Getty Images
As much as I’d love to stay and hear the music — or join a cult — I’ve got a schedule to keep, and soon Tryon, Leslie and I head back towards the parking lot. On our way, I recognize our hostess, Lil Ale’Inn co-proprietor Connie West, beaming as sheaddressed a handful of press.“I’m proud ofme,” she said. “I’ve never been to a festival in my life, and hell, I pulled it off. It’s been a great learning experience. I’m grateful for the rollercoaster of emotions that I’ve gone through, because without them, we wouldn’t be standing here now. But what makes this special, and a success, is the smiles that people are leaving with, the memories that they have and the friends that they’ve made. That’s what matters.”
The region’s mysterious reputation transferred to the humble postal drop, and “the Black Mailbox” has become Mecca for ET enthusiasts. Many pitch tents and hold all-night vigils, hoping to see what Bob Lazar and Co. claim to have witnessed 30 years earlier. “It’s as dark as the inside of a cow here at night,” Tryon says. “If there’s no moon, it’s black and the stars are so bright, it’s like there’s a net of little light bulbs above you. You feel like you can take a handful of stars right out of the sky.” Lesley has another term for stargazing: seeing the dust. “It just looks like glowing dust or sand out there, wall to wall,” he says.
The Black Mailbox.Jordan Runtagh
The box predictably attracted a larger crowd than usual this weekend. While some left notes and offerings, other fans took a more direct approach and scrawled messages directly on the mailbox itself. I watch a man painstakingly write a poem to his wife on the exterior. When I approach the box to admire his handiwork, I notice another freshly scribbled line: “If you remember Alienstock, you weren’t there.”
In all, an estimated 3,000 made the trip to the desert, nearly a thousand times less than number who responded to the event on Facebook, and one hundred less times than the festival’s namesake, Woodstock. A hundred or so “stormed” (read: stood near) the gate, while the rest partied out in Rachel. They came in peace. TheLincoln County Sheriff reported only seven arrestsfor misdemeanor charges — mostly trespassing, but one Canadian guy was busted for indecent exposure afterpeeing near the Area 51 gate. The handful of injuries were also relatively minor: dehydration, a drug-related freak-out, and two vehicle vs. cow fender-benders.
Revelers storm the gates at Area 51.BRIDGET BENNETT/AFP via Getty Images
The good behavior was not enough to convince Rachel locals to make Alienstock an annual thing.On the town’s website, acampaign to prevent a 2020 reduxof the festival has gained traction.In a lengthy list of grievances, residents claimed traffic and litter caused “significant damage to the desert vegetation and environment” and cited numerous safety concerns. “In addition, we were blasted with absolutely horrible music from amateur bands until the early morning hours,” they added. “We like Rachel the way it is. If we wanted party central, we would have chosen to retire in Las Vegas.” However, they might have some company soon, festival or no festival. “I already have two rooms booked for next year,” Connie West told theLas Vegas Review-Journalin the days following the event. “They said they’re coming even if nothing is going to happen. It will be a do-it-yourself thing again next year, just more organized.”
And now to address the big question: Did I see a UFO? The answer, sadly, is no. I personally saw nothing that would suggest the existence of aliens. I say that with great reluctance. True or false, the tale of Bob Lazar and Area 51 offers hope and a funny sort of inspiration to so many. I’m reminded of words from another (much better) journalist, Hunter S. Thompson, who made a freewheeling trip into the Nevada desert nearly five decades before me. “Myths and legends die hard in America,”he wrote. “We love them for the extra dimension they provide, the illusion of near-infinite possibility to erase the narrow confines of most men’s reality. Weird heroes and mold-breaking champions exist as living proof to those who need it that the tyranny of ‘the rat race’ is not yet final.”
I’m also reminded of words from a sign that hangs over a bank of slot machines at my Fremont Street hotel: “You never know…”
source: people.com
