'Storm Area 51' Phenomenon

Hosted byGeorge Knapp

'Storm Area 51' Phenomenon

About the show

When the 'Storm Area 51' Facebook group started as a joke, to gather people on September 20 to meet at the famous military base, little did anyone know that over three million people would sign up, turning it into a viral sensation. Las Vegas ufologist George Harris and Jeremy Corbell, director of the recent Bob Lazar documentary, joined George Knapp to discuss how this folly has turned into a real event. Harris has set up a complete venue for the gathering outside of the base at his business in Hiko, Nevada. He said that, for a fee, there will be water and campsites provided, and believes that the festival could "go on every year." He added that his "number one rule is safety." He is also planning to create a mockup of the gate at Area 51 that participants can "storm" as they take photos.

Filmmaker Jeremy Corbell has become an advocate for the event, which he said could be "a once in a lifetime opportunity to be part of a cultural movement." Corbell, the director of the recent film about Bob Lazar (who claimed to have worked at the base in the 1980s), said he's also helped to choose the speakers for the event, which he sees as "a springboard for UFO transparency." He also lauded the efforts of actor and podcaster Joe Rogan, who recently featured Lazar and Corbell on his program, which directly led to the inspiration for the "Storm Area 51" event, and recalled that Rogan told him they "have an opportunity to alter the conversation in popular culture" about the UFO subject.

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Joerg Arnu is an Area 51 research veteran and founder of the Dreamland Resort, the largest and most comprehensive source for information on Area 51, black projects and the Nellis Air Force Base. Arnu said that when he "first heard about this Facebook event, I thought it would be a few people," but now "it’s a very real movement that we need to prepare for." He says that his fellow residents in Rachel (population 54) are not looking forward to an onslaught of potentially thousands of visitors. The event, known as "AlienStock" is scheduled to take place there at the same time as Harris and Corbell’s meeting, but he says most locals would prefer that the authorities simply close the highway to prevent the invasion of visitors.

Arnu, who has lived in on the border of Area 51 for many years, has also discovered some little-known facts about the security surrounding the base. He said that any unauthorized civilian approach would likely be met by "non-lethal crowd control weapons," which he believed the security forces might think "would probably be a nice test" of the equipment. He has discovered that the area is "a secret facility surrounded by another secret facility" which keeps all prying eyes and cameras at bay. Arnu described the multiple layers of surveillance around the entire base, which would (and has) stopped all attempts at infiltration. He also revealed his research into projects at the base, including the super-secret new B21 bomber, and a possible aircraft project that has achieved visual invisibility.

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