At Area 51, Plenty of Invaders, No Aliens - area 51.jpg

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OUTSIDE AREA 51, Nev. — The alien invasion was underway, and David Day wanted no
part of it.

Some 3,000 visitors were beaming into his tiny hometown this weekend, snapping
selfies outside the secretive Area 51 military test base, running through
sagebrush in alien costumes and dancing to throbbing club beats as part of a
viral online joke bewitched to life.

Mr. Day pointed to the signs nailed to his front gate in Rachel, Nev.,
population 40ish (50 on weekends).

GO HOME. NO ALIENSTOCK.

People in this sparsely populated expanse of scrub desert and sun-blasted
mountains have gotten used to the conspiracy theorists and U.F.O. chasers who
make the two-hour drive from Las Vegas hunting for an extraterrestrial truth
behind the secrecy and security of Area 51 — and leave with nothing but an alien
tote bag or a roll of little-green-man toilet paper from the souvenir shop.

But in late June, law enforcement and residents here began bracing for an
onslaught, after 2.1 million people said they would rush the base on foot at an
event organized on Facebook called “Storm Area 51, They Can’t Stop All of Us.”
The event creator later said the whole thing had been a joke, but the online
masses committed to launch anyway.

Residents worried that even a tiny fraction of that many out-of-towners could
lead to chaos, choking the two-lane roads, scarring the desert with trash and
camper trailers, and even draining the water table.

“People in Rachel moved out here to be away from all the crap,” Mr. Day, 61,
said on Friday morning. “We don’t know what to expect.”

But by Saturday, it appeared the invaders had come in peace. Law enforcement
officials said they had made just a handful of arrests, including one man
charged with indecent exposure after relieving himself at Area 51’s security
gate.

Most people were heeding the warnings from county sheriffs, the state police and
the Air Force not to assault the gates of a heavily guarded military base. At 3
a.m. on Friday, about 150 people made the nine-mile drive up a dusty road and
surged toward the back gate, but mostly just laughed and pantomimed an invasion.

The police officers stationed just outside the back gates laid down the ground
rules — Do not cross that line. Watch out for rattlesnakes — and politely
deflected selfie requests from hundreds of people who drove up throughout the
day.

When a green alien asked if he could get a photo of one of the officers
pretending to handcuff him, the officer offered these terms: “Once the handcuffs
go on, they don’t come off.” The alien demurred.

“They’re hiding something,” said Noah Nelson, 16, who drove from Alberta,
Canada, and took part in the storming-not-storming. “Maybe it’s aliens.”

“Or the moon landing set,” his brother, Austin, 21, said.

Like a lot of people here, they were joking. Sort of. A few visitors in alien
goggles said they accepted the reality that Area 51, part of the Nevada Test and
Training Range, had been used to develop spy planes, not hide alien spacecraft.
But like the “X Files” poster said, they wanted to believe.

“We just wanted to see people like us,” said Mike Main, who drove with his
mother from Tampa, Fla.

While some local residents spent the weekend pounding No Trespassing signs into
the ground and stringing plastic webbing around their trailer homes, Don
Williams said he had been won over by the visitors, who had arrived from as far
as Massachusetts and even Australia.

“I love it,” Mr. Williams, 54, said as he and his brothers built a green
concession stand — Outpost 51, obviously — on their property.

As one of the very few black residents within 50 miles, Mr. Williams said, he
remembered feeling like a visitor from another world when he first moved to
Rachel 25 years ago, homeless and looking for any place where he could find
shelter and a job.

He now works on an alfalfa farm outside of town and helps care for some of
Rachel’s older residents, including his 78-year-old mother, Lula Fike, who moved
out here three years ago. On Friday, Ms. Fike parked her scooter along the dusty
frontage road to watch people arrive in spacesuit costumes, foil hats and
just-printed T-shirts declaring they had Stormed Area 51 (a bargain at $30).

“I don’t think they’re looking for trouble,” Ms. Fike said. “But I know how to
shoot a gun, and I’ve got weapons in my house.”

For days, the interlopers have been streaming into town in camper vans and RVs,
motorcycles and in some cases cramped two-door sedans that barely made the drive
from Fort Worth. Since there are nearly no hotels for 50 miles, they set up
tents in the dirt, bargained with residents for a bedroom in a trailer and
rented $80-a-night camper spaces. Some just pulled onto a patch of empty land
and slept under the stars.

Retirees who roam the country said they had detoured to Rachel and the nearby
Hiko, Nev., home to the Alien Research Center, where another weekend event
featured music and speakers steeped in the search for intelligent life and the
history and lore of the military base.

Twenty-somethings who had driven from Los Angeles said they were sick of
hyper-commercial concerts and festivals, and liked being able to pull into a
dirt lot where music was blasting from stage and people were lining up for
pancakes outside one of the few businesses in town, the Little Al’E’Inn.

“We don’t have a Woodstock,” said Seth Carlson, 32. “I can’t tell my kids I
didn’t make it to Area 51. This is history.”




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