NEED TO KNOW
- The new Netflix documentary Trainwreck: Storm Area 51 revisits the viral Facebook event that began as a joke but quickly gained traction, attracting more 3.5 million people
- “I had no idea what I’d started,” Matty Roberts, the creator of the event, says in the documentary trailer. “It just seemed like a hilarious idea to me”
- Trainwreck: Storm Area 51 premieres on July 29
Netflix is revisiting the viral Facebook event that took the internet by storm.
On June 27, 2019, 21-year-old Matty Roberts created a satirical Facebook event titled “Storm Area 51, They Can’t Stop All of Us.” Intended as a joke, the post invited users to band together and raid Area 51 — a highly classified United States Air Force facility in Nevada — to uncover extraterrestrial life, long rumored to be hidden there.
“I had no idea what I’d started,” Roberts, now 26, says in the trailer for Trainwreck: Storm Area 51, which will premiere on July 29 as part of Netflix’s six-episode Trainwreck documentary series. “It just seemed like a hilarious idea to me.”
What began as a sarcastic question — “What if every fool on the internet converged on Area 51 what would they do? Shoot everyone?” — suddenly seemed plausible after more than 2 million people marked themselves as “going,” and another 1.5 million as “interested.”
“We’re about to storm one of the most heavily guarded military bases in the world,” a man says in the trailer, exclusively shared with People. “Why? Because the internet told us to.”
To coincide with the event, organizers planned a music festival — Alienstock — in Rachel, Nev., the tiny town nearest to Area 51. As the date approached, law enforcement prepared for a potentially dangerous situation. The trailer includes ominous government warnings: “Anyone breaching Area 51 will be shot.” One official remarks, “It’d gotten out of hand, and it had gotten out of hand in a hurry.”
The challenge of preparing the remote town for an influx of visitors was daunting. “Where do you host a million people in the middle of nowhere?” a man asks in the trailer. “We were building a city from nothing.” A woman adds, “We have a restaurant, camping space, and ten rooms. That’s it.”
As the event gained momentum, Roberts grew concerned. “This whole time I’m sitting here with less than a thousand dollars in my bank account,” he says, alongside videos of him being interviewed on television.
In the end, there was no raid and no aliens — just a few thousand attendees, many in costume, celebrating a viral moment in internet history. “We are going to dress as sexy aliens,” a woman says in the trailer. “We’re going out into the desert, and we’re getting probed.”
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