UFO enthusiasts planning to storm Area 51 could be shot as US Air Force says they're 'ready to protect America and its assets'
The United States Air Force has warned that it is "ready to defend America and its assets" after over a million people joined an event on Facebook to storm Area 51 to "see them aliens."
The event titled 'Storm Area 51, They Can't Stop All of Us' is set to take place on September 20 and has reportedly attracted several alien conspiracy theorists.
"We will all meet up at the Area 51 Alien Center tourist attraction and coordinate our entry," the description of the event states. "If we Naruto run, we can move faster than their bullets. Lets [sic] see them [sic] aliens."
Although it is evident that the event was meant as a joke, sparking multiple memes, it is possible that a few have taken the event in earnest.
Now, the US Air Force, in an effort to thwart such attempts, has issued a stern statement about the event.
"[Area 51] is an open training range for the US Air Force, and we would discourage anyone from trying to come into the area where we train American armed forces," Air Force spokesperson Laura McAndrews said. "The US Air Force always stands ready to protect America and its assets."
'Area 51' is the codename for California Edwards Air Base's highly-classified remote detachment in Nevada, located 83 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
The military base was founded in 1955 as a test site for the Lockheed U-2 reconnaissance plane. Some of the famous aircraft developed at the base include the U-2 spy plane, SR-71 Blackbird, and the F-117A Nighthawk stealth fighter.
However, the location, since then, has become the subject of numerous UFO sightings and people have increasingly begun associating the site with government conspiracies and captive aliens.
What exactly occurs inside the heavy-duty fence at Area 51 has continued to remain a mystery to anyone who does not have a high-level security clearance.
Several conspiracy theorists have claimed that the base is used to research an alleged crashed alien spacecraft at Roswell, New Mexico, in 1947.
The last known person who went to the site to hunt for aliens was shot dead by guards earlier this year in January.
Reports state that he attempted to barge in Area 51, a rare security breach for the site, as Guards and Nye County police chased him at high-speed for about eight miles before he came to a stop and exited his vehicle. The man continued to barge towards the officers with an unidentified cylindrical object and that is when he was shot by one of the guards.
The government, in 2013, admitted that the Nevada base is used as a secret intelligence hub after the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) released an official history of the U-2 and OXCART projects, along with aerial photos of the site.