Back in the happier, carefree days before the pandemic arrived, in the summer of 2019, a group of UFO enthusiasts seized upon a joke posted on a comedian’s Facebook page and began cooking up a plan to “storm Area 51.” That location is, of course, the massive, top-secret military airbase located deep in the Nevada desert near Groom Lake. Online interest in the event swelled massively, with millions of people eventually signing on and indicating that they planned to participate. When the day finally came, the event was mostly a dud compared to the social media billing it received. Roughly 1,000 people showed up, with only 150 or so actually making it to the back gate of the facility. One woman crossed the barrier and was arrested without incident.

But what would have happened if a massive number of people had really arrived and attempted to follow the movement’s motto of “they can’t stop all of us?” What sort of response would they have prompted from local law enforcement or the military, assuming any of them made it past the gates? Paul Seaburn at Mysterious Universe recently dug into a document obtained by a nonpartisan government transparency group (Property of the People) who filed for the release of the information. The report details the degree of planning that went into preparing for an invasion of that type and it shows that the government – at all levels – was taking the threat very seriously. Resources from the FBI and the Department of Defense, as well as state and local police and county sheriff’s departments were all involved. They weren’t fooling around, either. Preparations were in place to execute mass detentions and even the use of deadly force.

“On July 22, 2019, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) held a meeting to discuss the Facebook Page, Storm Area 51. The attendants were local law enforcement, FBI, Nevada DPS, Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and various people/analysis from the Department of Defense, NNSS and base security.”

That’s a powerful group and they weren’t fooling around. They were told that “Area 51 is highly secured with layered intruder countermeasures that have an increasing level of human and automated deterrence including automated deadly force countermeasures.” That’s right – before any human personnel could reach the intruders, they’d be met by automated deadly force deterrents. Robots? “Automated” response makes sense when one gets to the section outlining the threat of CBRNE — Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear, and high yield Explosives.

It turns out that the government was concerned that the invading group might have been infiltrated by terrorists, either foreign or domestic. They were putting resources in place to deal with a worst-case scenario, with instructions for containing the fallout from chemical, biological, and even nuclear weapons attacks. You can read the full document here. It was prepared by the Nevada Department of Public Safety – Investigative Division (NDPS-ID). It discusses armor capabilities, weapons distribution points, and available detention sites with each location’s maximum capacity noted.

The report also covers some of the known Department of Defense capabilities inside the fence surrounding the facility. As noted, these defenses include “automated deadly force countermeasures.” The specifics of those countermeasures are not described.

This is something that I was trying to warn people about in the months leading up to the scheduled event. Many people, including some journalists, have tried to get a peek inside of Area 51 over the years and it never ends well. Upon first making it through one of the gates or over the fence, assuming it’s a smaller group, you would first run into what are generally known as “the cammo dudes.” They are troops wearing camouflage with no patches or indications of who they report to. They drive up in SUVs with weapons drawn and order intruders to get face-down on the ground. If you immediately comply with all of their orders you might be lucky enough to just have them confiscate all of your electronic devices, lock you up in a trailer to be questioned for a couple of days, and then release you with a warning to never return. If you don’t comply, they will simply shoot you. (It’s happened before.)

If you somehow make it past them, you’re faced with dozens of miles of open desert between you and the actual base and airfield. That place is bristling with military aircraft that are loaded for bear and they would be on top of you before you knew what was happening. And as the government report suggests, they were more than prepared to kill anyone who got close.

With all of the government news about UFO investigations making the rounds lately, there clearly seems to be a growing interest in the topic all across the country. Working to promote government transparency in this matter is a great cause to get behind. But taking matters into your own hands by setting out to “find them aliens” at Area 51 remains a terrible idea. Don’t do it. Or if you do, please consider leaving me any bitcoin you happen to have stored up in your will. (You can read all of our previous coverage of the “storm Area 51” movement from 2019 here.)