Storming Area 51

An event that appeared in the feed

A public Facebook event titled in the spirit of “Storm Area 51, they can’t stop all of us” appeared on June 27, 2019. According to press reports, several people came up with it, and one of the organizers was reportedly a student from California. It was a joke by private individuals, not an action by any organization.

The description proposed gathering on September 20, 2019 at three in the morning by the tourist center next to the base and then walking together into the closed territory. The authors joked that when fleeing from guards, participants could run in the style of Naruto, which already sounded like a prank. The text was written for laughs, and almost immediately people read it exactly that way, not as a call to real action.

What the picture shows

The image is an aerial photograph: long runways, intersecting taxiways and a group of buildings with hangars at the edge of the desert. The ground is gray-brown, with dry riverbeds and pale patches. In the upper left corner is a TV lower-third: white letters “AREA 51” on a black background, with a light stripe beneath reading “NEVADA.” The view resembles a still from a news segment rather than a specially created template.

The picture works as a landmark. At first glance it is clear which place is meant, and no explanation is needed. That is why this frame often serves as a backdrop for irony: a serious picture and a non-serious caption create a contrast on which the joke rests.

Numbers that did not add up

According to journalists, by July 2019 about two million people had marked “going” on the event, and around another one and a half million “interested.” Different outlets reported different figures. All these counts refer to marks on the social network, not to actual turnout, and they are better read as a measure of interest rather than as the number of people on site.

In July 2019 a spokesperson for the US Air Force warned that any attempt at unlawful access to military facilities was dangerous, and reminded that the territory is used for aviation testing and training. That response showed the call was taken seriously, even though the call itself was conceived as a joke.

When September 20 came, according to media reports, on the order of 1,500 people gathered at festival grounds near the base, while only dozens reached the gates, and several detentions were reported. Figures differ between outlets, so they should be taken as rough benchmarks. The main takeaway is that the number of people willing online turned out to be orders of magnitude greater than the number who actually showed up.

Caption examples

Below are several captions written for this frame. All of them are built on the gap between expectation and reality.

“Came to storm the base, but got stuck in the shawarma line.” An epic intention collides with a mundane detail, and it is funny because of the scale of the mismatch.

“Plan: run in the style of Naruto. Point two: find parking.” The second point deflates the pathos of the first, and the reader gets to the end in a second, because an ordinary detail always looks funnier than a grand goal.

“The aliens promised to get in touch, but they only sent a newsletter.” The irony is built on the expectation of a mystery that suddenly turns into ordinary mail. The more serious the topic, the harder the end of the phrase falls.

“Area 51 is calmly watching us from the screen.” The tone is almost documentary, and the trigger is a gathering in a feed. The laugh comes from the fact that the view of the base from home looks nothing like the caption promises.

Why the picture keeps working

The meme rests on two levels: a loud public idea and a quiet reality in which people came and waited by the fence in the desert. While the idea sounds epic, any small detail against that backdrop becomes precise and unexpected. The serious look of the aerial photo amplifies the contrast.

For your own caption it helps to choose one concrete detail: parking, coffee, a queue, a forgotten charger. That way the joke stays about the situation, not about the people who ended up in it. A short caption works better, because the picture already explains the setting. Using the meme as a call to real action is not advisable: unauthorized entry onto military sites is illegal and dangerous.