Original subtitles

Yo! They can't stop us all!

Can't stop us all!

I don't even know why we're here. What are we doing?

I am freaked the crap out.

Dude, I wanna see them aliens!

All right, now the final countdown is on.

Thousands on their way to the Nevada Desert…

…to storm Area 51.

There are loads of cars here, you guys. Loads of cars.

It's the middle of the night,

and we're heading out to the middle of nowhere.

I'm in a van with, like, eight strangers,

and I'm on my way to, like, fucking goddamn Area 51.

I'm the most fucking terrified I've ever been in my goddamn life.

We're about to storm

one of the most heavily guarded military bases in the world.

Our quest continues on foot.

Why? Because the internet told us to.

It's a Facebook event that started as a joke, but now very real.

Tell us the truth! Tell us the truth! Tell us the truth…

Within 30 minutes, there'll be two million people here.

-Really? -Yeah.

Oh, okay. Sick.

-You planning on raiding it? -Oh, absolutely.

Why I got night vision.

This is dangerous. This is a military base. It is guarded.

I repeat. Anybody breaching Area 51 will be shot.

Yeah, like, I'm legitimately-- we're concerned for our safety.

3.5 million people have signed up

to invade the base in search of UFOs.

Tell us the truth! Tell us the truth! Tell us…

We're here to rescue the aliens!

Who's behind this? Some government disinformation plot?

Is it the Chinese?

Tell us the truth! Tell us the truth…

There's so many crazy people on the internet.

There's people who do crazy things.

There's just no way to know whether this is gonna be some dumb joke

or one of the bloodiest massacres in American history.

Line up!

How did it come to this?

-Tell us the truth… -Three, two, one!

We're really asking,

is anyone actually gonna be dumb enough to storm Area 51?

Today is two-for-one on all Christmas cards.

Get them early, make a statement.

Malls are dead nowadays.

The only reason to go to the mall is because you work there.

In 2019, I was 20 years old.

I guess I just looked like some loser at the vape kiosk.

That day, I'm bored to tears.

I'm just sitting there browsing YouTube.

They turned the friggin' frogs gay!

How dare you!

What is the charge? Eating a meal? A succulent Chinese meal?

And I stumble upon this podcast.

Get your hand off my penis!

Two, one, boom. And we're live. For people who don't know the story,

you used to work at Area 51.

It's these guys talking about this top-secret government base.

There's this facility that is in the side of a mountain.

The first inkling I had, there were hangar doors open.

And in the hangar was the disc.

All these underground bunkers and fascinating technology.

They had nine craft altogether.

I thought, "Oh, my God, this finally explains all the flying saucer stories."

It's a wild story. It-- it's fucking nuts.

But it just gets filed into the back of my mind.

My shift ends and went home.

My happy place.

I have this shitposting account on Facebook.

It's great because nobody knows who you are.

You can post just like a digital diary of stupid shit.

-Oh! Oh! -Memes.

Random thoughts that came to mind.

Funny zingy one-liners.

And it's called "Shitposting 'cause I'm in shambles."

That night, I can't sleep. My mind's kind of going.

What is the charge?

When the mind runs free, it can be a powerful thing or a very dumb thing.

Frogs gay!

A succulent Chinese meal!

Help me!

And then it comes to me.

The ultimate shitpost.

This top-secret military base.

-Area 51… 51. -Area 51… 51.

If the government won't tell us anything about it, what if…

…every fool on the internet converged on Area 51?

What would they do? Shoot everyone? Just seemed like a hilarious idea to me.

Jokes are funnier when they're edgy,

so I'd make it sound like a real call to arms.

I just thought it would be a funny post for my page of 40 followers.

I didn't think it'd go anywhere.

Wake up the next morning.

I scroll back through the page.

Check on and see how things are doing.

And I was like, "What the fuck?!"

This is just fucking crazy.

Storm Area 51. Now that's a real cause.

In, like, a three-day span,

there's just all these different people from all walks of life

that have tagged themselves as going.

I'm just an adrenaline junkie.

"There's gonna be a lot of adrenaline at this event."

Like…

It's kind of facts. Like, everybody went crazy.

It was just so many different types of people coming together.

You want "sexy alien"? I've got sexy alien.

Take my Earth virginity.

Area 69.

I'm a soul that normally lives in another dimension, in another realm.

I'm from Adelaide, South Australia, and I was wanting to see some chaos, I think.

Don't ask me why I'm in my bra.

It's a really long story and several margaritas later.

"They can't stop us all." I was like, "Hell yeah, they can't stop us all."

Love the smell of dead alien in the morning.

I'll do anything. You gotta let us know what's in there.

I gotta go. I have to go.

This is going to be in the history books, and I wanna be there for it.

It was unbelievable.

And it was a moment of excitement and panic,

just seeing the sheer amount of people that have,

for some reason, signed up for this event.

I figured I have to tell my mom, give the poor lady a heart attack.

I don't do Facebook, so I don't really understand it.

We were just up around the house.

And he came into the kitchen,

and he's like, "You're not gonna believe this,"

and showed me this event.

Ten thousand people. That's a lot of bodies.

I honestly didn't really know much about Area 51.

I looked it up to see what it was.

Built in 1955, yet there is no official documentation.

The US military's most secretive base.

This is a secret military base, and you told people to go and break in?

Guards are authorized to arrest anyone who crosses.

Get down!

Use of deadly force is authorized.

Police shot and killed a man who entered the federal site

where the government used to test nuclear bombs.

Oh, Matthew. What'd you do?

People might not understand that it's a joke.

You could get in a lot of trouble, you know?

Maybe you should back up a little bit.

I told her the event itself is hosted

by a page called "Shitposting 'cause I'm in shambles."

Like, it's in the name that it is a joke.

But I said, "Okay, Mom. Don't worry about it. I'll solve it."

So I added a line to the description

saying that if we Naruto run, we can move faster than their bullets.

It's a run from anime.

I was just trying to help calm things down,

but the whole thing exploded even more.

Naruto run, Naruto run to Area 51 Too fast!

Naruto run, Naruto run to Area 51

This has gone absolutely nuts!

So let me show you what's going on here.

Before you know it, it's top trending on TikTok, Instagram.

And suddenly, the event page is flooded with all kinds of memes.

Everybody's competing for clicks.

Trust

Oh, my God, these are great.

This one guy had just gone absolutely crazy in Microsoft Paint

and made a battle plan.

Oh, the attack plan.

You've got all these different tribes.

Kyles. Kyles being the first wave.

What's up, ET? You want some?

Fuck you, Dad!

They're the bulky guys, right?

Uh, we've got anti-vax kids.

My body, my choice! My body, my choice!

And then of course, we've gotta send in some Karens.

How dare you! I've been waiting in line for 15 minutes!

Why were the Karens gonna be there? What were the Karens gonna do?

Um, they just wanna speak to the manager.

The Karens.

Yeah, that looks like a pretty well-thought-out plan.

There might be some ex-military personnel behind, uh, this plan.

Oh, my God, it was completely the internet eating itself.

Now I'm suddenly this renegade guy

that's got this group of people where everything I say is funny.

It was just batshit crazy.

I had no idea what I'd started.

We know we can't just walk up to Area 51 alone,

but what if people actually show up?

What's the government gonna do to stop us?

And if they do, what are they trying to hide?

I'm gonna ask people to see what they think.

It was weird. All of a sudden, everybody was talking about aliens.

Back then, I was doing short-form content for Vice Media,

and I was working with this comedian named Dee.

And we thought, "Wouldn't it be fun to do something on this Storm Area 51 thing?"

Aliens are real as fuck.

-Would you date an alien? -Yes!

Put a microphone in somebody's face and be like,

"Hey, I'm talking to you about something weird."

If there are aliens, do you think they're more advanced than we are?

Probably dumb as fuck 'cause we dumb as fuck too.

-Do you have a message for them? -Uh, do you guys have weed?

I couldn't believe there was all this language and culture

that was built around this Facebook event.

You ready for Area 51? Whoo!

Naruto. Naruto. How the fuck do you say that?

Aliens are awesome, and people are obsessed.

There was something unique about this story,

so I had to stay on it.

The almost ingenious thing about this is,

unlike other memes, which have their…

…flash in the pan,

this one has an event.

We're gonna meet there in 72 days.

It becomes this ticking time bomb,

where momentum is gonna just continue to build until that event.

More people are gonna get swept up into this tornado of a meme.

Everyone's just wondering to themselves, like, "How is this going to play out?"

Because 500,000 people have signed up to storm Area 51.

If they did, could the government stop them?

That was our stakes, right?

The military are authorized to use deadly force.

This is an internet craze where people could really get killed.

It just was like, "Oh, my God, what's gonna happen?"

I thought, "For God's sake, this is just a joke."

Nobody's actually planning on going there.

I mean, where the hell even is Area 51?

We're the only place on the highway.

The only bathroom.

The only ones in all of this space.

We have a restaurant,

camping space…

and ten rooms. That's it.

July 11th, our phone started ringing.

Somebody wanted to rent a camping spot.

As soon as I hung up with that person…

…the phone was ringing again.

Can you hold on?

Any time we hung up the phone…

…it was ringing. It was insane.

Everybody was wanting to come, you know, like, the 20th of September.

I thought, "What is going on?"

I ain't got time for that shit.

We have ten rooms. That's it. You can only book ten rooms.

Within 24 hours, we had booked 500 camping spots.

I had no idea what was going on

until a little boy came in and said,

"Ma'am, this guy made this meme."

"Here, look."

And I'm looking at it and I'm like, "This is stupid."

"Who-- who in their right mind

is gonna try to cross the boundaries at Area 51?"

You know, "They're gonna die."

You cross the boundary of Area 51,

you might get shot or gonna picked up by me.

I was raised here in Lincoln County.

Been here pretty much my entire life.

You thought you'd get rid of me. See, you can't.

-You're like a bad penny. -I know.

You discuss with other sheriffs.

They're like, "Area 51? That's in your county?"

"Yeah, that's in our county."

I've got every alien hunter from across the globe that wants to come.

So when my friend texted me and said,

"Hey, have you-- have you seen this, uh, post?"

I thought, "Oh, boy. Here we go again."

"Another one of those wacko things that-- that people say,

and it never really happens."

I didn't really know what a meme was.

I didn't know what the potential of that meme could be.

It wasn't till the days progressed

and-- and things started getting bigger and bigger,

I thought, "Oh, this isn't just funny anymore."

We have less than 12 officers, including the sheriff,

um, to police an 11,000 square-mile county.

We're designed to police 5,000 or 6,000 people.

Yeah, if a tourist gets into trouble, we can run an officer out there.

But once you start talking about multiple people,

even a group of more than a dozen,

you're-- you're talking about a big deal.

And then so when you're talking

about the scale that this Storm Area 51 was at,

then you really get scared.

In viral news…

for decades, Americans have wanted to know

what secrets are contained within the walls of Area 51.

Now the nation's morons have had enough,

and they're going to find out for themselves.

It's like the hype never stopped. It just got bigger and bigger and bigger.

Hundreds of thousands of Facebook users

are signing up all the time…

…exploded into a worldwide phenomenon, and it's growing bigger by the hour.

And of course, at that point, the mainstream media jumped in hard too.

It's interesting how fast the whole thing has taken off.

"Storm Area 51, they can't stop all of us."

Maybe not, but they can stop some of you.

All of a sudden, this is so mainstream that Miley Cyrus is posting about this.

Singer Lizzo and actor Danny Trejo

also have shared their own Area 51 memes.

Billie Eilish.

Elon Musk.

The Jonas Brothers.

Everyone who is something is gonna raid Area 51.

So now the meme has left this small niche internet community,

and it's gone global.

It's gone mainstream. And now there's more intrigue,

and of course, there's more fuel on the fire.

Within a month, it was over a million people.

That to me was, "We're viral-viral." I was like, "Where does it go from here?"

Oh, nice. Was that filmed at Area 51?

Oh, shit.

This has almost a million views and an 81% rating.

Wow! People like the alien sex.

PornHub searches for Area 51 content

went from zero to 160,000 searches in four days.

So the meme got a new mantra. And that was, "Clap them alien cheeks."

I'm trying to clap me some alien cheeks.

You wanna clap my cheeks?

I gotta get my hands on some alien cheeks.

I wanna have sexual intercourse with an alien.

Ah, jeez.

Anytime there's something culturally relevant on the internet,

there's gonna be people who wanna cash in.

You're guaranteed likes. You're guaranteed shares.

Aliens, money, yes, yes, yes!

Like, cash it in.

I saw this as an opportunity.

Okay, I can make my first YouTube video here at Area 51.

I decided to do a TikTok there to promote my, like, acting career and my music.

We knew it would be amazing content.

-It's a hate-free show, God damn it! -What?

We are gonna dress as sexy aliens.

We are going out to the desert, and we're getting probed.

Memes. Porn. Music.

Video content. Celebrities.

Somehow this post that I've created has checked all the boxes.

I've got lightning in a bottle.

I felt like I was standing on the doorstep of fame,

and all you really have to do is ring the doorbell.

Just digging through the Facebook page,

there's a whole litany of messages in here.

And then I saw a message that really stood out.

Saying, "Why don't you throw this little EDM party out in the desert

right by Area 51?"

Drag out a couple generators…

…sound system, and you bring your friends.

So I said, "Fuck yeah, let's do it."

Fuck yeah. Let's do it!

And this guy, he told me, "You wanna hold a party for a million people?"

"There's only one man I know that can handle an event that big."

Disco Donnie presents the movie.

Okay.

My name is Disco Donnie.

Some people call me one of the godfathers of EDM.

I've worked with everybody.

So I was at my place on the beach, and I got this call.

A promoter in Arkansas that I knew

was explaining that this Area 51 post has gone viral.

And he asked me if I wanted to get involved and do a festival.

I was like, "Sure. Uh, when is it?"

And they said, "Well, in September."

I said, "Two months from now? No way. That's crazy."

"Nobody in their right mind would ever try to do that."

Normally, we'd have at least eight months to plan.

And on this one, we only had eight weeks.

And when I looked to see where they were trying to do it,

it was in the middle of the desert.

I knew it was, like, impossible,

but I also didn't wanna be left on the sideline.

This could be it.

I started reaching out to my contacts.

I wanted to make sure that all the infrastructure was in place.

Just everything that you would need for a show.

They had nothing. All they had was a Facebook page.

We only had two things going for us.

Nobody knew who we were, and nobody knew what we were planning.

So I told Matty,

"Don't say anything about this in public until we are sure we can make it happen."

Everybody was trying to reach out, wanted to know who he was.

Whose page is this?

It could be some sort of 300-pound man in his basement.

It could be some hipster from Brooklyn

who was writing some piece for The New Yorker.

We didn't know who this person was.

Who was "I'm shitposting because I'm in shambles"?

I just didn't want him to have negative attention.

I was like, "Matthew, you've gotta be very careful."

"If it goes bad, I mean, they know who you are."

"You're the one they're gonna come after."

"I really think you should stay anonymous."

Then the next morning, I was at home.

And I look out the window, and he's on the news,

running down the street in a costume.

Oh!

He's the 20-year-old college student

behind a plan to storm Area 51.

And I was just like, "Oh, my gosh, Matthew."

It's just meant to be funny. I wanna do something cool.

I was like, "Ugh, Jesus."

Maybe music and art. That's what I'm working on.

I've got all these reporters asking me to be on TV and give them an interview.

And I figured, "When am I ever gonna get this chance again? Fuck it."

So now the meme has yet another meme attached to it,

and it's me.

Oh, my God, I love his outfit. Yes, that's so sick.

It was like, "Oh, yeah, that's the guy."

"It's that guy."

Some random dude

who just thought of a funny concept and wanted to post about it.

I just created a joke while I was playing video games, man,

and it's taken off to this, like, absolutely wild monster.

Man, that guy's a legend. What a legend. I wanna hang out with that guy.

Then it's like…

…you're a household name.

Matty Roberts revealing his identity.

Matty Roberts.

Matty Roberts.

On my Facebook, all the people I went to high school with were like,

"Oh, wow, I was best friends with the Area 51 guy."

"Dude, I had three friends in high school. You weren't one of 'em."

Little kids would fangirl. "Oh, my gosh. It's Matty."

It's like, "This is our leader."

He's like our Moses, you know. He's our guide through the meme sea,

who can dictate what this event is gonna do.

The whole thing was hysterical.

But it was putting the cart before the horse.

Now you told people you're really doing an event.

That put the real pressure on to actually do something.

Clock's ticking, and we don't even have a venue.

Where do you host a million people in the middle of the desert?

It started out as just from a pure stroke of imagination.

Honestly, I was quite annoyed because I thought to myself,

"Do you realize what this could do?"

Um, I don't think he cared.

That punk kid. That's who we were dealing with.

You dress up for the cameras and run around.

Okay, you're having fun with it. Great.

But what it's bringing to my world,

it was a lot.

In Rachel, Nevada, population just 56 people,

visitor numbers are suddenly out of this world.

All we can do is what we can do. Nothing more. Nothing less.

The news media started showing up.

Then they didn't stop coming. It was insane.

I'm thinking, if I ever get my hands on this punk kid,

there's no way in hell he'll ever step foot in my business.

Screw you.

I'm just hyped. It's exciting. Something's happening.

Our plan was to just go out there,

check out a few places in proximity to Area 51.

I'm leaving my wife and family to go to Las Vegas

to do this impossible festival in the middle of the desert

with people I've never even met.

Donnie rented this dark red SRT8 Charger.

Just immaculate.

We started heading out towards Area 51.

I mean, this was into the middle of nowhere.

Once you're driving, you realize Nevada is just a desert.

It's like a scene from a fucking movie.

But I was thinking, like, "Oh, shit, this is bad. This is all bad."

Just imagine you're bringing 10,000 people out here.

You're responsible for them.

My advice was just do the show in Vegas.

But I don't think Matty was really listening.

Area 51 is cool.

Why would you come halfway here when you can go all the way there?

Three hours, I'm starting to think there's nothing out here.

Then we come up, and here's the A'Le'Inn.

I was at my house.

And my niece called me.

"Aunt Connie, that kid who made that meme,

he's standing in the bar and just asked to talk to you." I said, "Oh, really?"

"Oh, I will be right there."

She comes out and looks at me.

"Oh, you're that asshole that started this?"

I'm just like, "I'm so sorry."

I bet you're not.

That was our introduction to Connie. She should have killed us.

And so she sits down.

I was like, "What do you want?"

We're looking for a place to do an event.

"We can have this EDM festival."

"And we'll provide everything."

"The stages

and the entertainment, security and medical."

"The only things that we need you to have is the land and the permit."

I think she realized it could be a good opportunity for her.

If I'm gonna profit, why not?

So I walked them around the property.

Which was just basically, like, a big plot of sand.

This would be the worst place in the whole world to do a festival.

But once he saw that place, that was it.

In the desert right next to Area 51.

It was just a light bulb moment.

Matty was like, "Where do we sign?"

Now I have this insane event that I have to plan for.

I had no idea what I was doing.

No clue.

We thought it'd be easy, just get a couple of speakers, slap them in the sand,

get some generators, and we'd be good to go.

They just had no idea, like, all the stuff that needed to take place.

Now we have six weeks.

That was a really cool moment,

but that was also when all the problems started.

We thought we should have a website.

We called it "Raid Rachel."

Raid Rachel. Really? You're gonna raid our properties?

Now this is something alarming.

We certainly don't wanna be raided.

Out of the blue, I'm getting a call from the Little A'Le'Inn

that they are planning an event in Rachel.

I was completely taken off guard.

They already had the website up, saying we are going to take over Rachel,

and the locals are on board with this.

We were not on board.

How can Rachel,

a town of 25 to 50 people on a good day, host a million people?

How are we gonna deal with it?

This was something that could potentially destroy our town,

and I was not going to let that happen.

Joerg was very vocal.

He was like, "You can't do that."

This is crazy. I'm in disbelief.

He just told me, you know, over his dead body is this gonna happen.

Basically told me to fuck off.

And I knew I had a battle on my hands.

We went out there. We saw this motel,

and I didn't even consider the fact that other people actually live there.

Well, it was all of a sudden, it was gonna be a festival.

Some kind of late night rough-ass party.

The A'Le'Inn was gonna sponsor it.

People in this tiny little town, they live there for a reason.

Now suddenly, some dickhead from California

is bringing a million people over there.

They started having meetings.

At some point, you gotta say, "Wait a minute.

You know, we can't handle this."

I wrote letters to whoever I could think of.

They were hateful.

It felt like I was in a war zone.

But nobody was gonna derail me from running my business.

That was the moment I realized

this might not be as easy as I thought it would be.

I'm thinking, "We need to find a way to stop this."

And we had one big hope.

There's nothing funny about two million people wanting to storm Area 51.

The Nevada Test and Training Range

is the most tactically important Air Force base in the entire world.

This is the place where we tested out the U-2,

the F-117 and the Stealth Bomber.

The security forces, we call them our defenders, guard the base.

All of them are organized, trained and equipped to accomplish that mission.

They're very, very good at their job.

They rose their right hand and would swear

to protect the Constitution against all enemies,

foreign and domestic.

If it takes use of force,

they are authorized in order to do so.

So when I heard a bunch of tinfoil-hat-wearing conspiracy theorists

were gonna Naruto run across the desert and come see aliens,

my initial reaction was, "You have got to be kidding."

I've got enough going on, and I don't need this.

And we just don't have the capacity or capability

to go root out every single one of those individuals

to figure out who is a threat and who's not.

So I went to my boss, the United States Air Force Warfare Center major general,

informed him what the situation was and we needed some additional troops.

He ordered us to keep this thing under control

and stop it from escalating.

We decided to go very aggressive against it.

Get a message out there to let folks know it's not a good idea.

Our number one hope, our goal in life was just please don't let this happen.

An Air Force spokesperson told media outlets

that the US Air Force is aware of the Facebook event.

Any attempt to illegally access military…

…military installations or military training areas is dangerous.

The US Air Force always stands ready

to protect America and its assets.

Was pretty much saying, "If you rock up and try and storm that,

we're probably gonna shoot you."

They've warned people not to try to enter the air base.

-There are gun-toting guards… -Yeah.

-…who are authorized to use deadly force. -If you try to storm that.

You will be turned into people jelly.

That's gonna be a civil war at that point, right?

-They shot people before. -If your arms aren't up.

The government is not joking.

That's kind of when really the tide changed on this whole thing.

Because it's gone from just being a dipshit on the internet

to now I've got real people

coming to a real place that can get really hurt.

How the fuck did it come to this?

When I saw the Air Force's response,

I thought, "Oh, shit."

The gravity of it hit me.

They clearly wanted people to know that we will protect our assets,

and we're not to be fucked with.

I am an accidental filmmaker.

I started studying this UFO topic because, like everybody else,

I was curious if it was true.

I had no experience, no qualifications.

I just started making documentaries about UFOs,

which took me deeper into the controversy.

I had no idea that going on The Joe Rogan Podcast

was gonna throw gasoline on the fire.

There's something. There are craft.

They're here. They're not ours. They're here.

What is that about?

So I kind of felt this sense of responsibility.

If you storm a military base, you get fucking shot.

We'd just make a memorial for stupidity.

We're about to experience natural selection.

I know what can happen when government gets involved

on things about Area 51. It's not good.

So I just sent a message on social media just saying,

"Hey, Matty. Wanna talk? Here's my number."

I've got a million messages, but this message

is sent by a name I've recognized from the podcast.

And boom, I get a text right back.

We started chitchatting back and forth.

I talked with Matty.

I said, "I know the UFO world."

"There's a lot of insanity and craziness."

I was worried

that what Matty was saying would spark idiots

to go up to the gate and try to sneak in.

I wouldn't wanna be responsible

for all those people coming out to the desert.

I tell him the messages I was getting had started to get a bit fucked up.

You've got people threatening to kill other people.

You've got people threatening to kill the guards at the base.

You've got people threatening to kill me.

And that kind of freaked me out a little bit.

If you're getting that and you're not used to that,

that shit is scary, and it's devastating.

One day, I was working the shift at the bar.

The phone rang.

And a gentleman told me he had me in his sights, meaning crosshairs.

And that my blood was gonna look really good

on the color of shirt that I was wearing that day.

The only way that anybody could see what I was wearing

was looking through the window at the end of the bar.

It was terrifying.

Connie called us and said, "Hey, uh, there's been some threats."

We did our best to investigate those.

We didn't know where the threats could be coming from.

Were they locals? Were they foreigners? We had no idea.

Around the same time, I got a call.

It was about a couple of people,

um, prowling around the Area 51 bus.

The people who take that bus are just regular folks who work at the base.

I thought, "Oh, my God, someone probably thinks they know secrets about Area 51."

So we sent a patrol car.

There are two YouTubers.

And they were livestreaming the Area 51 bus,

trying to peek in the windows.

The officer asked 'em to stop filming him.

You know, people became upset that were watching the livestream.

And they basically give out our phone numbers.

People started threatening me, started threatening the department.

And so in a really short period of time, it got out of hand,

and it got out of hand in a hurry.

They crashed our phone systems.

And that was a small incident.

When we looked at what just those two people could do

with their small audience and their livestream…

Wow. What could two million people do?

This is something we can't handle. We need help.

At that point, the county actually declared a state of emergency.

Lincoln County officials, they are looking to declare a state of…

…emergency declaration because of the Storm Area 51 event.

County leaders, the sheriff's department…

...fearing a public safety nightmare.

It's, like, very concerning.

When you think of a state of emergency you think of, like, a pandemic or a fire.

You know, it means that they're planning for something bad to happen.

It changed the whole face of everything.

This became not a Lincoln County thing.

This became a government situation.

Matthew was at his friend's house.

I was in the bedroom putting my makeup on.

I'm totally not dressed.

I'm in, like, jammies, no shoes on.

Then there was a knock at the door.

Is this the residence of Matthew Roberts?

I text, uh, Matthew and said, "You need to come home."

"The FBI's here."