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What was promised as a raid on one of the most fiercely-protected areas of the United States to see aliens eventually ended as a music festival in Las Vegas, with a handful of visitors going to the city of Rachel in Nevada.

In June 2019, Facebook user Matty Roberts had created an event titled “Storm Area 51, they can’t stop all of us”. As many as 2.5 million people had said that they would be attending the event. The name of the event was later changed to “Official Alienstock Tour” when Roberts decided to throw another party along with Frank DiMaggio and Connie West, Insider reported. The residents of Rachel, a small town of just 52 people, were not too pleased with the thought of a large number of people descending on them.

The New York Times has said Area 51 is a “secretive military site at the Nevada Test and Training Range, a unit of the Nellis Air Force Base in southern Nevada”. Its existence was acknowledged by the United States in documents released by the country’s Central Intelligence Agency in 2013.

Conspiracy theories have long said Area 51 is a site devoted to the study or captivity of aliens.

Another Insider report said that Roberts and DiMaggio withdrew support from the festival a week before its scheduled date, and instead supported a party in Las Vegas on September 19, a day before the Area 51 raid was scheduled. The organisers were reportedly worried about the Alienstock Festival becoming another Fyre Festival.

The event in Rachel town managed to pull a crowd of barely a few hundred people. The Alienstock event in Rachel was situated at a ten-minute drive from the actual gate of Area 51, the report added. Alien-themed collectibles were reportedly available at stops while driving towards the Area 51, but people neither saw any aliens nor got beyond the gates of the protected facility. Five arrests were reportedly made for “indecent exposure and alcohol-related incidents”.

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