The mysterious territory in the Nevada desert has been a magnet to conspiracy theorists of all sorts for decades as many speculated that it might harbour proof of extraterrestrial life, classified by the US authorities. Although the CIA admitted that there is an air force base there several years ago, the speculation has not died down.
A Facebook event, titled “Storm Area 51, They Can’t Stop All of Us” and scheduled for 20 September, has garnered hundreds of thousands of possible participants in less than a week despite warnings from US military officials. So far, 807,000 users have reported themselves “going” while 717K more posted they are interested.