An event launched in the wake of an abortive bid to ‘storm Area 51’ and ‘see them aliens’ has been given the official go-ahead.
Earlier this year more than two million people signed up to a Facebook event and pledged to break into the research facility en masse because ‘they can’t stop us all’.
Now a music festival called Alienstock will be held in this event’s place, suggesting there will be no bid to discover whether alien technology is hidden inside the base, deep in rural Lincoln County, Nevada.
Organiser Matty Roberts, 20, told Metro: ‘We got approved for our final frikken permit!’
He also sent us images of the social media analytics of the event and showed us photographic ID in the form of a California driving license.
The data showed that more than 3.6 million people had responded to the original Facebook page and it had reached 10.5 million users.
Matty appears to have posted the event as a joke, but it quickly became a meme.
We asked May if he had communicated with Area 51 or the US intelligence services before cancelling the original event.
He replied: ‘The only word from the base so far is the Airforce spokeswoman basically saying its a live training ground for the US Airforce and trespassing is strongly discouraged.
‘Really though it amazes me how smoothly this has gone, I think the majority of Lincoln County is just very excited to be part of something global like this, and pieces just keep falling into place.’
We asked what performers were lined up and he replied: ‘We have performers lined up both massive and small ones local to me and my planning partner.
‘The event itself will be free, all we’re planning to charge for is parking and camping spaces.’
Matty added: ‘I’m so excited for this thing man, it’s the biggest thing I’ve ever done and it’s so cool!’
We also asked Matty why his driving licence was expired and he said: ‘I’ve never had a passport but my drivers license has been expired since my birthday last year, my car hasn’t been running since and I haven’t bothered to pay the renewal fee for it because I can take domestic flights and everything with that and my social security card.’
The permit has now been posted on the original Storm Area 51 event page along with the statement: ‘We had to jump through some hoops to make this legitimate.
‘Alienstock is happening- just got this bad boi approved!
So many people signed up to the original event that the US Airforce issued a warning to anyone thinking of trying to infiltrate the facility.
‘[Area 51] is an open training range for the U.S. Air Force, and we would discourage anyone from trying to come into the area where we train American armed forces,’ a US Airforce spokesperson said in a statement.
‘The U.S. Air Force always stands ready to protect America and its assets.’
Facebook pulled down the page, which was called ‘Storm Area 51 – They Can’t Stop Us’, before hurriedly reinstating it.
At the time of writing, two million people have said they are going to break into Area 51 and a further 1.5 million are interested in doing so.
The page features this description of what would happen on September 20: ‘We will all meet up in rural Nevada and coordinate our parties.
‘If we Naruto run, we can move faster than their bullets. Let’s see them aliens.’
The plan to break into a top-secret research facility in a search for extraterrestrial technology has now been shelved.
Instead, Alienstock will run from September 19 to 21.