What Was Storm Area 51? The True Story Behind Netflix’s ‘Trainwreck’

Storm Area 51 may just be one of the most expensive jokes in American history.

One late night in June 2019, Matty Roberts, a 20-year-old from Bakersville, Calif., created a Facebook event, which he called the “ultimate sh—post.” The page, titled “Storm Area 51, They Can’t Stop All of Us,” went on to become a viral phenomenon and is the latest subject of Netflix’s Trainwreck docuseries, which debuted on the streamer on July 29.

“What if every fool on the internet converged on Area 51. What would they do? Shoot everyone? It just seemed like a hilarious idea to me,” Roberts said in the two-part documentary, Trainwreck: Storm Area 51. “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.”

However, the post reached far beyond his followers, and wound up taking the internet by storm. The event not only caught the attention of alien enthusiasts, memers and content creators, but also the United States government, late-night shows and celebrities like Miley Cyrus and Lizzo.

So what was Storm Area 51? Here’s the true story behind Netflix’s Trainwreck: Storm Area 51.

Who created Storm Area 51?

Storm Area 51 was created by Roberts. One day, while he was “bored to tears” working at a vape kiosk, Roberts stumbled upon an episode of the Joe Rogan Experience podcast, where Area 51 was being discussed.

That night, Roberts created the “Storm Area 51, They Can’t Stop All of Us” Facebook event.

The next morning, over 1,000 people had RSVPed as “Going.” Within days, nearly one million people expressed interest, per Vox. Ultimately, more than two million people marked themselves as attending the event.

When was Storm Area 51?

The event at Area 51 was scheduled to take place on Sept. 20, 2019, at 3 a.m.

Did the military get involved in Storm Area 51?

Ahead of the event date, the FBI paid a visit to Roberts’ home, as he recalled in the docuseries.

“I’m just sitting there shaking, thinking I’m about to get a bag over my head and thrown into a van and shipped off to God-knows-where,” Roberts said. “And they’re grilling me about my social life, my backstory, what kind of religious beliefs I hold. Like just to feel out whether or not I am actually a terrorist.”

Roberts explained to the FBI that he was not actually planning on storming Area 51. Nonetheless, he claimed that the FBI told him that it was his “a– if anybody decided to go in there and storm” the base.

Following the meeting, Roberts said he wanted to figure out a way to distance himself from Storm Area 51 and “rebrand” it in order to avoid punishment.

The U.S. military also reacted to Roberts’ Facebook event, with Air Force spokeswoman Laura McAndrews telling USA Today in a statement, “The Nevada Test and Training Range is an area where the Air Force tests and trains combat aircraft,” adding, “Any attempt to illegally access military installations or military training areas is dangerous.”

In the Netflix documentary, Colonel Cavan Craddock noted that the security forces who guard the Nevada Test and Training Range are “very, very good at their job” and that they “rose their right hand and said they 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,” he continued.

What was Alienstock?

Once the Facebook event took off, Roberts decided to host a legitimate Area 51 event — called “Alienstock” — in Rachel, Nev., a small town close to Area 51, with the help of local residents.

However, days before the festival, Roberts decided he would instead headline an “Area 51 Celebration” in downtown Las Vegas, per TIME. The event was a one-night concert and party at the Downtown Las Vegas Events Center and was sponsored by Bud Light.

Ultimately, a few thousand people showed up to Rachel’s “Alien-Stock,” per the Las Vegas Review-Journal, which had by then changed its name due to a legal dispute with Roberts, per Vox. He told TIME that he decided to pull out of the event after a dispute over security, sanitation, medical personnel and insurance permits.

Ten thousand people attended the Area 51 Celebration event in Las Vegas, according to organizers.

Did people actually storm Area 51?

On Sept. 20, 2019, around 100 individuals went to the best-known Area 51 gate at 3 a.m., but did not break into the air force base, per CBS News.

“It was a joke. They got their moment of fame,” Lincoln County Sheriff Kerry Lee said in Trainwreck: Storm Area 51. “They got their picture, and it was done.”

How much did Storm Area 51 cost the U.S. military?

Colonel Craddock revealed in the documentary that the U.S. military recruited additional manpower, vehicles and weapons to ensure that they could “deal with multiple things happening,” during the so-called storming event, calling it “by far the largest defense of the base that has ever happened on the installation.”

According to Trainwreck: Storm Area 51, the viral joke cost the U.S. military an estimated $11 million.

“You can easily say, well we shouldn’t have done it. We should not have wasted those resources,” Craddock said. “My argument will be that there were too wide a range of possibilities with the worst-case scenario being a mass casualty event. And I will defend to the final day that we did not overspend in our preparation for it.”

Where is Matty Roberts now?

At the end of the day, Roberts said he made $1,700 from selling Storm Area 51 T-shirts at the Area 51 Celebration.

Ultimately, he went back to his job at a Bakersville vape kiosk.

“I’ve just gone through the most surreal and exciting moment of my life, and then one week later, I’m back on the clock at the vape shop,” he said in the docuseries.