The man behind the “Storm Area 51” Facebook event has come forward and his name is Matty Roberts and he is now saying the page was “kind of a joke,” and has expressed concern that he has now put himself on the radar when it comes to national security. You may recall that shortly after the story went viral, the US Air Force responded by issuing a statement, reiterating that Area 51 is located on Edwards Air Force Base, an active military base, full of armed-to-the-teeth soldiers trained to kill, no matter how well you “Naruto run.”
RELATED: The US Air Force Is Ready For Facebook Users Who Want To “Storm Area 51”
Roberts made a video call to Nevada’s KLAS-TV and said:
“I posted it on like June 27th and it was kind of a joke. And then it waited for like three days and like 40 people, and then it just completely took off, out of nowhere. It’s pretty wild.”
Over 1.5 million people indicated that they were attending on the Facebook page. The idea behind the event was to assemble so many people to storm the base that the troops would not be able to stop them all, allowing those that slipped through to uncover the extraterrestrial secrets that are rumored to be sheltered there. Of course, what they planned to do after freeing a xenomorph wasn’t mapped out.
Of course, storming a military base is… well, terrorism.
Perhaps too late, Roberts realized:
“I was like, the FBI is going to show up at my house… And it got a little spooky from there.”
You can see a portion of Roberts’ interview in the news report below:
Roberts previously spoke to NPR using a pseudonym, and expressed:
“I just thought it would be a funny idea for the meme page. And it just took off like wildfire. It’s entirely satirical, though, and most people seem to understand that.”
Joke or not, it seems that the military took the threat seriously enough to issue a statement. That means there were probably a lot of discussions behind closed doors. And we’re talking military officers and politicians, who get paid kind of a lot. So should the government choose to make an example of Roberts, it wouldn’t be unexpected.
However, perhaps working in his favor, he kind of comes across as a chucklehead, so hopefully, they realize that, and y’know, he doesn’t just vanish one day.
