Commissioners in Nye County, Nevada voted 4-0 in support of a preemptive declaration of a state of emergency based on information they received from the local sheriff’s department and fire service about the possible dangers associated with an alien-related festival, KTNV Las Vegas has reported.
The event, set to begin on 19 September, is to be held in the town of Rachel, Nevada, near the Nellis Air Force Range and the infamous Area 51, where some believe all sorts of advanced weaponry and even aliens might be held.
Over 2 million people said they planned to attend the event, initially called “Storm Area 51, They Can’t Stop All of US,” which went viral on Facebook earlier this summer. Another 1.4 million more said they were interested.
The state of emergency status will allow the state to deploy additional resources to assist local police and medical services.
Nye County Director of Emergency Services Scott Lewis told reporters this week that he was preparing for several scenarios.
“A mass casualty incident, serious traffic accident, large fire, anything along those lines. Even the potential for something similar to October 1,” he said, speaking to Fox5 Las Vegas on Wednesday, referring to the deadly 2017 incident when a lone gunman opened fire on concertgoers on the Las Vegas Strip, killing nearly 60 people and injuring over 400 others.
“Anything along those lines we want to be prepared for to the best of our ability,” Lewis said.
Other county officials urged residents of local communities such as Amargosa Valley to prepare for large-scale disruptions due to next month’s event, with County Commission Chairman John Koenig telling locals and eventgoers alike to be “prepared not to have cell service, not to have internet. There will probably be no water available, there will probably be no ice available because everything is going to sell out. There will probably be no gas left in the gas station, no food, nowhere to go potty.”
“If you’re coming, be prepared because it’s probably not going to be nice,” Koenig stressed.
The original ‘Storm Area 51’ event, jokingly planned as a mass raid on the top-secret US base, has since morphed into a festival in the desert amid warnings by the US military that attendees could face everything from prison time to deadly force if they tried to storm the base.
Matty Roberts, the 20 year old behind the original Storm Area 51 craze, revealed earlier this month that he got freaked out when FBI agents came to visit him, and insisted that he had not planned anything malicious.
Area 51 is a highly-classified military installation situated about 150 km outside Las Vegas in southern Nevada. Thought to be a test site for military aircraft and other advanced aviation technology, the facility has also long been linked to alien conspiracies. Some believe the facility houses the alien spacecraft that supposedly crashed in Roswell, New Mexico in 1947. The US government maintains that the aircraft that crashed was a high-altitude balloon belonging to the US Army.
