Nevada officials have issued an emergency declaration ahead of the viral “Storm Area 51” raid that’s supposed to happen next month — fearing they could be overwhelmed by all the people who show up trying to “see them aliens.”

“Oh, we’re taking this seriously,” Lincoln County Commission Chairman Varlin Higbee told the Las Vegas Review-Journal. “With the possibility of 35,000 to 40,000 people showing up, yeah, this is serious.”

The County Commission reportedly approved a declaration of emergency on Monday in preparation for the possible surge. More than 2 million people have RSVP’d on Facebook and said they are “interested” in going.

The man behind the mania, Matty Roberts, has tried to downplay the event since creating the “Storm Area 51, They Can’t Stop All of Us” group as a joke back in June, but it has continued to gain momentum.

“Let’s see them aliens,” Roberts wrote in a post. “If we naruto run we can move faster than their bullets.”

A disclaimer was placed on the page, saying: “Hello US government, this is a joke, and I do not actually intend to go ahead with this plan. I just thought it would be funny and get me some thumbsy uppies on the internet.” But officials aren’t laughing.

The Lincoln County Commission voted unanimously — 4-0 — to approve its emergency declaration, which allows the state to supply resources if needed.

“We passed this with the caveat that this may or may not happen,” said District D Commissioner Kevin Phillips.

“We’re just trying to do the best we can to prepare for something we know not of. We have no pickin’ idea what we’re going to face – if anything,” he told the Reno Gazette Journal. “It’s a smart chess play.”

The county has alerted military officials about the emergency declaration, though it’s unclear if they are also planning to make adjustments to deal with the possible influx of visitors.

“The Nevada Test and Training Range is an area where the Air Force tests and trains combat aircraft,” an Air Force spokesperson said. “Any attempt to illegally access military installations or military training areas is dangerous.”

The original plans for “Storm Area 51” called for people to show up and raid the classified military facility, but Roberts has since changed them. He’s now promoting an event called the “Alienstock Festival” — which will be held Sept. 19-22 as a celebration of all things extraterrestrial.

“We’re aiming to establish something unique here, a meeting place for all the believers,” the Alienstock website says, promising “a world full of live music, arts and camping under the stars.”

The tiny outpost where Roberts and company plan to have the event — Rachel, population 56 — is more than 40 miles away from civilization, that being Ash Springs.

A small motel, bar and restaurant dubbed Little A’Le’Inn will be the “nearest infrastructure of any kind,” according to the Review-Journal.

“Attendees will be on their own for, well, virtually everything,” the paper reported Tuesday.



The county has reportedly issued event permits for Alienstock and another get-together called UFology Expo, which will be held at the same time in the small community of Hiko.

“We don’t know where or how far our resources are going to go,” said Commission Chairman Varlin Higbee. “A lot of it is equipment and financing. The county only has so much money to deal with, and if you start paying a lot of money for overtime … your financing can go pretty fast.”

To make matters worse, visitors will likely be without cell service.

“The cellphone system is going to go down,” Higbee said. “The landlines will still be intact. You get more than a couple of hundred people there, and it’s going to crash. Cell service won’t be available.”

In the end, the county has no problem welcoming the guests — they just better not step foot on government property.

“We don’t want civilian people in contact with the military at all,” Higbee told the Review-Journal. “That will get ugly. Understand that is a military base, and regardless of whether that base is in Afghanistan, Syria or wherever, it’s still a base and they’re going to protect it, just as if it were in a foreign country.”