ALAMO, Nev. — The first time Vern Holaday heard people talk about trying to storm Area 51, he was sitting around a campfire with about a dozen UFO enthusiasts outside the motel he owns in Alamo.

It was the fall of 2009, and the 15-room Alamo Inn was hosting an annual UFO conference. As it usually did, the conversation turned from alien life forms to conspiracy theories about Area 51 — the secretive military facility about 35 miles west of Alamo.

That night, a man from Idaho, who worked on motorcycles for a living, suggested to the others around the campfire that they could rush the facility on motorcycles, believing the military guards wouldn’t be able to stop them that way, Holaday recalled.

Nothing ever came of that scheme beyond campfire chatter, but Holaday, 59, thought of it recently when a Facebook event, titled “Storm Area 51, They Can’t Stop All of Us,” set off an internet frenzy. Even though the event’s creator, Matty Roberts, claimed it was a hoax and the Air Force warned against anyone breaking into the property — located within the Nevada Test and Training Range at the Nellis Air Force Base — almost 2 million people have RSVP’d on Facebook for the Sept. 20 gathering.

“All I thought was, ‘Here we go again,’” Holaday said, chuckling. As of this week, his motel, about 90 miles north of Las Vegas, had only two vacant rooms left for the days of the event.