Intelligent extraterrestrial or extradimensional beings may well exist. But it is almost certain that none of those beings or bodies are in Area 51. Moreover, the U.S. military isn't going to let folks just wander into that sensitive base.

Still, more than 1 million people have signed up for a Facebook event which calls for storming the Groom Lake area of Edwards Air Force Base, also known as Area 51, this September. While divided by levels of seriousness, the group apparently thinks it can find proof of aliens at the base.

They won't.

For a start, the government can quite easily prevent a large scale surge of unauthorized intruders. Put simply, the military can station 10,000 personnel to guard Groom Lake's perimeter if it needs to, or five times that number. Sorry folks, you're not getting inside the wire.

Regardless, there is little point in storming Area 51.

I am not at all confident that the U.S. or any other nation or group retains alien or extradimensional beings or bodies at any site on Earth. If proof of intelligent alien life-forms is the objective, I'm strongly inclined to believe this is a fool's errand before it starts. What's actually at Area 51 is a collection of cutting edge military research and development projects.

That said, I am highly confident that the U.S. government is in possession of metamaterials derived from unidentified crashed craft. Is that worthy of greater civilian inquiry? Yes.

But those materials are almost certainly not at Area 51. Again, basic common sense explains why: Area 51 has the reputation for being the secret place of aliens and saucer-shaped UFOs. The government would thus have longstanding reason to move anything related to those things far away from the base.

Nevertheless, that doesn't mean this issue should belong to the slightly more eccentric among us.

Numerous highly trained eyewitnesses and multiplatform data recordings have recorded unidentified aerial and undersea phenomena since at least the late 1940s. Modern research into the phenomena's capabilities and behavior makes likely that some of what we're seeing does not originate from Earth (and may well originate from many different non-Earth sources: I'll have more on this soon).

This isn't just hypothetical. We've seen compelling data released under Freedom of Information Act requests, and more is coming. But science must guide our approach to this subject.

Folks running around in the desert screaming "cry havoc, and let loose the aliens" isn't helpful. It only serves those who promote the idea that this otherwise serious issue is the province of the crazed and the comedian.