Meet the Guy Behind the Facebook Storm Area 51 Campaign

Even if you are not on social media recently, you have most likely heard about people planning to storm Area 51 in the news. The Facebook campaign has gone way beyond viral. Even picked up by mainstream news reports. Sometimes even unaware that it is obviously meant as a joke. As if the ‘Naruto run’ reference and ‘they can’t shoot us all’ make it obvious enough.

Area 51 is a US Air Force facility which has long been rumoured to be the center of UFO activity. It is in Lincoln County, Nevada and is a highly-classified area. So raiding the facility will most likely result in getting shot.

Last week, over 400,000 people have signed up online for the campaign. Now, that number is now more than 2 million. Obviously, there really are no plans in place to storm the facility. But the more interesting question is, how did this even begin?

Who is Behind the ‘Storm Area 51’ Campaign?

The joke is apparently the work of 20-year old Matty Roberts. He is a college student from Bakersfield, California and he has been giving several TV interviews lately. The best part is his Naruto cosplay outfit in these interviews. Plus, his willingness to demonstrate what a ‘Naruto run’ is to the mainstream media.

Naruto is of course, a popular anime about teen ninjas and a ‘Naruto run’ is anime-lingo for running while leaning forward with your arms outstretched behind. It is pretty much guaranteed to make anyone look like a dork if attempted.

As for the campaign, according to Roberts, he “don’t want anyone to actually get hurt with this.“

He adds that he is currently working with several people to actually make some kind of alternate event happen. Not quite storming the place and getting shot. But perhaps a festival of some kind, which would actually be a cool result of all this press. Let’s just hope they are far enough away from the facility and that nobody gets an itchy trigger finger.