Area 51 Raid Planners Visited by FBI, Moving Event to Las Vegas

The much-talked about “Storm Area 51” raid event is just over a week away, but those planning to Naruto run their way into the epic event — which itself has morphed into an alien enthusiast’s music festival called “Alien Stock” might want to cross check where they’re actually going before the party gets started. The event’s organizers have moved things to Las Vegas following concerns about infrastructure as well as a visit from the FBI.

According to TMZ, organizers Matty Roberts and Frank DiMaggio explained that they had come to discover that the location where the music festival was set to take place didn’t have the appropriate infrastructure for the event — essentially, they want to avoid becoming the new Fyre Fest. It’s a valid consideration, but they also revealed that a visit from the authorities may also helped shape things into the music festival in the first place with the FBI showing up to make sure a raid really wasn’t in the works.

“An FBI agent from the Sacramento office. It was actually a little bit spooky, actually, multiple of them. It actually wasn’t that bad. They were just kind of making sure I wasn’t making pipe bombs in my living room and not actually planning on storming the frickin’ base.”

On the official Alien Stock website (you can check that out here) the event has been updated to reflect that the Area 51 Celebration will be taking place at the Downtown Las Vegas Events Center, shifting it from the previous location of rural Rachel, Nevada which was just 27 miles from Area 51. The event is still listed as free, something that Roberts previously said was important to him.

“Profits would be fun, but I don’t want to be seen as a profit-driven guy. I don’t care about the money aspect, I never intended for this to become a real thing,” Roberts added. “Now, I want to make it fun and I think just capitalizing on it and making a ton of money just ruins the idea of the grassroots idea of it.”

The event is expected to include camping, music, art installations, and “surprise performances”. Whether or not that will include any of the celebrities that previously endorsed the raid – including Lil Nas X and Guy Fieri – remains to be seen.

“I never foresaw this happening to me at all,” Roberts said of the initial event’s popularity. “I have never done anything that has reached this scale of attention and it’s completely surreal and really cool.”

What do you think about this change of venue for Alien Stock? Let us know in the comments below.