Area 51 weekend is still going strong, and there are still developments rolling in heading into to Sunday. It turns out that the only person to actually storm the gates near the facility was a 60-year-old woman. In nearby Rachel, Nevada, nearly 800 have visited the gates, but one visitor decided she was going over. She faces a trespassing charge and $1000 for her trouble.
Lincoln County Sherrif Kerry Lee told the Reno Gazette Journal about the incident and sounded pretty calm about the entire ordeal. To his credit, he’s seen a lot over the last couple of days in the desert. The department has had to deal with the sudden rush of people to the area and the planning stages to make sure that everyone remains safe on this strange desert adventure.
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“She told us she was going to trespass,” Lee told the paper. “It was something she wanted to do, and she walked across.”
Other than a few other arrests, so far so good for the people on the ground at “Alienstock.” Despite a report from the Guardian indicating that there were only 1,500 people in attendance for the event, there have been many social media videos and images circulating from the festival. Still, that is a far cry from the millions that RSVP’d to the original Facebook event over the Summer.
Matty Roberts couldn’t have dreamed that things would have ballooned to these proportions when he originally made a Facebook group. Authorities are alleging that the stunt may cost the county up to $250,000 and are planning to possibly pursue legal action. Sherrif Lee believes that he and the other members of the community shouldn’t have to pay for a party they had no part in starting.
“Matty Roberts is the one that started this on Facebook. So our district attorney, his opinion is that Matty Roberts and Facebook stand to be partially to blame for this” Lee explained to Gizmodo. “He’s already told people that this is quote-unquote ‘His event.’ He told some of the other event promoters that this was his event. And so I guess if it’s his event and he’s taken ownership of it then we know where legal action should go toward. I’m not an attorney but that is what Lincoln County district attorney is saying.”
Unfortunately for the community, Roberts and Facebook probably won’t face too many serious repercussions for this weekend’s events. Frank Di Maggio partnered with Roberts to produce events, and he’s more than a bit skeptical. “Good luck with that. Facebook—I mean you might as well go after the Queen of England,” DiMaggio told Gizmodo in the same report.
“As far as going after Matty or the promoters: So here’s the deal—if you’re going to be offering 250-plus emergency responders for an event, why not just cancel the event? They offered the permit. They permitted it. Now they’re saying, ‘Oh look what you made us do.’”
