For months, would-be UFO spotters have been following plans for the Storm Area 51 event, with thousands of people expected to flock to the Nevada desert.
There was worldwide concern in regards to where exactly the numerous attendees would stay, as well as fretting over the security risks which would naturally arise when a large group of people decide to storm a government facility.
Turns out, we needn’t have worried, with the actual event turning out to be a bit of a washout. Only a couple of hundred people turned up in the end, which is in equal parts a relief and also kind of disappointing.
Events planned to entertain the alien fanatics were cancelled due to low attendance, and the memes quickly dried up like a vast expanse of desert sand. Needless to say, not a single alien was liberated.
However, in one gasp of the internet phenomenon which dominated the heady summer months, the US military released a grouchy and fairly grim tweet which reads like the gassy shrivelling of the last birthday balloon.
The tweet – which has, naturally, since been deleted – reads:
The last thing #Millennials will see if they attempt the #area51raid today…
Below this grumpy jab at ‘millennials’ – who, may I remind you is anyone between the vastly disparate ages of 22 and 37 – was an image of troops standing in formation before a stealth bomber.
The threat – tweeted via the official Defense Visual Information Distribution Service Twitter account – was supposedly jokey, and some have found it quite funny.
However, others felt there was nothing to laugh about when it comes to the thought of bombing people and have demanded the person responsible for the tweet receive disciplinary action.
After the tweet was deleted, the Defense Visual Information Distribution Service Twitter account released the following apology tweet:
Last night a DVIDSHUB employee posted a Tweet that in NO WAY supports the stance of the Department of Defense. It was inappropriate and we apologize for this mistake.
The apology has garnered a mixed response. Some feel those who were offended were being overly sensitive, while others congratulated them on admitting their mistake and moving forward.
The Storm Area 51 event, originally began as a joke from Matty Roberts, with the page removed from social media after over two million people clicked attending, with a further 1.5 million registering as ‘interested’.
However, just a few hundred peopleended up attending the much discussed event close to the mysterious government facility.
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Jules studied English Literature with Creative Writing at Lancaster University before earning her masters in International Relations at Leiden University in The Netherlands (Hoi!). She then trained as a journalist through News Associates in Manchester. Jules has previously worked as a mental health blogger, copywriter and freelancer for various publications.