Notes

Area 51 is located more than 120 miles northwest of Las Vegas
It is restricted to the public and has armed guards patrolling the perimeter. It's also impossible to enter the airspace above without permission from air traffic control
Area 51 has long been a topic of fascination for conspiracy theorists and paranormal enthusiasts who believe it to be the location where the US government stores and hides alien bodies and UFOs
54% of US adults think it is likely the government knows more than it's telling about UFOs, 27% saying it is unlikely, and 19% saying they do not know
The US government's official name for Area 51 is the Nevada Test and Training Range, which is a unit of the Nellis Air Force Base
According to the CIA, the name Area 51 comes from its map designation. It was also previously referred to as "Paradise Ranch" in order to make the facility sound more attractive to those that would be working there
In 1958, under Public Land Order 1662, the 38,400-acre land area was "withdrawn from public use by the US Atomic Energy Commission, a predecessor to the US Department of Energy."
One popular UFO conspiracy is that in 1947 in Roswell, New Mexico, remains from a flying saucer that supposedly crashed were brought to the site for reverse engineering experiments in order to replicate the extraterrestrial spacecraft
About 75 people arrived early on Friday at a gate at the once secret Area 51 military base in Nevada at the time appointed by an internet hoaxster to “storm” the facility to see space aliens and at least two were detained by sheriff’s deputies
The Storm Area 51 invitation spawned festivals in the tiny Nevada towns of Rachel and Hiko nearest the military site
Millions of people had responded to a June internet post calling for people to run into the remote US air force test site, “They can’t stop all of us,” the post joked. “Lets see them aliens.”
“It’s public land,” the sheriff said. “They’re allowed to go to the gate, as long as they don’t cross the boundary.”
The military responded with stern warnings that lethal force could be used if people entered the Nevada Test and Training Range, and local and state officials said arrests would be made if people tried
Still, neighbors braced for trouble after millions of people responded to the Storm Area 51 Facebook post weeks ago
On Thursday that more than 150 people also made the rugged trip on washboard dirt roads to get within selfie distance of two gates to the Area 51