When I worked for the government, I spent a week working out of Rachel, Nevada while doing geologic studies for the BLM’s Caliente Resource Area. One day, just for fun, we drove up a back road to the boundary of Area 51 and stopped to look around. Within a minute, a Humvee appeared on the other side of the fence and two heavily armed soldiers stepped out. At that point we decided it was time to get back to work, so we waved at them, turned around, and got the hell out of there.
Base on that limited experience, I’m pretty sure no storming of the barricades will be going on there anytime soon.
Unlike the police, the military isn’t usually dealing with friendlies. Unless they are planning on pulling out their super secret Area 51 ray guns, I would expect that they either have very limited or no stock of less-than-lethal weapons. If someone is dumb enough to try and rush the guards they are going to have a bad day.
Former (contractor) USAF SP here. My experience was in the 1980s; things and directives may have changed, but I doubt it.
There are regular resources, and there are Priority assets, of which there are subcategories. The Priority assets get the deadly force treatment. Generally (can vary greatly depending on base mission), the Priority assets are within the interior of a base, so simply breaching the exterior fencing of a base (like crashing a gate) might or might not get a lethal response; there’s a big difference between a lost tourist and someone who tried to run over a guard.
All M-16s we carried were loaded, though not necessarily with a round chambered. The policies on that will vary by unit, assignment, base, and possibly by command.
THAT SAID, something like an organized “protest” will likely have a different engagement plan. There were protests at the gate where I worked, and the USAF more-or-less tried to work with the protest leadership so they could make their point without anyone on either side getting injured. But these were political protests, not CT idiots.
True, but in this instance, the military has been given about 2 months’ advance notice that stuff is going to happen. They can assemble the interesting equipment and await the swarm.
Likewise, they can remove or secure any classified equipment and have a massive picnic ready for the visitors. Much better for public relations.
Are there really 300k + Americans that are so bored, so well-heeled, and so willing to risk imprisonment or worse, that they can truly commit to this thing? Couple hundred locals, MAYBE a couple thousand from elsewhere. This is bullshit.
Pretty nasty terrain out there. Unless you had some pretty serious ATV’s or dirtbikes, the road is pretty much the only way of motorized travel on the ground.
I’ve been in the general area on a motorcycle years ago. There was a peak you could access that you could see the base from in the distance. I understand that has been closed off since then.
You know, that base probably has some medical personnel. If I were the commanding officer, there would be a strong temptation to order my underlings to perform probes on all of the protesters.
If anyone asked why, I could say, “Tradition!”, then come up with some feeble medical excuse.
From what I understand, Marines will be deployed at some positions and will be issued with the red rubber balls from gym class for playing murder ball. If the swarmers cross the line, marines are weapons free (not gonna say balls free).
A coworker of mine years ago had a story where he was on patrol at an Army base and he shot an intruder in the leg. It was during the Cold War and overseas, I think in Germany (wish I could remember more), so not really the same as the Area 51 story. There was a legitimate threat of espionage and sabotage at the time.
You all know this is just a joke right? No one is gonna show up, at most a tiny fraction of the people who signed up. Maybe 2 dozen, though I say zero. It’s just bored youths sharing memes. I do feel bad for the air force people who have to take it seriously though.
In other news, Guy Fieri is apparently volunteering to feed the mob.
Agreed. These are the same type of people who were going to leave the country if Trump was elected.
Funny sidenote: My kiddo flew (nearly) over area 51 two days ago. When he told me about it, I asked if the Area 51 group was massing at the edges. He didn’t know what I was talking about. Neither did my daughter. I wonder sometimes if all the cool kids have left Facebook, and only us old fogies are still there.
i suspect that if a significant number turn up there will be some hospitalizations and possibly even some deaths - not from the guards, but because the sort of idiot who would actually turn up to this is also likely to be the sort of idiot who hasn’t adequately prepared for wandering around the middle of a desert. Dehydration and heatstroke galore.