Arby's plans to bring 'the meats' to viral ‘Storm Area 51' raid
LOS ANGELES - Arby’s is bringing “the meats” to the viral “Storm Area 51” raid along with a special menu, according to a recent tweet.
The meaty-sandwich company tweeted on Thursday that it was headed to the outskirts of the top-secret U.S. Air Force base in Nevada to take part in the event.
A Facebook event, titled “Storm Area 51, They Can’t Stop All of Us,” was created initially as a joke but soon garnered the attention of more than a million people. The event called for a group of alien hunters to meet at 3 a.m. on Sept. 20 near the base to coordinate a plan of attack to “see them aliens.”
Arby’s isn’t the first brand to call attention to the joke raid. In mid-July, Bud Light tweeted it would give free beer to any alien who “makes it out” of the compound.
The beer brand also offered to create a special-edition neon green and black can if a tweet received 51,000 retweets. As of Friday, the tweet had around 40,000 retweets.
The creator of the event, Matty Roberts, said the event was “completely satire” and had no idea it would become a viral sensation. He became concerned when the amount of people interested surpassed 500,000.
“I was like, the FBI is going to show up at my house and it got a little spooky from there,” he told KLAS-TV in Las Vegas.
The popularity of his event spawned other events, such as “Storm Loch Ness, Nessie can’t hide from us” and “Storm The Bermuda Triangle, It Can’t Swallow All Of Us."
The Loch Ness event is scheduled for Sept. 21, a day after the Area 51 raid, and aims to “find dat big boi” in reference to the Loch Ness monster.
As for the Bermuda Triangle event, thousands of people have shown interest in it as well. The purported purpose is to have people descend upon the mysterious oceanic region where a number of aircraft and ships have disappeared. The event is scheduled for Oct. 1.
Area 51, also known as Homey Airport, is a remote outpost of the Edwards Air Force Base located about 125 miles from Las Vegas. The purpose of the base – which has been the subject of decades-old conspiracy theories revolving around aliens – remains classified.