As previously reported by The Inquisitr , people are already converging on the small town of Rachel, which is situated near Area 51, a top-secret U.S. base. After a gag event was organized on Facebook, many people are now curious as to what is really at Area 51.

The Facebook event was originally created as a joke. “Storm Area 51, They Can’t Stop All Of Us” followed the premise that if enough people turned up and stormed the gates of the facility, at least some would get through and discover if there are really aliens being held there.

But What Is Area 51?

According to CNN , Area 51 is “a highly classified United States Air Force facility located at Groom Lake in southern Nevada” that measures some 38,400 acres and is situated more than 120 miles northwest of Las Vegas. The U.S. government has given this site the official title of Nevada Test and Training Range. Currently, the U.S. Air Force uses the area — which is a unit of the Nellis Air Force Base — as an open training range.

The title of Area 51 comes from the location’s map designation, according to the CIA. It has also included a variety of other unofficial names over the years that include Paradise Ranch, the Ranch, Watertown, and Dreamland.

Previously, this site was open to public use but all that changed in 1958 when the Public Land Order 1662 stopped public use by the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission. A radar test facility was then set up on the site in November 1959. According to the BBC , Area 51 is also situated next to another top-secret U.S. military site called the Nevada Test Site. This is where “U.S. nuclear weapons were tested from the 1950s to the 1990s.”

During the Cold War between the U.S. and the former Soviet Union, the site was used to test and develop aircraft, which included the U-2 and SR-71 Blackbird reconnaissance planes. Even though the facility has been used since as early as 1955, the CIA only publicly acknowledged the site existed in August 2013. The site is still operational and is believed to house as many as 1,500 employees who still test aircraft onsite.

However, many conspiracy theorists believe that Area 51 is used for another reason — hiding aliens.

The reason for this springs from an event that occurred at Roswell, New Mexico, in 1947. The official story is that a weather balloon crashed in the area. Others like to believe that an alien craft crashed there and the remains of extraterrestrial bodies — as well as the spacecraft — were taken to Area 51 for storage and experiments were conducted.

Many people also report sightings of unidentified flying objects (UFOs) in the area as well as alien abductions. A man named Robert Lazar has also previously claimed to have worked on alien technology at Area 51.

While many people like to believe that Area 51 contains alien secrets, to this day, the U.S. military continues to maintain that the area is an aircraft testing facility and nothing more. As a result of this, it is maintained that people are not allowed access to the site — fines and jail time may apply should people decide to storm Area 51 on September 20.