Thousands of people claimed that they would storm Area 51, but when the time came to liberate the aliens, only about 100 people were truly down for the cause.
"It’s a relief that it’s not as bad as we thought it was going to be," Lincoln County, Nevada Sheriff Kerry Lee said to USA Today.
Lee and other Lincoln County authorities have spent the last two months wondering what reignited this pressing interest in Area 51. They started to prepare for the thousands of people that said they would converge on this Nevada community for the viral "Storm Area 51" raid. This idea started an internet joke that some people started to take seriously. Police and residents thought that close to 2,500 people would show up, but they truly had no idea how things would turn out.
"My nightmare was the 30,000 people," Lee said. "I truly thought we were going to have bumper to bumper."
It's unclear how the rural area would have been able to handle the influx of people if the number pushed into five figures. The closest town to Area 51 is a community called Rachel, which only has about 50 residents; there are days people could drive through Rachel and not see a car.
Despite having things under control, someone did end up in handcuffs for indecent exposure for urinating in public.
