Storm Area 51: World-famous DJ performs to crowd of 100 alien-chasers because ‘I do believe there’s something out there’

Dance legend more used to sell-out crowds joins tiny gathering united by enthusiasm for life from other planets

Paul Oakenfold performed for a crowd of just 100 alien hunters at Area 51 after a viral Facebook event urging people to converge on the secret base to hunt extra-terrestrials.

The world-renowned British DJ said he agreed to play an hour-long set because he was “curious” about plans to storm the top-security military installation in Nevada in search of little green men.

“I do think there’s something out there, I really do,” he told the Las Vegas Review Journal. “I’m curious what it it really is about.

“I’ve played some very unique shows from the Wall of China to Stonehenge and the base camp of Mount Everest, so for me it was an opportunity to do something challenging, different, unique.”

Oakenfold, a double Grammy Award nominee voted the world’s best DJ in the late 1990s, said he had been told there was “a lot of people coming”.

However only a small crowd turned up to see him at the Area 51 Basecamp festival in Hiko, despite claims that “a few thousand tickets” had been sold, and on Saturday morning the rest of the event was cancelled due to “lack of attendance”. The alternative “Alienstock” festival was set to continue for the full three days.

The original “Storm Area 51” Facebook page, which began as a joke, attracted more than two million people who declared they were ready to “to see them aliens”.

It sparked warnings from the US Air Force, which said it “stands ready to protect America and its interests” from anyone attempting to break into the site.

The page was taken down last month but police were prepared for around 30,000 people to turn up on Friday. However only a few hundred made it to the gates to the facility, according to officials.

Five people were arrested, including two men who were found in the mountains inside the perimeter of base and a woman in her 60s who trespassed at one of the gates. Another 40 alien-seekers were ordered to disperse from the entrance near the town of Rachel at 3am on Friday.

Lincoln County Sheriff Kerry Lee estimated that about 1,500 people in total had gathered at the festival sites, with a few hundred making the arduous drive along dirt roads to the gates of Area 51.

The gates are marked by bright floodlights, security cameras and, at the Rachel gate, a bunker building with blackout windows – all surrounded by razor wire.

Many visitors dressed as aliens or practised their ‘naruto run’ – a reference to the style of running used in the anime series Naruto, where a person leans forward with both arms stretched out behind them. One man even performed a naruto run in the background of a live TV report from the Area 51 event.

“There’s a great sense of community among everyone here,” said John Derryberry, who drove with his girlfriend, Sarah Shore, from Nashville, Tennessee.

Officials confirmed there had been no reports of alien sightings or abductions so far.

Additional reporting by Associated Press