Two Dutch YouTubers have been arrested after entering a secure US government area in the Nevada desert while in search of Area 51.
The Nye County Sheriff’s Office arrested 20-year-old Ties Granzier and his friend Govert Charles Wilhelmus Jacob Sweep, 21, after they were found filming about three miles inside the Nevada National Security Site, which is approximately 10 miles from Area 51.
The site is a secure area where US government researchers are known to carry out top-secret nuclear experiments.
Nye County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement that Granzier and Sweep told deputies that they saw ‘no trespassing’ signs as they entered the site but they “wanted to look at the facility.”
The cops found cameras, a phone, laptop, and a drone inside the men’s car. The YouTubers allowed deputies to review their video, which showed footage from inside the secure area.
Nevada police are braced for an onslaught of trespassers in the coming weeks after Area 51 became the focus of a viral Facebook event called ‘Storm Area 51, They Can’t Stop All Of Us.’
Millions of people expressed an interest in attending the event which was originally organized for September 20 as a joke, before it was removed from Facebook.
Granzier goes by the name “Ties” on YouTube, where he has racked up more than 730,000 subscribers. Ahead of his arrest, he posted a selfie at the Grand Canyon on Instagram, telling followers he was headed to Area 51. The post included an alien emoji and it received over 25,000 likes.
However, Sweep said the pair had no intention of storming the secret facility. “We didn’t have any intention to storm it because we leave one day before the actual storming dates, and we just wanted to make... to go there,” he said to local news outlet KTNV.
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