Not to ruin a good meme, but the ‘storm Area 51’ guy’s Alienstock festival was never going to happen, was it? Supposedly set for September 20 to 22, the event has now been cancelled, citing a “possible humanitarian disaster” if it went ahead.

Organiser Matty Roberts, who created the original Facebook event, was planning on hosting an alien-themed ‘party in the desert’ in the 50-capacity town of Rachel, Nevada – the closest town to Area 51. Posting to the website following the cancellation, the organisers wrote: “Due to the lack of infrastructure, poor planning, risk management, and blatant disregard for the safety of the expected 10,000+ Alienstock attendees, we decided to pull the plug on the festival.”

The site claims the “permit holder” didn’t provide them with proof of any festival organisation, and that Alienstock has ended its relationship with Rachel, because it refuses to be involved “in a Fyre Fest 2.0”. The event has now turned into an ‘Area 51 celebration’ on September 19 at the Downtown Las Vegas Events Center.

Rachel previously criticised Alienstock for attempting to “capitalise on the chaos” of the Alien 51 meme, and has now posted an update about the festival’s cancellation on its website. It reads: “The Alienstock event in Rachel just became Fyre Fest 2.0 as we had predicted. The creator of the Storm Area 51 movement pulled out because he feels the event is not safe and lacks organisation.”

Attempting to deter people from still coming to Rachel, the town’s site continues: “If any event still happens it is going to be a pretty sad affair with no bands, very little infrastructure, and a lot of unhappy campers. Instead of coming out to Rachel to storm Area 51, why not follow the Alienstock organisers and enjoy the party in Las Vegas?”

What seems to have happened here is Alienstock organisers faked an event to scam people out of money – the site allowed visitors to donate to its “cause” via PayPal – then blamed the people of Rachel for the festival’s cancellation. This is all speculation OFC, and the Las Vegas event actually might go ahead, but the joke is dead anyway. Let sleeping aliens lie.