It’s the end of an internet era! After months of making headlines, the creator of Storm Area 51 and his collaborators announced that the epic event is dead before arrival.

The much publicized, criticized, and ill-advised event was originally scheduled to take place on September 20, 2019, with anywhere from tens to millions of people planning to make a Naruto run straight for the gates of Area 51 - either that, or party hard at a Woodstock-meets-Burning Man festival with a lot of food trucks and alien merch; honestly, no one was really sure what was going on. Now, 2019’s most viral event has been canceled, and we’ll never know exactly how Storm Area 51 would have gone down. (Probably in flames… but we’ll still always wonder.)

And though it was all fun and games and threats to national security while it lasted, it’s presumably for the greater good that the Area 51 raid ended before someone really got hurt. Or blown up by the military. Or set upon by rabid aliens. In any case, Storm Area 51 is officially dead, and so is its bewildering, meteoric rise in the public eye.

As a swan song to the greatest worst event that will never be, we’re remembering Storm Area 51 with 20 of our favorite Area 51 memes! In no particular order of importance, take a last look at these meme gems from the good folks of the internet, and bid your dreams of joyriding a stolen alien spacecraft out of Area 51 goodbye.

In Meme-oriam: RIP Storm Area 51!

1) It’s more of a one-way ticket type deal.

2) I mean, the internet had to find something to do after Grumpy Cat died.

3) “KEVIN!!!”

4) It’s like they don’t even want us to come.

5) Aliens? No, no, we’re just here to steal your industrial copier.

6) Storm the National Archives!

7) No one knows who’s really in charge at this point, but everyone gets a participation trophy for showing up.

8) The battle cry of the Kyles.

9) It’s a testing base. How do you think they test stuff?

10) The ultimate weapon.

11) It’s kind of a shame we won’t get to witness Florida Man running naked Naruto into Area 51, swinging an alligator on meth around his head like a lasso. Oh the memes that could have been!

12) They can stop us all. All except Florida Man.

13) It’s almost like there’s some kind of reason they put a secluded top secret military facility out in the middle of the desert.

14) Well that’s just… that’s… no, yeah, we should do that.

15) It’s like deja vu all over again.

16) This actually seems like the most formulated plan anyone has come up with so far.

17) Haven’t yet found a secret that’s worth being melted for.

18) What you’ve suspected all along: there’s an interdimensional portal in your dryer that transports your socks right into Area 51’s basement.

19) "I looked forward in time. I saw 14,000,605 futures." “How many did we win?” “Definitely none.”

20) And just like that, the memeing days were over.

So long, Storm Area 51! Thanks for all the meme-ories.

~ Lindsay W. Merkel