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Area 51 invasion force reaches 1.2 million brave souls, making it the world’s fourth-largest “army”

Area 51 invasion force reaches 1.2 million brave souls, making it the world’s fourth-largest “army”
[Photo: Flickr user Ken Lund]
By Michael Grothaus2 minute Read

The number of Facebook users who have joined an event pledging to raid Area 51 on September 20 has now reached 1.2 million people. To put that in perspective, the five largest armies in the world are:

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  • China with 2,183,000 troops
  • India with 1,395,100 troops
  • The United States with 1,347,300 troops
  • North Korea with 1,190,000 troops
  • Russia with 831,000 troops

[Screenshot: Facebook]
At 1.2 million people pledging to overrun the U.S. military installation, that makes the group larger than the both Russia’s and North Korea’s entire military. And if you add the additional 1 million people who say they are “interested” in attending, the ad hoc Facebook Area 51 invasion force now stands as the largest army in the world, even surpassing China’s military of 2.1 million troops.

Still, it’s got to be said this if the event is actually attempted, it will be one of the worst suicide missions in history. However, the event organizers now claim the event was always meant as a joke. But the U.S. military isn’t laughing: the U.S. Air Force recently sent out a warning:

[Area 51] is an open training range for the U.S. Air Force, and we would discourage anyone from trying to come into the area where we train American armed forces. The U.S. Air Force always stands ready to protect America and its assets.

And of course, you can always count on Twitter to point out how ludicrous some plans are:

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