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Bud Light: Free beer for any alien that escapes Area 51

Take me to your liter.

Gael Cooper
CNET editor Gael Fashingbauer Cooper, a journalist and pop-culture junkie, is co-author of "Whatever Happened to Pudding Pops? The Lost Toys, Tastes and Trends of the '70s and '80s," as well as "The Totally Sweet '90s." She's been a journalist since 1989, working at Mpls.St.Paul Magazine, Twin Cities Sidewalk, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, and NBC News Digital. She's Gen X in birthdate, word and deed. If Marathon candy bars ever come back, she'll be first in line.
Expertise Breaking news, entertainment, lifestyle, travel, food, shopping and deals, product reviews, money and finance, video games, pets, history, books, technology history, generational studies. Credentials
  • Co-author of two Gen X pop-culture encyclopedia for Penguin Books. Won "Headline Writer of the Year"​ award for 2017, 2014 and 2013 from the American Copy Editors Society. Won first place in headline writing from the 2013 Society for Features Journalism.
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Gael Cooper
2 min read
Area 51 File Photos

Guard Gate at Area 51 (Groom Lake, Dreamland) near Rachel, Nevada.

 Barry King

It can't be easy to be an alien trapped in Nevada's mysterious Area 51. But now there's even more incentive for the little green or gray creatures to break out: Free beer.

We wrote earlier about a tongue-in-cheek Facebook event to "storm Area 51" and "see them aliens." More than 1.7 million people claim they're going to the Sept. 20 event at the legendary US military facility.

But don't joke with a well-armed military force. The US Air Force told the Washington Post that messing with the highly classified location is a terrible idea, saying in a statement that "the US Air Force always stands ready to protect America and its assets."

Enter American beer Bud Light, known for its irreverent and sassy ads. First, the beer tweeted from its official account that, "we'd like to be the first brand to formally announce that we will not be sponsoring the Area 51 raid."

That didn't last long. On Wednesday, the beer brand rethought things, tweeting, "Screw it. Free Bud Light to any alien that makes it out."

A publicity stunt, sure, but this isn't something some intern just thought of in a spare moment and forgot about instantly. Someone at the beer company tweeted out an actual illustrated label for "The Universally Renowned Bud Light Space Beer."

And when questioned on whether the "space beer" could be bought, responded with, "51,000 retweets and we'll make it happen." (Get it? 51,000 ... Area 51 ... everything is connected. Time is a flat circle, etc.)

As of Thursday night, the tweet had more than 24,000 retweets and was still climbing, so is almost halfway there.

Bud Light's not the only well-known company or person to get involved with the supposed Area 51 raid. Food TV personality Guy Fieri tweeted a photo of himself cooking radioactive ribs for the aliens.

Musician Lil Nas X released an Area 51-themed remix of his Old Town Road video, featuring Thanos and Keanu Reeves, because of course it does.

And actor Danny Trejo is envisioning himself leading the crowd.

While threatening a US military installation in any way, even as a joke, seems like a good way to die, retweeting Bud Light's tweet seems like a harmless publicity stunt. Can the beer brand get its 51,000 retweets though, requiring it to release the alien-themed label? Like Fox Mulder so famously said, we want to believe.

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