DoD apologizes for threatening to bomb ‘Storm Area 51’ millennials

The Department of Defense was forced to issue an apology Sept. 21, 2019, after a tweet was sent out the day before suggesting the military was going to bomb millenials attempting to raid Area 51 into oblivion with America's top bomber.

The offending tweet was posted on Sept. 20, 2019, by the Defense Visual Information Distribution Service (DVIDSHub), a DoD media service, in response to the "Storm Area 51" event, which was held the day the tweet was posted.

"The last thing #Millennials will see if they attempt the #area51 raid today," the tweet read. The accompanying image was a B-2 Spirit bomber, a highly-capable stealth aircraft built to slip past enemy defenses and devastate targets with nuclear and conventional munitions.

Screenshot of the now-deleted tweet from the Defense Visual Information Distribution Service.

(Screenshot)

The tweet received some immediate backlash online. "The military should not be threatening to kill citizens, not even misguided ones," Jeffrey Lewis, the director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, tweeted Sept. 20, 2019.

On Sept. 21, 2019, DVIDSHub deleted the troubling tweet and issued an apology. "Last night a DVIDSHUB employee posted a tweet that in NO WAY supports the stance of the Department of Defense," the military media division wrote. "It was inappropriate and we apologize for this mistake."

The "Storm Area 51" movement evolved from a Facebook post that went viral. Hundreds of thousands of people signed up for the "Storm Area 51, They Can't Stop Us All" event, which jokingly called for people to overrun the remote Nevada air force base to "see them aliens."

The event was ultimately canceled by the organizers due to safety concerns, although some people did show up and there were a handful of arrests.

The Air Force was taking the potential threat seriously though. "Our nation has secrets, and those secrets deserve to be protected," Chief of Staff Gen. David Goldfein said a few days prior to the event. "People deserve to have our nation's secrets protected."

Acting Air Force Secretary Matt Donovan added that the service was coordinating its efforts with local law enforcement. "There's a lot of media attention, so they're expecting some folks to show up there. We're prepared, and we've provided them additional security personnel, as well as additional barricades."

This article originally appeared on Business Insider. Follow @BusinessInsider on Twitter.