A group of people recently made the news when they joking said they wanted to storm Area 51. The Facebook event invitation went viral and it was signed by 3.3 million people—all agreeing they wanted to see some “aliens” at the government site. After seeing all the excitement generated by millions of people who wanted to raid Area 51, the staff at the OKC Animal Welfare group in Oklahoma City took advantage. They decided to ride the wave of popularity and use the event as a way to draw attention to all the animals in their shelter who needed loving homes.
The shelter’s adoption coordinator decided to run with the idea and really got into it. She selected three dogs at the shelter, a three year old dog named Piper, a three month old dog named Sam and a three year old dog named Lady and a little kitten to participate. The shelter had an adorable photoshoot with the dogs and cat, giving each of the animals their very own custom made foil hat so they could be “Area 51 ready.” The dogs all enjoyed the fun and the attention, eagerly wearing their new hats in exchange for treats. The staff did not want the rest of the shelter animals to feel left out, so they took photos of the rest of the dogs using a space filter on their phones.
After the photoshoot was complete, they posted the adorable photos to Facebook and wrote, “Come storm our shelter…we have great animals ready to protect you from the Area 51 aliens. Adoption isn’t that far out of this world! #stormtheshelter” After that, the post went viral! It was shared thousands of times and drove people into the shelter with 56 adoptions in a single weekend. All of the animals who took place in the photoshoot were all adopted except one: Lady. She is still looking for her forever home!
