Looking for UFOs? Travel Nevada's 'Extraterrestrial Highway'

RACHEL, Nev. I saw no Men in Black. I did see little green men, lots of them, all sizes and shapes. Some had hideously globular craniums and black-as-deep-space piercing eyeballs; others were skeletal and avuncular.

They were stuffed, of course. Or molded in hard plastic. These “aliens” have alighted in this lonesome travelers outpost deep in the desert, on the outskirts of famously secret Area 51 – not to conquer earthlings, but just to make them part with cash in exchange for cheesy souvenirs.

All conspiracy theorists need a home base, a place to congregate and commune while hashing out shadowy theories and regaling each other with chilling eyewitness accounts, and the Little A’Le’Inn motel, restaurant, bar and gift shop on Nev. 375 – officially named the “Extraterrestrial Highway” by the state – serves that purpose quite nicely.

It’s a way station for those convinced the government for decades has conducted super-secret missions revolving around alien technology and even harbored extraterrestrials. Little matter that more than a year ago, the government finally released the full, unredacted documents revealing that Area 51 has been nothing more than an Air Force testing ground, albeit clandestine, for the likes of U-2 spy planes, oddly shaped Mach 3 surveillance craft and F-22 Raptor stealth fighters.

Hard-core UFO seekers are hardly convinced. They’ll brand you hopelessly naive. So come they still do, a steady trickle of traffic along the Extraterrestrial Highway.

Welcome to Rachel

Rachel, the spiritual center of Area 51 activity, is a tedious drive. Static rules the radio, giving you the fleeting thought that, well, maybe the government is controlling transmission lines or something. The only break from the heat-wave shimmers arising from the broken-white-line asphalt are the occasional signs – “Watch Low Flying Aircraft” and “Open Range” – with bullet holes shot through.

Eventually a “Welcome to Rachel Nevada” sign greets you. It looks as if there’s an accent mark over the “e” in Rachel. (On closer inspection, that’s a flying saucer, not an accent mark.) In smaller type, it reads: “Population: Human YES. Aliens?”

Rachel proper is a low-rise town of fewer than 100, and the Little A’Le’Inn dominates. It’s a series of white prefab buildings. The restaurant/bar/gift shop is the largest structure. The sign reads “Earthlings Welcome.” I was somewhat surprised to find about 20 cars in the gravel parking lot. I hadn’t seen 20 cars on the road the previous two hours. With trepidation, I approached a woman pointing a camera at the flying saucer.

Carrie from New Mexico (“no last names, I’m a carpenter with government clearance and don’t want to get it yanked”) was happy to talk: Besides knowing people who had credible UFO experiences, she said, “There’ve been a lot of ex-military and current military people who’ve come out and talked about stuff that can’t be explained. A lot of pilots talk about it.”

I mentioned the confidential government documents that have been released.

“Sure, they (tested planes),” Carrie replied. “But that’s not all of it. It’s a good remote place to have (a) secret base.”

I spoke to others in the parking lot who espoused the “there’s something out there” dogma. An older gent from Canada, well-versed in alien lore, said, “They hire these ‘Camo Dude’ guys and if you cross the line, they shoot you.” He said they drive white trucks. “They got remote control cameras that track ya. If it’s just an Air Force base, why do that?”

The Black Mailbox

He was speaking about the next stop for alien-oriented tourists, the long dusty road – marked only by the infamous Black Mailbox – that goes for 13 miles before reaching pavement and signs warning of arrest and “use of deadly force permitted.”

A quick Internet search gives you directions to the road leading to Area 51. They all say to look for the Black Mailbox (subsequently painted white) about 20 miles south of Rachel, then turn right on the largest of several dirt roads.

So I headed back down the road. The thing was, I didn’t see the notorious mailbox, black, white or any other color. But in another 10 miles, I’d almost reached the end of the Extraterrestrial Highway. I caught site of the giant metallic alien in front of the tourist trap called the Alien Research Center, which Yelp users say is closed more often than it’s open. (On this day, closed.) Eventually, I passed the highway sign, this one free of decals. I’d come to the end of the road and wasn’t near Area 51.

Desperate, I pulled into a business called ET Fresh Jerky, with a homemade sign that read, “Drop Your Toxic Waste in the Cleanest Restrooms in Area 51.” Underneath that boast: “Free samples.”

I met Tressa Sweet, 23, who grew up in the area. She rolls her eyes at alien stories, but admits her older sister swears she saw something. Anyway, Sweet said that “there’s an old rancher out near Rachel who had a mailbox. Everybody thought, apparently, that’s where the alien mail came from, so they would again put stickers all over his mail box. He replaced it all the time, painted it white. It was just an old rancher’s mailbox. ... Finally, he pulled it out of the ground and gets his mail somewhere else. It was a pain in the butt.”

But Sweet was happy to point me to the correct dirt road for the journey to the Area 51 border, adding, “You know it’s just an Air Force base, right?”

I made the turnoff, right before the end of the highway construction, and slowly made my way over the bumpy dirt road. A white 4x4 truck blew past me and, before the dust could fully clear, I was at the fence with the warning signs ($1,000 fine, six months imprisonment, photography prohibited) and the paved road to Nellis Air Force beyond the threshold. I looked to my right, up a bluff, where a white truck was parked. I didn’t linger long.

Besides, I wanted to get back to Rachel and ogle the Little A’Le’Inn’s swag and sample its “World Famous Alien Burger.”

This story was originally published November 14, 2014 at 12:00 AM with the headline "Looking for UFOs? Travel Nevada's 'Extraterrestrial Highway' ."