EXTRATERRESTRIAL HIGHWAY

Internet UFO Group Media Archive

From:(An192826@anon.penet.fi (sue I. Generis))
Title:EXTRATERRESTRIAL HIGHWAY
Source:Associated Press
Date:Feburary 20, 1996


By ROBERT MACY

Associated Press Writer

RACHEL, Nev. (AP) -- If E.T. ks ever looking for a place to phone home, or

searching for a route back to his extraterrestrial kin, this blip of a town

may

be just the ticket.

Long a mecca for people who believe we are not alone, Rachel is now the

anchor for Nevada's newest tourist attraction -- the Extraterrestrial

Highway.

It's even going to get official state highway signs.

Folks here are convinced there are alien visitors just over the

mountains to

the south, at a top-secret government base known as Area 51 or Groom Lake.

"I think there are people and machines from other planets over there," Pat

Travis saif as she scrubbed breakfast dishes at the Little A'Le'Inn -- think

"alien" -- the focal point of this hamlet of 100 people. "I think our

government

is working in conjunction with them."

"I don't doubt for a minute that there are extraterrestrials," added Chuck

Clark, an amateur astronomer who has written a guidebook on the area. "To

think

we're the only life in the universe is ludicrous."

Area 51 is veiled in mystery. The heavily guarded, isolated base 85 miles

north of Las Vegas is where the government has tested some of its most exotic

aircraft, including the U-2, SR-71 Blackbird and F-117A stealth fighter,

and is

now believed to be flying Aurora, apparently a new reconnaisance plane.

Officially, the military won't even acknowledge the base exists. Uniformed

Marines and Air Force personnel drive through, and some stop at the Little

A'Le'Inn for breakfast.

But "I have never had anybody who works at Area 51 tell us anything,"

Travis

said. "We've had some of them get pretty drunk and they still don't tell

anything."

While the federal government wishes everyone would go away, the Nevada

Transportation Department recently named a 92-mile strgtch of desolate state

route 375 the Extraterrestrial Highway. It plans to put up four signs at a

cost

of $3,300.

Gov. Bob Miller quipped that some of the signs should be placed flat on

the

ground "so aliens can land there."

The governor said the designation shows Nevada has a sense of humor, as

was

the case several years ago when a magazine named U.S. 50 across the state

"the

loneliest road in America."

"Instead of being insulted, we turned it around, set up way stations, and

created T-shirts and bumper stickers reading, `I survived the loneliest

road in

America,'" Miller sakd.

The Extraterrestrial Highway runs between the hamlets of Hiko and Warm

Springs, traversing mountain passes and deserts covered with scrub brush and

juniper trees.

Highway officials say it draws only about 50 vehicles a day on average,

though more show up twice annually when Rachel holds "UFO Friendship

Campouts"

for tourists looking for flying saucers.

Clark, 50, said he has seen mysterious sights such as glowing orbs of

light

around Area 51.

"I think the stuff that is being seen is alien, but under the control of

our

government," he said. "I don't know if they're spaceships. But they're beyond

our physics."

The tiny cafe features racks of UFO T-shirts, caps and books, and photos

taken from a distance of the hangars and 30,000-foot runway at Groom Lake.

The photos were taken before the government last year banned public

access to

two ridges overlooking the complex.

UFO buffs still seek out the black mailbox along Highway 375 that marks

the

road leading to restricted land surrounding Area 51. But armed guards keep

gawkers more than seven miles from the base.

They cannot block the sights and sounds, such as the light and deafening

roar

that sweep across the remote valley when Aurora takes to the sky, Clark said.

Pat Travis has seen many strange sights in the nighttime sky around

Rachel.

She told of one incident when a strange beam of light pierced an iron door at

the cafe, illuminating the doorjamb.

"I really believe in UFOs," she said, flipping a pancake on a griddle.

"This

is not just something to sell T-shirts."

She and her husband, Joe, haven't actually encountered an alien.

Neither has Joe Travis, 57, and thinks he knows why.

"I've heard if you smoke and drink, they won't have anything to do with

you,"

he said, puffing on a cigarette while perched on a stool at the cafe's bar.