SAUCERS IN THEIR EYES

Internet UFO Group Media Archive

From:JeffM@sanctum.com (Jeff Miller)
Title:SAUCERS IN THEIR EYES
Source:Newsweek
Date:April 22, 1996


It's Official: This Nevada Road Is E. T.'s Runway

Newsweek, April 22, 1996

by Rick Marin and T. Trent Gegax

Nevada State Route 375 stretches from a shuttered roadhouse just off

U. S. 93 up to where it meets U. S. 6 at a town called Warm Springs

(population: 0). A couple of hours north of Las Vegas, these desolate

98 miles of blacktop average 53 cars a day and so many UFO sightings

that in February Nevada's Department of Transportation renamed 375

the Extraterrestrial Highway. This week Gov. Bob Miller makes it

official, with a dedication ceremony unveiling eight-foot-wide,

alien-friendly road signs. "We're making sure we have a few of the

signs laying down," says Miller, "in case we have visitors landing

from above."

He's kidding, of course, and he may be laughing all the way to

Caesars Palace. The Nevada tourism people hope this down-sized corner

of the state can cash in on the current mania for UFOs and all things

paranormal. They've already got Twentieth Century Fox picking up most

of the tab. In exchange, Fox is using the event to promote its big

summer action movie, "Independence Day," in which hostile aliens do

the galaxy a favor by blowing up New York City. Some of the movie

takes place around the E. T. Highway. It also makes reference to Area

51, part of Nellis Air Force Base, where the stealth bomber and

Aurora spy plane were developed. But UFOlogists say that's just the

cover story: the government is actually housing an alien craft and

crew here.

Back on planet Earth, half a dozen civilians who worked at Area 51

have sued the Defense Department, claiming hazardous waste on the

site exposed them to harmful chemicals. One case was dismissed:

another is pending. The official military line is that current

activities in Area 51 are classified and cannot be discussed. Hmmm.

Ground zero for astral travelers is the dusty hamlet of Rachel. To

hard-core "believers," as the folks with saucers in their eyes call

themselves, this is their Graceland and their Lourdes: holy ground

with trinkets for sale. At Rachel's Little A'Le'Inn (get it?), owner

Pat Travis enthuses about the mystery guests who frequent her

intergalactic way station. "I do believe the beings are here for

good, not for bad," says the portly, beaming proprietress, who claims

to have channeled alien beings. "The more people who come here, the

better it'll be for our community--and theirs." Watch for the

character inspired by Travis on Fox's cult-TV series, "The X-Files."

Marcus Pizzuti, a commercial artist who recently moved to Bachel from

California, subscribes to the theory that Area 51 contains spacecraft

with "antimatter annihilation reactors" powered by alien substances

that are "way off the periodic table." Some might say the same about

Pizzuti.

The prospect of gawking sightseers descending on Bachel and its

environs makes Glen Campbell--the local curmudgeon, not the singer--

"rippin' mad." A conspiracy theorist who also goes by the name

Psychospy, Campbell sent the governor a 25-page letter of protest

against turning the area into a tourist trap. "It invites a lot of

people here to a very intensely guarded installation," Campbell

complains, referring to the Nellis base. He worries that interlopers

will run afoul of the "cammo dudes" (camouflaged security guards) who

guard Area 51. Signs posted on the base's perimeter read: USE OF

DEADLY FORCE AUTHORIZED. Let's hope E. T. can read. Nevada tourism

director Tom Tait isn't concerned. He giddily foresees "casinos or

resorts with moonscape golf courses." Let's also hope E. T. plays

blackjack.