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