E.T. COULD PHONE HOME FROM HERE

Internet UFO Group Media Archive

From:smitty@schmitzware.com
Title:E.T. COULD PHONE HOME FROM HERE
Source:USA Today
Date:Feburary 18, 1996


RACHEL, Nev. - If E.T. is ever looking for a place to

phone home, or searching for a route back to his

extraterrestrial kin, this tiny blip of a town may be just

the ticket.

Long the mecca for sci-fi faithful who believe that we are

not alone, Rachel is now the anchor for Nevada's newest

attraction: the Extraterrestrial Highway.

Folks here are convinced visitors from outer space live just

over the mountains to the south, at a top-secret government

base known as Area 51 or Groom Lake.

"There are people and machines from other planets over

there," Pat Travis said as she scrubbed breakfast dishes at

the Little A'Le'Inn - a play on the word alien - the focal

point of this town of 100. "I think our government is

working in conjunction with them."

"I don't doubt for a minute that there are

extraterrestrials," said Chuck Clark, an amateur astronomer

who moved here 1 years ago and has written a guidebook on

the area. "To think we're the only life in the universe is

ludicrous."

Area 51 is steeped in mystery. Here the government has

tested exotic aircraft, including the U-2, SR-71 Blackbird,

F-117A Stealth fighter and now the top-secret Aurora, said

to be the succesor to the high-flying Blackbird

reconnaissance plane.

The military has refused to acknowledge the existence of a

base in the heavily guarded area 85 miles northwest of Las

Vegas.

UFO buffs say an alien found in the crash of a spaceship

near Roswell, N.M., on July 8, 1947, was taken to Area 51.

The Nevada Department of Transportation, mindful of the

growing interest in this remote area, recently named the 92-

mile stretch of state Route 375 the Extraterrestrial

Highway.

Special road signs are planned for this desolate stretch,

which draws about 50 vehicles a day.

Gov. Robert Miller suggested, tongue-in-cheek, that some

signs for the Extraterrestrial Highway be placed flat on the

ground "so aliens can land there."

Miller said the new name shows Nevada has a sense of humor,

as was the case several years ago when a magazine named

Highway 50's course through Nevada "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 said.

The state will erect four 3-foot-by-8-foot Extraterrestrial

Highway signs this year.

The highway runs between the tiny hamlets of Hiko and Warm

Springs, across terrain ranging from three mountain passes

to desert decked with scrub brush and Juniper trees. The

town of Rachel consists of a cluster of mobile homes, a gas

station and the Little A'Le'Inn, a bar and cafe run by

Travis and her husband, Joe.

On a recent morning, Pat Travis was tending to the kitchen,

catching her breath from an invasion of Marines who stop by

daily for breakfast before heading to duty at a nearby

restricted military area.

Were they going to Area 51?

"Nope," she answered.

Where, then?

"Can't say," she replied.

Pat Travis said several people who live in Rachel work at

Area 51, or the Tonopah Test Range to the north, where the

F-117A was based while it was still a classified project.

She said the workers, military and civilian, are

closemouthed.

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

anything," she said. "We've had some of them get pretty

drunk and they still don't tell anything."

Clark, 50, said he's witnessed mysterious sights such as

"glowing orbs of light" around Area 51.

Many have made similar sightings in this haven for UFO

buffs, Clark said. "The stuff that is being seen is alien,

but under the control of our government," he said.

The tiny cafe sells UFO-related T-shirts, caps and books.

Its walls are lined with pictures of extraterrestrial types

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

access to two bluffs overlooking the Groom Lake complex.

UFO fans still seek out the black mailbox alongside Highway

375 that marks the road leading to restricted land around

Area 51. Armed guards keep gawkers more than 7 miles from

the area.

But they cannot block the sights and sounds, Clark says,

such as the mysterious light and the deafening roar that

sweeps across the remote valley when the Aurora takes to the

sky. "It's louder than anything I've ever heard," Joe Travis

said.

The Travises bought the cafe eight years ago while Joe was

working in Tonopah, helping build the F-117A base.

Pat Travis denied that the UFO stories are a ploy to sell

paraphernalia at her tiny cafe. "I really believe in UFOs,"

she said, flipping a pancake on a griddle.

Pat Travis, 52, said once a strange beam of light pierced an

iron door at the cafe. She has seen many strange sights in

the nighttime sky, too, but has never encountered an alien

being, she said.

Same for Joe Travis, 57. But he says he knows why: "I've

heard if you smoke and drink, they won't have anything to do

with you," the ruddy-faced, bearded Travis said, puffing on

a cigarette while perched on a stool at the cafe's bar.

Copyright 1996, USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co., Inc.

E.T. could phone home from here., USA TODAY, 02-18-1996.