by Michael Precker

Rachel, Nev. - Finally, they admit it. For decades the government has conducted secret tests around here, developed new technologies, hidden its activities at a military base so classified that it doesn't officially exist.

If you believe UFOlogists, aliens have been hanging around rural Nevada as well, perhaps even in cahoots with the Feds, who have done their darnedest to keep us away and cover it all up.

Suddenly, the veil is lifting. Nevada Gov. Bob Miller has invited the world to this dusty, remoite hamlet 150 miles from Las Vegas to put a government imprimatur on a road that confirms all our suspicions: the world's first, official Extraterrestrial Highway.

"This is very important," says Walter Andrus, international director of the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON), who flew in for last week's ceremonies to unveil new road signs featuring flying saucers.

"Visits from extraterrestrials are happening daily," says Mr. Andrus, who lives in Seguin, Texas. 'They don't land on the White House lawn and say, "Take me to your leader.' It's great they're putting this area on the map."

Well, that's one way to look at it. Another interpretation is that the state of Nevada, which already lures 40 million visitors a year, wants a few more.

"We can never have enough tourists," says Bpb Price, a longtime state representative from North Las Vegas. "We've been working on trying to get people out of the cities to discover some of the other aspects of the state."

And if there are aliens, adds state tourism director Tom Tait, "We want them to be welcome, and we hope they gamble."

Add to that a movie studio hoping to launch a movie about an alien invasion of Earth into a summer blockbuster. Never mind that these aliens are a nasty bunch who blow up much of the world without explanation before heroic Earthlings stop them. The result is that forces of state government and Hollywood hype teamed up for two days of tongue-in-cheek festivites surrounding a road that was used by 53 cars a day in January.

"This is pretty overwhelming," says Tom Stephens, director of the Nevada Department of Transportation, at a Las Vegas Planet Hollywood gala designed with Entertainment Tonight in mind.

"I was telling the district engineer, we have to throw a party like this every time we put up a new sign."

Actually, four signs: one at each end of the lonely 99-mile highway also known as Nevada 375, and one facing in each direction at Rachel, the only food and gas along the way.

"I still think we should put some signs down flat so visitors from the skies can see them," syas Mr. Miller.

Only about 100 people live in Rachel, mostly in trailer homes, on a windy plain. But until somebody builds an X-Files theme park, this may be the next best thing.

Something is out there, over the mountain range a few miles south of the highway. The U.S. military has a huge base where for decades it has tested spy planes and stealth aircraft before revealing them to the public. It is known as Area 51, Groom Lake or just the test site. But there's no official name, because the Pentagon has never acknowledged that it's doing any business here.

"The level of secrecy there is ridiculous," says George Knapp, a Las Vegas TV reporter who has focused on the base for years. "Everybody knows it's there, other nations fly over it and take pictures of it. It's only the American people that are not supposed to be able to see it."

All that mystery draws a lot of curious people, from aerospace journalists to snowbirds on their way south. They watch for supersonic aerial maneuvers, try to spot newfangled planes and often see weird lights at night. With those factors, it's not surprising that people who believe in UFOs find a lot to like here. They got a big boost in the late '80s when a man named Bob Lazar claimed he had worked on the base studying alien spacecraft as part of a U.S. military effort to copy the technology.

Since then, there has been a steady stream of reports on the secret base in newspapers and television, both serious and tabloid. At one end of the spectrum are credible stories of a new spy plane called Aurora. At the other extreme are frequent sightings and claims that aliens are on the base working with their American hosts.

"We feel there are beings at the test site," says Pat Travis, co-owner of the Little A'Le'Inn, a bar and resturant that is Rachel's biggest business. "I don't think they are here to harm us. I think the government is doing as much for them as they're doing for us."

Sky-High Hopes Mrs. Travis and her husband, Joe, moved to Rachel eight years ago and turned the simple resturant into UFO Central. They organize conferences, sell alien-themed souvenirs and welcome fellow believers from around the world. She acknowledges that "we're having a lot of fun with this," but hastens to add, "I believe everything I tell you. I've been told by four different psychics that the extraterrestrials are with us all the time."

As she speaks, a group of people in the corner watch a home video featuring strange lights that rise and fall in the night. Others sit around the bar discussing famous UFO sightings and government cover-ups with the fervor and expertise of baseball nuts rehashing a long-ago World Series.

"The aliens pick and choose who they care to reveal themselves to," says Marcus Pizzuti, an artist who moved here a few years ago from California. He dresses in military fatigues and casually tosses off phrases like "antimatter annihilation reactors" that power alien craft. Rachel, he says "is a little Twin Peaks in the desert," referring to the spooky TV show about a very odd town. "You meet a lot of military officers here who say they've seen things and know things, but they can't be quoted."

Joe Travis, who tends bar, passes around a snapshot of a shadowy disk that one of his neighbors took from a hotel balcony in Hawaii. The caption reads: "The photography department at Wallmart [sic] verified that the UFO was not a fault on the negative."

State officials in far-off Carson City didn't have to believe all this to think about cashing in. They had already seen how Route 66 nostalgia in other states boosted travel along that highway. They've had some success in decaring a remote portion of U.S. 50 in Nevada "America's Loneliest Road" and encouraging tourists to explore it.

With UFO buffs already calling the road "the alien highway," why not make it official?

"Most people, when they look to the skies, see friend or foe," says Mr. Miller. "Not me. I'm a Nevadan. I see intergalactic tourists."

Last year, the governor backed an E.T. Highway bill, which passed the house but then stalled. Mr. Price says an influential state senator blocked the measure "because he thought it would be an embarassment to Nevada."

But the govenor realized the excutive branch could act alone, and the Transportation Board approved the change in February. Then 20th Centuary Fox took notice. The studio is releasing Independence Day in July, a War of the Worlds tale brought up to date. Powerful aliens blast Eartjlings, valiant Earthlings fight back. In addition to lots of stars (including Jeff Goldblum, Will Smith, Bill Pulman, Mary McDonnell, and Judd Hirsch), the film promises spectacular special effects, including the White House and the Empire State Building being obliterated.

Promotional material says the fil,m was made in Utah, not Nevada, but never mind. Fox offered to sponsor the whole affair. So there is a Planet Hollywood party in Las Vegas teeming with state officials and movie publicists. There is a convoy of plush buses ferrying media and VIPs from Las Vegas to Rachel, where a fancy tent keeps out the wind - and most of Rachel's residents.

About 500 people attend the sign unveiling ceremony. Four of the movie's stars share a podium with the governor, who endorses a film nobody has seen: "You're going to need to check this movie out." Fox also provides Rachel with a big concrete monument to it's movie and inserts a time capsule that a future civilization can open in 2050. Mr. Goldblum contributes a baseball decorated like Planet Earth. Planetary Talk The studio also brings in four UFO experts, including Mr. Andrus of MUFON, for a discussion about the phenomenon.

"The film Independence Day is simply a projection upon what has been going on for many years," says Mr. Andrus, whose organization tries to publicize and substantiate UFO sightings. "The intelligence behind the UFO phenomenon has always had the capability of taking possesion of this planet."

Few, however are paying attention. Planet Hollywood has trucked in submarine sandwiches and pasta salad, while video cameras are crowding around the movie stars of UFO sound bites.

Not everybody is happy about the invasion. "I'm for tourism, but I don't want to be laughed at," says Sharon Taylor, who's lived in Rachel for 13 years. "All I'm going to get from this is less privacy."

Glenn Campbell, who moved here to crusade against government secrecy on the base, says Mr. Miller "basically sold this highway to Fox." Mr. Campbell, a former computer programmer, thinks the UFO sightings around here are wishful thinking, easily explained by the Air Force activity. His skepticism has won him banishment from the A'Le'Inn.

At the other end of town, his Area 51 Research Center publishes a newsletter and a guidebook reporting on the military operations and describing cat-and-mouse games with the authorities. Anyone trying to get a peek at the base, he says, risks being hunted down, harassed and fined by private security forces.

"A lot of tourists who don't know what they're doing are going to be crossing this unmarked border and getting roughed up," he says. Mr. Campbell thinks UFO issues still deserve serious examination, but he says the E.T. Highway will discourage that by making fun of the whole phenomenon. But many of the believers disagree.

"This is only for the good," says Chuck Clark, a former Californian who publishes a more pro-UFO guidebook to the area. "All this notoriety will bring more people and cause more questions and the government will have to make more things public."

After the ceremonies, the A'Le'Inn is packed. An Elvis impersonator named Sonny Boline, sporting bushy sideburns and a bright red jumpsuit, is gladly posing for photgraphs against a backdrop of alien pictures that fill the walls. Mr. Boline came from Las Vegas for the festivities with some friends who run a karaoke business. He's happy to be here, but doesn't really buy into all this alien stuff. "I'm more down to Earth." Elvis says.

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