Road to Nowhere
The drive from Vegas to Rachel, Nevada (the closest "town" to Area 51) is a long, lonely and mind-numbingly boring one. (For details on how to get to Area 51, see the appendix "Getting There.") This area of the Nevada desert is so desolate and isolated, it brings to mind a post-apocalyptic wasteland that would give Mad Max the creeps. So few people make the drive along deserted Highway 375 that the Nevada State Transportation Board recently designated that strip of road as the state's official "Extraterrestrial Highway," in an effort to attract tourists. State and regional tourism boards decided to give the highway it's wacky name to attract more visitors to the remote area. "Any stimulation those poor folks can get from anyone trying to come through, alien or otherwise, would be really welcome," said Jim Merlino of the Pioneer Territory Tourism Commission. With the 1994 average of about 50 cars per day traveling along Highway 375, Merlino has a gift for understatement. But despite the state's whimsical attitude toward naming the road, there's still a feeling that what's going on at Area 51 maybe isn't quite so funny as everyone would like to believe. In fact, some Rachel residents wanted the word "alien" included in the highway's name, but the transportation board refused. "Extraterrestrial means it can be something just flying above the Earth. It could just be meteors," said board director Tom Stephens, attempting to distance the state from an official endorsement of an alien presence. "None of the board members I know of has any special knowledge of visitors from outer space." Perhaps not, but visitors to Rachel and the surrounding area might beg to differ. The highway runs through territory that some claim is a hotbed of UFO activity. And despite official military denials, it's clear the Air Force engages in extensive flight exercises across the wide expanse of dessert. Aliens or not, strange lights in the desert have some people on edge, and the general air of denial and secrecy put forth by the Air Force doesn't do much to clear matters up. Until very recently, the government's official policy on Area 51 is that it doesn't exist. The Air Force now admits to a number of installations and sites around the general area, but still won't speak directly about Area 51. What many visitors fail to comprehend is that the patch of land known as Area 51 is in fact a tiny fraction of the much Larger Nellis Test Range, a sprawling installation that encompasses more restricted land than the size of Connecticut and Rhode Island combined. Despite official government assertions to the contrary, there are hundreds of miles of fences guarding hundreds of thousands of acres of "nothing." Not surprisingly, Nevada 375, America's Extraterrestrial Highway, doesn't even come close to the real action.
