RACHEL, Nev. — The Little A’Le’Inn has been an unlikely tourist
destination in the Mojave Desert for nearly 25 years, selling souvenirs —
from green alien coffee cups to E.T. Highway T-shirts — dedicated to
the notion that we are not alone. Understandably.
Nine miles up a nearby dirt road is the top-secret military installation
known as Area 51, whose murky provenance fueled decades of speculation
about extraterrestrial aliens and kept the U.F.O.-hunting tourists
coming.
Or rather, the top-secret military installation not known as Area 51 —
at least until last week, when the C.I.A. released a classified report
on the history of the U-2 spy plane, which officially acknowledged what
everyone here has long known: There is a secret military testing base
at Groom Lake called Area 51. It is 150 miles north by car from Las Vegas, in a vast expanse of utterly empty scabland, desert and mountain, and signs reading “No gas station next 150 miles.”
The report, released after eight years of prodding by a George Washington University
archivist researching the history of the U-2, made no mention of
colonies of alien life, suggesting that the secret base was dedicated to
the relatively more mundane task of testing spy planes.
But no matter. Even this little bit of validation was welcome in Rachel,
which claimed a population of 57 as of last Tuesday afternoon, and
where the tourists have not been coming at quite the pace they once did.
The movies and television shows that once fed an international fixation
with aliens secreted at Area 51 — from “The X Files” to movies like “Independence Day” and “Paul”
— are, with the passage of time and the inevitable rise of new subjects
of national interest, not quite as gripping as they once were.
“We have a guest book, but it’s gone by the wayside. Shelby, do you know
where our guest book has disappeared to?” Pat Travis, 70, the owner of
the Little A’Le’Inn, asked a waitress behind the bar.
“It’s really strange to not have it out for all of our customers to
sign,” Ms. Travis said with a sigh. “Would you bring it to me?”
Ms. Travis — who recounted being awakened one night by a bright light
shot from a U.F.O. that came through the center of the back door — said
she expected the C.I.A. acknowledgment to bring a rush of customers
through her doors.
They will want to know how to find Area 51 and how to spot a U.F.O. in
the pitch-black night skies here, and they will shop from the shelves
lined with green alien shot glasses, coffee cups and guitar picks and even Area 51 Wine (produced for the inn by a winery in Northern California).
“Every time there is another story out, people come out,” she said.
“They want to know how to get to that area. Where it is. The more there
is, the more you talk about it, the more it goes on and on.”
Rachel was fairly deserted the other day, save for a family from Seattle on a drive
from Las Vegas to Yosemite that made a U.F.O. detour at the urging of
their 16-year-old, Hank Reavis. His arms full of Area 51 T-shirts as his
father reached for his wallet, Hank said he wanted to see for himself
the place featured in movies like “Paul.”
Asked if they would visit Area 51 itself, Hank’s father, Gil, a retired logger, answered “Yes.” Hank corrected him.
“We won’t get in there, Dad,” he said.
That observation was confirmed after a nine-mile drive up Back Gate Road
to a back entrance of the base. Or at least, one assumes it was the
back entrance to the base, given the six separate WARNING! signs
prohibiting picture-taking or going beyond the two guard gates with
flashing red lights.
“If you pass the gate, they can shoot you, I think,” said Niklas
Gartler, 17, of Vienna, who came here with his uncle from Los Angeles.
Well maybe not shoot; the signs promise six months in prison for
trespassers. The greater threat, in truth, might be the rattlesnakes
that infest the roads and trails here during the hot summer months.
The report, “The Central Intelligence Agency and Overhead
Reconnaissance: The U-2 and Oxcart Programs, 1954-1974,” was released,
albeit in a redacted form, at the request of Jeffrey T. Richelson, a
senior fellow with the National Security Archive
at George Washington University. “There certainly was — as you would
expect — no discussion of little green men here,” Mr. Richelson said.
“This is a history of the U-2. The only overlap is the discussion of the
U-2 flights and U.F.O. sightings, the fact that you had these
high-flying aircraft in the air being the cause of some of the
sightings.”
Mr. Richelson said he was not looking for information on Area 51. “That was sort of a bonus,” he said.
No one here seems to take themselves too seriously. The prevailing
attitude is reflected in the name of the restaurant, The Little A’Le’Inn
(say it aloud). It sits right off Extraterrestrial Highway, as they
call State Route 375. There is an “Earthlings welcome” sign above the
parking lot.
But everyone seems assured that aliens are here, that U.F.O.s are
dancing through the desert skies, and that the government has never been
straight about what it was up to.
“I never had any doubt,” said Pam Kinsey, a housekeeper here. “I watch
the lights every morning. I get up at 4:30 to send my kid to school. I
know they are there.”
Hank’s mother, Sally, said she was keeping an open mind.
“But how can we be the only ones?” she asked. “I’ll tell you this, they
certainly picked a beautiful state to come to. They couldn’t have done
much better than Nevada.”
Howard Baral, a Los Angeles entertainment accountant and Niklas’s uncle,
said that he made the trip out here — it is a three-hour drive from Las
Vegas — to make his nephew happy.
“Since he was a little kid, he has always been enthralled with alien
lore and Area 51,” Mr. Baral said. “His dream was to visit it. It wasn’t
my first choice.”
That said, Mr. Baral said he was inclined to believe that there were
aliens out there. “It’s the middle of nowhere,” he said. “What’s the Air
Force doing in the middle of nowhere?”
Annie Jacobson, the author of a book on the history of the area, said she doubted the acknowledgment would dampen interest in what lies behind the fences.
“It will only make people more curious, ask more questions,” she said.
All of which is why Ms. Travis thinks it is time to get that guest book
on display at the entrance of her little box of a restaurant.
“You are going to find people coming in here from different country,
different places,” she said, thumbing through pages of signatures from
the past. “This needs to get back out. We need to get our little table
out.”
