In Rachel, 40 minutes into the drive, I stopped at the Little A’Le’Inn (pronounced Little Alien), a bar and restaurant, which sells extraterrestrial-themed mixed drinks alongside self-published books like “The Area 51 & S-4 Handbook.” Its walls were covered with sun-faded photographs featuring aliens, glowing orbs and obelisks zooming through clouds.
The bartender was polishing a glass, standing near a man slumped over a drink, when I approached to inquire about area attractions. “You should talk to Pam,” the bartender said, pointing to a woman standing near the door.
And so I was introduced to Pam Kinsey, the first of several residents I met eager to talk about Rachel, and Area 51, and government sensors hidden in sand, and glowing dots hovering on high.
But Ms. Kinsey, 42, who has lived in the area for almost two decades, is not herself an ardent alien believer.
“We have a military base next door that can explain a lot of the lasers and other weird things,” she said.
Ms. Kinsey said that only a couple of Rachel’s 75 or so residents talk about seeing saucers and little green men. The tourists — whom she confirmed come from all over the world — are often the only extraterrestrial seekers found in Rachel.
DeWayne Davis, a 72-year-old retired Air Force engineer who came to the Little A’Le’Inn for dinner, said he has seen saucers in the area, including a glowing craft that hovered at high altitude before tracing a rectangular pattern in the night sky.
“It was at 55,000 feet or higher,” he said. “And it emitted an orange sodium-vapor color, not the xenon glow you’d usually see.”
Before leaving the area, I drove out of town a mile to find Mr. Arnu, a 45-year-old software developer from Las Vegas who keeps a trailer parked on some land he purchased in 2003 as a retreat from the city. Mr. Arnu, a native of Germany who runs www.dreamlandresort.com, a popular Web site on Area 51, said that he files a Freedom of Information Act petition each year to procure dates and times of major military testing periods. “That’s when all the action happens,” he said.
Like most local people I met, Mr. Arnu thinks the Nevada Commission on Tourism’s fixation with aliens is a bit silly.
“I’m a plane-spotter,” he said. “I have no real belief in the alien stuff.”
Source: Lonesome Highway to Another World?
