On the Road to Nowhere: ‘Extraterrestrial Alien Highway’ : Nevada: <i> Something </i> is out there, the locals insist, citing strange lights and sonic booms. Military acknowledges it has an ‘operating location’ nearby, but insists it is not hiding UFOs.

Chuck Clark’s search for UFOs brought him to this desert outpost, a place with happenings so bizarre that a state lawmaker wants to name the road through here “Extraterrestrial Alien Highway.”

Clark has yet to encounter flying saucers, but one thing is certain: Something is out there.

Folks you’ll meet at the Little A’Le’Inn, the only restaurant in town, say they’re entertained some nights by strange lights and sonic booms.

Space aliens? A more likely cause is a military base so secret the government cryptically acknowledges its existence only as an “operating location.” Locals refer to the installation as “Dreamland” or “Area 51.”

Hard-core UFO and conspiracy buffs like Clark are convinced the government is keeping recovered alien spacecraft and working alongside little bug-eyed creatures at the sprawling complex, just 20 miles south of here across the rocky Groom Mountain Range.

Aside from classified man-made technologies, the military says there’s nothing unearthly out here--only sagebrush and the locals’ overactive imaginations.

Until recently, the military flat-out denied the presence of a base. Today, officials acknowledge something’s going on outside Rachel.

“We don’t have UFOs out there,” said Maj. Mary Feltault, an Air Force spokeswoman. “What goes on out there is classified.”

But you can decide for yourself. With a 4-wheel-drive truck and lots of nerve, you can sneak a peek at “Dreamland”--even though the military recently made it much tougher to do so.

In early May, the Interior Department agreed to give the Air Force control of nearly 4,000 acres of public land adjacent to Area 51, including an ideal vantage spot called Freedom Ridge.

For the 100 residents of Rachel, many of whom have established a cottage industry based on UFO fascination, the decision won’t really change things.

Locals including Pat Travis, co-owner of the Little A’Le’Inn, say they’ll just use other ridges to view the base and will keep searching for what’s really going on.

“This won’t stop us,” she said. “People are still coming out. The information is still there.”

Visitors to Rachel can get a guided trip to other ridges overlooking the base or swap flying saucer stories and order an “alien burger” at the Little A’Le’Inn--though they can’t yet ride down the Extraterrestrial Alien Highway suggested by state Assemblyman Roy Neighbors.

Travis and her husband, Joe, share Clark’s enthusiasm for space-age--or just spacey--occurrences. They tell of a white beam of light that blazed through their closed back door one morning several years ago.

“I can feel their presence,” Pat Travis said. “I get goose bumps when I think of them.”

Then there’s Glenn Campbell, a former computer software developer from Boston who operates what he calls the Secrecy Oversight Council from a trailer he rents for $215 a month.

Campbell also puts out a newsletter and an “Area 51 Viewer’s Guide” that helps the curious avoid being arrested by the guards who prowl the base’s perimeter.

Others who frequent the area include Bob Lazar of Las Vegas, a self-described physicist who claims he worked at the base--on one of nine captured alien saucers to determine how its power source worked.

Area 51 reportedly served as a laboratory for the U-2 spy plane and later the SR-71 Blackbird spy plane, the B-2 stealth bomber and F-117A stealth fighter.

Among other rumors: The base has a stable of aircraft obtained from defecting Soviet fliers and is the proving ground for a $15-billion spy plane, the Aurora, which can do 5,000 m.p.h.

Aviation Week & Space Technology recently said radar-evading helicopters and oddly shaped pilotless spy planes are being developed at the 40-year-old base, with money from secret “black budgets” that don’t appear in any federal allotments.

Clark said exotic military aircraft developed at the base may be mistaken for UFOs. But sometimes fast-moving, soundless pulsating balls of light that appear in the sky just seem to be from another world, he said.

“They may not be UFOs to the Air Force. They know what they are. But they are UFOs to us,” he said.

Intrepid snoopers on the ridges surrounding the base use binoculars to bring into focus its huge airplane hangers, satellite dishes and control towers, along with a 5-mile-long runway.

Signs of super-tight security are everywhere--closed-circuit cameras, signs advising, “Use of deadly force authorized,” and white Jeep Cherokees carrying armed guards.

Photographing or sketching structures or aircraft is illegal. Guards will confiscate film, forcing locals to resort to such tactics as using extra film rolls as decoys and police scanners to try to monitor security radio conversations.

Before the land was ceded to Area 51, Clark stood atop Freedom Ridge, 12 miles away, and pointed out more security in a mountain observatory a few miles off.

“They can tell if you need a shave,” he said. “Watch what you say. They can hear you.”

With the ridge now closed, Clark and others say the base can be seen from public land at Tikaboo Peak, a higher mountain 26 miles away. But visibility is poor.

The military’s action is seen as hypocritical, since Russia and other countries have been able to observe the base for years with spy satellites.

“All enemies can see it,” Clark said. “But we can’t.”