Rachel — Nevada | Shared Latitude

A population-of-fifty outpost on the Extraterrestrial Highway, built around a bar plastered with alien memorabilia and a nervous fascination with the secretive base just over the hills. Lia and I ordered the Alien Burger, laughed at the tin-foil decor, then drove out into the dark and genuinely couldn't explain a light we both saw moving wrong.

There is nothing between Rachel and the horizon in any direction except more Nevada, which is precisely the point. The town sits on State Route 375 — officially designated the Extraterrestrial Highway by the state in 1996 — a couple dozen miles from the perimeter of the secretive military installation known popularly as Area 51. Fewer than fifty people live here, and most of the local economy runs through a single building: the Little A’Le’Inn, a bar, motel, and gift shop wallpapered floor to ceiling in UFO memorabilia, alien dolls, and decades of visitor photographs.

Burgers under the alien decor

We ordered Alien Burgers at the bar, a green-tinted bun that Lia found more amusing than appetizing, and sat listening to a trucker at the next stool explain, with total sincerity, his theory about lights he’d seen over the Groom Lake range the previous winter. The walls are covered in newspaper clippings, conspiracy theories printed and laminated, and photos of visitors from every country you can imagine, all of whom apparently felt compelled to make the same odd pilgrimage we had. It’s kitsch, obviously, but it’s kitsch built on a real and unresolved mystery, which gives it a different texture than most roadside novelty stops.

The alien-themed interior of the Little A'Le'Inn bar in Rachel, Nevada, covered in UFO memorabilia

Night sky and an unexplained light

After dinner we drove a few miles out along the highway and killed the headlights, the desert going fully, disorientingly black, stars crowding out every inch of sky the way they never do at home. We watched for close to an hour, and toward the end Lia grabbed my arm and pointed at a light moving in a pattern neither of us could match to a plane or satellite — probably a drone, almost certainly something explainable, but we’ll admit we didn’t rush to explain it away. That’s the real trick of Rachel: it doesn’t need you to believe anything, it just needs you to look up.

Stars filling the dark desert sky above the flat highway near Rachel, Nevada

Getting There

Rachel is remote by any measure — the closest airport is Harry Reid International in Las Vegas (LAS), about two and a half hours south via US-93 and SR-375. There’s no gas station in town, so fill up before you leave pavement behind, and know that cell service disappears for long stretches. A car is essential, and a full tank is close to mandatory.