There's Space Aliens in Rachel, Nevada

Little A'Le'Inn, in Rachel, Nevada

 According to Michael, a staff member at the Little A’Le’Inn, in the very tiny town of Rachel, Nevada, “I’ve seen things in the night sky that should not be there.”

“Aliens?” I asked, a hunch since I had just driven the Extraterrestrial Highway.

The sign says it all near Rachel, Nevada

He looked at me. “Not sure, but whatever I was looking at did not maneuver like a plane or helicopter should. Just bizarre really.”

Being a bit peckish, I had stopped by the very uniquely colorful restaurant along Nevada State Route 375 for a spot of breakfast.

Strange sights to be seen at the Little A'Le'Inn, Rachel, Nevada

The eggs, home fries and sour dough toast were yummy.

Nikki, the unofficial manager said, “I’ve lived here all my life. The night skies are almost scary since they are so full of stars. We have no light pollution at all.”

This area of Nevada is so removed from city lights, especially lying in the middle of a valley that no city lights could interrupt the celestial ceilings of the night sky.

“And you?” I asked. 

A moment of silence. “Yeah, I’ve seen things that I can not explain. A green comet, I thought, streaking across the desert sky at night. I’ve seen lots of meteorites but nothing that looked like that. Green, almost effervescent.”

That was strange, but I just happened to be in the middle of alien country and anything could be expected. 

Rachel is less than 28 miles from Area 51, the once top-secret military installation that houses aliens and alien aircraft - wait, I’ve been listening to too many conspiracy podcasts.

The existence of Area 51 was finally acknowledged by the United States Government in 2013, but as of yet, no public tours are allowed.

Heed the warning near Rachel, Nevada

Now, that’s a way to get rid of the national debt.

“Dude, I just shook hands with a Grey,” one enthusiast may blush. “I’d pay another gazillion dollars for that again.”

Driving into Rachel from the small town of Alamo was rather lonely. Fifty-two miles along Route 375 leaves a person wondering what could occur in these isolated night skies.

Lonely and Alien looking landscape toward Rachel, Nevada

Forget the night skies for a moment since it was daytime. 

As I was driving I pulled over for a moment as a huge flock of birds, not sure if they were sparrows but from a distance they appeared to be, blocked the roadway.

I got out and just stood there.

There must have been hundreds just walking around the black top, not paying any attention to me - and I was only 30 yards or so away from them.

I studied the birds for a moment wondering why they were gathered as such when suddenly like a black cloud they all took to wing. For a moment the sun was lost in their ascension.

Glancing across the sky there was nothing unusual, bright blue backdrop with a few puffy white clouds.

As I climbed back into my truck, there were noticeable goosebumps on both of my arms. 

It was very eerie and disconcerting.

I mentioned my incident to Nikki. “Yeah, the birds do act strange around here once in a while.”

It should be noted that just prior to my unnatural experience with the flock of birds, I had stopped by the iconic black mailbox.

The Black Mailbox, Rachel, Nevada

The mailbox that folks can leave messages to aliens if they choose along 375.

I did not since I was not sure of the postage cost to a galaxy far far away.

Rachel is located at the southern end of Sand Springs Valley. Driving through it. there is nothing to see in this empty bowl-shaped place which measures about 25 miles wide but with the emptiness, it seemed a lot wider and more desolate.

Northwest of Rachel is a dry lake bed with no name. Suspicious?

And if that isn’t strange enough, the history of the valley will surely raise eyebrows - much like Science Officer Spock does when he is inquisitive about some space anomaly. 

Seems that near this locale is something called the Alamo breccia - an ancient layer of sea sediment from an inland sea over 50 million years ago.

There have been a lot of past inland seas, thus a person can wander many deserts and find seashells and other fossils - no big deal.

But the fossils found in this breccia layer are not supposed to be there. Fossils of these deep water fish at one time in the past were violently thrown to the shore of the sea to mix with the more typical and newer shallow based life. Now, these fossils are all mixed together - hardly what a scientist would expect.

Geologists theorize that a massive meteorite smashed into the land about 375 million years ago. This would have caused the older and deeper sea life to crash onto the shoreline and later mix with the shallower sea life once the sea dried up.

“Well, what about the crater? Where is it?” one geologist may have asked.

Years counting in the hundreds of millions would have filled the crater leaving no sign of it today.

This only leads more and more people to believe there is something ‘alien’ about the lands surrounding Rachel.

And this brings in the curious. So, there is a welcomer. 

Little Fidget, the greeter dog, greeted me with a wag of its tail and a sniff of my leg. 

“He loves guests, and gets plenty of attention,” Michael stated. “We get anywhere from one hundred to five hundred visitors daily during our top season.”

The crush of tour buses, mellow biker gangs, families on vacation, foreigners looking for space foreigners, and men dressed in black, occurs during the months of March through October.

For a tiny hole-in-the-wall joint, Little A’Le’Inn is truly worth a visit.

There are alien statues outside, a mock-up (maybe) of an alien craft hanging off the rear of a tow truck, plaques dedicated to this and that, and just the vastness of the desert is enough for any visitor to enjoy.

One plaque explaining the importance of Rachel, Nevada

The large valley used to be home to various bands of the Paiute Indians and in the hills around Rachel petroglyphs, arrowheads and other signs of early native American settlement can be found.

There is no evidence that any long term residency had taken place from any of the tribes moving through the area though.

Rumor has it that for more of a permanent residency they traveled to south to Las Vegas - perhaps at Caesar’s.

Then the miners moved into the local mountains seeking their fortunes. Like all such dreams, there were good and bad times in the search for fabulous wealth.

There are dozens of abandoned mines and ghost towns within an hour of Rachel.

One example is the town of Logan, approximately ten miles west from the town of Hiko and three miles south of Mount Irish Peak. Here a settlement was founded after silver ore was discovered in 1865. But, like many mining camps, this one did not last long either.

A post office opened in 1868 and closed in 1871 when the mines played out.

It became a ghost town, and there are others to explore such as Crescent, Freiburg, and Groom.

Yes, the same name as was given that humongous dry lake bed which Area 51 now occupies: Groom Lake.

A note of caution on two aspects of traveling through these deserts.

When wandering through a ghost town with mine shafts, be very careful where you tread.

These are remote areas that have been unoccupied for many decades and anything that once may have been sturdy in the mines probably isn’t now. Folks can and do lose their lives exploring where they probably should not have.

And, when approaching Area 51, the signs concerning the use of deadly force are real. I have been escorted away from the tall chain link fences in the past by a couple of not-so-friendly security personnel.

One of them had the strangest eyes too, they sort of had an inner lid - but perhaps it was the sunlight.

Nikky told me a story about the production of the 2011 film Paul. A parody of many science fiction movies and some scenes were supposed to take place within the Little A’Le’Inn.

“A film crew came in, took photos, did sound checks and then left.” she stated. “Then they copied the interior and filmed it someplace else. So, if you watch the movie Paul, it didn’t happen here.”

Ah, the magic of Hollywood.

I have never viewed the film but plan to now, so I can tell anyone in the room watching that it wasn’t filmed where it looks like it was.

I stood outside after my adieus and looked across the vastness of this huge empty valley. 

Tens of thousands of people from all around the globe come here to visit, but are only those from planet earth?