page_title: Nevada State Route 375
section_title: Naming the highway
hierarchical_section_title: Nevada State Route 375 / History / Naming the highway
caption_attribution_description: English: The Little A'Le'Inn, a bar, restaurant and motel in Rachel, viewed from the north.
context_page_description: State Route 375 is a 98.414-mile state highway in Nye and Lincoln counties in south-central Nevada, United States. The highway stretches from State Route 318 at Crystal Springs northwest to U.S. Route 6 at Warm Springs. The route travels through mostly unoccupied desert terrain, with much of its alignment paralleling the northern edges of the Nellis Air Force Range. The road originally traversed through what is now the northern reaches of the air force range in the 1930s, when it was previously designated State Route 25A and later part of State Route 25.
  The top-secret Area 51 government base is near SR 375, and many travelers have reported UFO observations and other strange alien activity along this road. Such stories prompted the state to officially designate the route as the Extraterrestrial Highway in 1996. The small town of Rachel, located near the midpoint of the highway, caters to tourists, geocachers, and UFO seekers with alien-themed businesses. Although the area receives some tourism due to alleged extraterrestrial activity, SR 375 remains a lightly traveled route.
context_section_description: In 1989, an engineer named Bob Lazar claimed to have worked on alien spaceships and to have viewed saucer test flights in Tikaboo Valley, telling his story to a Las Vegas television station which was subsequently broadcast as an exclusive report. By the 1990s, stories of the top-secret U.S. government base at Area 51 had become mainstream, and many books and personal accounts had been published regarding extraterrestrial spacecraft and alien activity in the region surrounding Groom Lake. Rachel, being the closest settlement to the restricted facility, attracted people in search of UFOs and alien life. To capitalize on the purported paranormal activity along the route, the Nevada Commission on Tourism sought to rename the highway. State officials drew inspiration from the alien legends and dubbed SR 375 the Extraterrestrial Highway in February 1996. The tourism commission hoped that the renaming would "draw travelers to the austere and remote reaches of south-central Nevada, where old atomic bomb test sites, secret Defense Department airstrips and huge, sequestered tracts of military land create a marketable mystique".
  News of the highway's renaming reached Twentieth Century Fox. The studio used the opportunity to promote the release of the film Independence Day, whose plot involves an alien invasion of Earth and the secret facility at Area 51. A public dedication ceremony for the Extraterrestrial Highway was held in Rachel in April 1996. State dignitaries at the ceremony were joined by studio executives and Independence Day stars Jeff Goldblum, Robert Loggia, Bill Pullman, and Brent Spiner. Nevada Governor Bob Miller presided over the ceremony, speaking with humorous space references and unveiling special "Extraterrestrial Highway 375" and "Speed Limit Warp 7" signs for the highway. The event concluded with several guests placing items related to Nevada and the film into a time capsule commemorating the occasion.
  To promote the Extraterrestrial Highway after its renaming, the tourism commission launched "The ET Experience" in July 1996. Tourists could contact the Nevada Commission on Tourism to receive a traveler's kit containing information about the highway, nearby cultural attractions, and area services. Visitors that patronized businesses in Rachel and central Nevada and submitted an account of their journey received Extraterrestrial Highway memorabilia. Stories from travelers were also published in a newsletter available to those that had completed the experience. Despite tourism generated by people searching for signs of alien life, only "an average of about 200 cars drive some portion of the Extraterrestrial Highway every day, making it one of the state’s least traveled routes."
  In keeping with the supposed alien links of the area, in 2006, KFC established what was said to be the first corporate logo visible from space, made from 87,500 square feet (8,130 m²) of tiles and sited just off the Extraterrestrial Highway in Rachel. The logo has since been removed.
caption: The Little A'Le'Inn in Rachel benefits from tourism brought by the renamed highway, October 1997
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