A roadtrip to Area 51, one decade later
Reflections on searching the night sky
Author's note: italicized portions were written in March, 2015 on a road trip from Minnesota to Area 51, Nevada with my friends Michelle and Rachel. Non-italicized portions were written in March, 2025.
Throughout the trip, I wrote down my favorite songs that we were listening to in the back of the small orange notebook I used. I put them together in a playlist here, with a bonus track by my travel companion Rachel. Listen while you read!
Day 1: Friday the 13, 2015, leaving Minnesota
I set my alarm for 5 a.m. but it didn’t go off. Luckily I had already packed so when Michelle called I just ran out. We listened to Welcome to Night Vale, a creepy podcast about a desert town with aliens and mysterious sci-fi things happening — and a local government trying to cover up the truth. So pretty similar to our trip.
Day 2: March 14, 2015, Montana
Williston was pretty freaky driving into it – somehow we ended up driving on this dirt road surrounded by pickup trucks with refinery flames blasting by the side. The first probably seven minutes of the town was just prefab houses. They looked like they had been built in five minutes out of toothpicks. There were also oil rigs right in town! They had probably been outside of town but got built up with the Bakken boom. They just had little trees around them to make it more attractive. We went to the China Sun Buffet in a bowling alley/sports bar complex kind of on the border of the cute old Williston and the new prefab Williston.
After dinner we drove another 171 miles straight from Williston to the Miles City Super 8 – or we tried. Rachel’s damn Siri literally led us 16 miles outside of town. It was really dark and we kept passing these dark garages and were joking they were government storage facilities where aliens were kept. We stop on the side of the road to look at the stars and it was incredible. We pass a road sign that says “Deadman Road.” We freak out. Still no Super 8. Finally, Siri says, “Your destination is on the right.” We are in the middle of nowhere. Freaked out by Siri trying to lure us to our deaths, we book it back to Miles City.
This morning when we tried to leave to get on I-94, Siri started leading us back down the same creepy road! I no longer trust technology. We’re being watched.
Since I was a child, I’ve loved driving at night. The moon and stars were just bright enough tonight to see a light outline of the mountains in the distance – the backbone of the earth rising sharply above the plains. I love sitting in the passenger seat, being mesmerized by the grass and flowers just visible by the glow of the head lights, disappearing into a blur of yellow and black on the side of the road. If I concentrate hard enough, shifting my head ever so slightly to follow the movement of the road whisking by, they slowed, almost coming to a momentary standstill in my eyes before I moved my head forwards again. I would repeat this over and over, following the grass from the windshield to the window beside me and back again, watching their movements slow and blur, slow and blur.
Day 4: March 16, 2015, 12:04pm. From Salt Lake City, Utah to Rachel, Nevada.
We left for Rachel, Nevada this morning. For a lot of the drive we were by Salt Lake and some salt flats – it was so beautiful and surreal looking. It looked like sort of “stereotypical” road trip photos – architectural rest areas in the middle of nowhere, vast white, salty landscape, mountains in the distance, the mustard-gold-sage color palette was so beautiful and textural. It looked almost like the 70s or something. We’re going back in time! Literally though – time zone changes.
We stopped at the Bonneville Salt Flats. First we just pulled over randomly and walked onto the flats. The ground was kind of squishy and you could peel back the salt. It actually tasted super salty! On the way up we saw huge piles of salt and a Morton factory. Then we stopped at a cool rest area and we all got jewelry from this Indian guy set up there. I got square turquoise-y earrings with a silver feather dangling from them.
Now we’re on the Great Basin Highway. There are snowy peaks to our right and scrubby bushes all around. Apparently Rachel only has 98 people and one business – the Little Alie’Inn! But it has a hotel, campground, diner, and gift shop. Plus the Extraterrestrial Highway.
Why do humans look to the night sky?
My great-aunt Theresa, my grandma’s older sister, told many stories of aliens. Aliens that were spotted by the Town Pump, a gas station on the edge of Browning, the main town on the Blackfeet Reservation. “They had grey skin and big eyes,” she’d say. I haven’t been to my aunt Theresa’s house in nearly two decades since she passed, but I remember the exact layout. Her woodburning stove, her open bookshelf filled with pig knick knacks, the police scanner providing updates more exciting than the off-reservation television news.
Just two years before our road trip, the CIA publicly acknowledged the existence of Area 51 for the first time.
Day 4: March 16, 2015, 5:35pm, 20 miles from Rachel, Nevada
Tall, cacti-like creatures surrounding us. We got out to take pics, it was so eerie. I’ve never experienced someplace so quiet. It was literally throbbing in my ears, the silence. Rachel screamed and there was no echo. Where the hell are we?
Earlier in the drive, I saw a light green-ish purple “cloud” by the sun in the clouds – it almost looked like there when there’s traces of oil in water, kind of a swirly, misty look. Chemicals?
40 miles from Rachel there was an “Alien Research Center” (cold beverages and souvenirs) that the Rachel, NV website said closed in 2006. We peaked inside and the store was still totally set up for business.
My hand is feeling weirdly tired from writing. I stopped several minutes ago and it still hurts. Maybe the overlords - er, federal government - doesn’t want me recording this. Just saw another oily sky rainbow. Dust? An alien form of transportation? Only time will tell.
How do humans use the night sky?
All Blackfeet knew star knowledge. I don’t, and most people today probably don’t, but we used to. It’s the way we told time and navigated the landscape. The night sky is different every night. So if you had memorized the night sky and you fell asleep for six months, you could wake up and know the time of year based on how the stars had shifted.
There were timekeepers, whose job it was to track time, and other people who were more knowledgeable about the mythology of the constellations. But common people in the community still knew star knowledge, because that’s how they navigated themselves on a daily basis, from where they were to the time of the year to the time of seasons.
Day 5: St Patrick's Day 2015, 8:21am, Rachel, Nevada
Drinking coffee at the bar of the Little Alie’Inn. Two young guys walked in, freaking out over where to get gas. They’ve been driving since 11pm and heading to Utah. The nearest gas station is 50 miles away. When they left, the employees said, “You should never pass a gas station in the desert! Or Oklahoma.” They laughed.
The employees here are really nice, and the business is all run by women! Green shots are $1 tonight for St. Patrick’s Day.
A recap of last night: We camped at Coyote Summit, six miles from Rachel. We had a fire, drank Moose Drool, and ate cheese, sausage, and bread my dad made us. I’m somehow the only one who knows how to tend to a fire. Survival ho. We stargazed and went to bed early since it was so dark.
Last night Rachel and I heard a really loud noise like an airplane but saw nothing in the sky. This morning in the Little Alie’Inn parking lot we saw a military jet fly over. I feel like aliens don’t visit here regularly – why would they return to a place they were tortured by the U.S. government? I guess that’s assuming aliens are all the same. What if all the aliens in the universe are allied but us because we were socialized not to believe?
We went to the Area 51 border this morning. There were security cameras on one side and a military truck on the other. There was no gate, just a sign marking the border. It said not to take pictures but we did anyway when we got back in the car. Later we stopped to go hiking and saw trucks coming up the road and freaked out because we thought it was because we took photos! They weren’t though. One of them was carrying some sort of metal machinery. Then we drove to the former location of the Black Mailbox, apparently the best place to look for lights, and put our hashtag on the rocks that now stand there.
The first Blackfeet star story I learned was of the lost boys. A group of young brothers were taunted and bullied by their community. Neglected, they were forced to live at the outskirts of town. Eventually they decide to leave the Lower World (earth) for the Sky World, and become Pleiades.
Pleiades is a cluster of thousands of stars but six are visible to the naked human eye. The constellation disappears in the spring when bison calves are born and returns in the fall, which is when the Blackfeet go hunting again. The smoke flaps of Blackfeet tipis are also painted with Pleiades as a reminder to take care of our children.
In 10th grade, my Earth and Space Science teacher said we could get extra credit if we brought in a star story. I brought in the story of how these orphan boys became Pleiades. Over a lunch period, I went to his classroom with a typed overview of the story to get my extra credit points. This wouldn’t count for extra credit, he said. He meant a real star story, “like Greek or Roman.”
Day 5: St Patrick's Day 2015, 6:22pm, Rachel, Nevada
We went on a beautiful hike this afternoon to this old ghost town. It was really steep getting up – at the base of the mountain were old houses, then we walked up half a mile to an old shaft and train track system, and then another half mile to the summit.
I think we could see Groom Lake in the distance. Apparently you used to be able to see Area 51 from hiking nearby, but the military bought all the nearby land so you can’t see it anymore. Mysterious.
We’ve seen a lot of white trucks which we’re assuming are from the base. We think we also saw the worker bus leave at around 5p.m. We also saw a low-flying military aircraft when we were driving back from getting gas in Ash Springs. It was really loud, flew low, and circled multiple times. We’ve heard them a lot before but haven’t seen them too much. The plane still sounds like it’s circling overhead. I love the southwest. Maybe I’ll move here someday.
When I’m homesick, I look for hints of sky and light that remind me of Montana.
The apartment building across from mine is yellow, and as the sun sets, lights up orange. It’s a color I also see on the mountains near my parents house. Most of the year, the mountain grasses are yellow, and glow as the sun kisses it.
I want to learn more about the stars. I haven’t done much about this want, besides tell a few people, which will hopefully hold myself accountable. I want to know where I am. I want to know the seasons. I want to navigate the land, though I’ll (hopefully) never have to.
Day 6: March 18, 2015, 2:14pm, somewhere in Colorado
Last night we did homework in the Little Alie’Inn before going to the Black Mailbox.
Like half the town was in the Cafe hanging out. There was this little girl looking at us the whole time. I think she wanted to interact with a female vaguely closer to her age. Also – found out that the owner's daughter is Mexican-Italian. Women of color in power!
After dinner (an incredibly bland corned beef and cabbage for St. Patrick’s Day), we drove to the Black Mailbox to look for lights. It was pretty hazy so the stars were lighter. We saw the employee bus returning to the base (it left when we had gone to get gas in Ash Springs). I was cold and scared so sitting in the car but Michelle and Rachel saw a beam of light going into the sky from the bus. We didn’t hear or see any aircraft at night, only in the day. But we were talking and wondering if technology has advanced so that they’re silent, which makes total sense for a military plane.
Now we’re driving to Arches to camp there for the night. We’re listening to Evanescence and it’s raining. Reliving our angsty as fuck tween years.
I filled every page of a small orange notebook during this trip. I labeled each entry with the date, time, and location. In addition to tracing everywhere we went and everything we saw – mysterious cacti, lights in the sky, road signs warning us of UFOs overhead – I wrote about the docu-dramas we were planning to make and submit to a film festival at our college; ideas for an Indigenous futurist novel I planned to write; described random men we flirted with at gas stations; inside jokes we created; and childhood bullies we talked about.
This trip a decade ago is still one of my favorite memories. I felt far from home and far from college. I was in a part of the country I’d never been to before. Between our breaks searching for aliens, we worked midterms and job and summer fellowship applications from the empty Little Alie’Inn restaurant. A few short weeks later, we’d be graduating, I’d move to D.C., I’d begin a serious relationship and (quickly) move in with my partner. My friends would move too, and we’d each change and grow up in a million little ways. In that moment, I was excited for an unknown future. I felt independent and free.
But as the last phrase written on the last page of that little notebook reads: Does that even matter considering how insignificant we are in this vast, confusing universe?