This Nevada highway passes a volcanic crater, ancient petroglyphs, and gets blanketed by the Milky Way

It’s weirder than you’d think

State Route 375 cuts 98 miles through south-central Nevada between Crystal Springs and Warm Springs, and the whole stretch feels like someone designed a road trip for people who want to disappear for a few hours.

You’ll pass valleys so wide they swallow the horizon, mountain summits above 5,900 feet, and exactly one town with 48 people in it.

There are alien statues, ancient rock carvings, a volcanic crater where astronauts trained, and skies dark enough to make the Milky Way look close enough to touch.

Strange lights gave this road its name

People have reported weird lights in the sky out here for decades, most likely tied to secret aircraft testing at the nearby Nellis Air Force Range.

Then in 1989, Bob Lazar went on a Las Vegas TV station and claimed he’d worked on classified technology near Area 51. That put the area on the national map.

By February 1996, the Nevada Commission on Tourism made it official and named the road the Extraterrestrial Highway. Gov. Bob Miller unveiled the signs that April in Rachel, including one that read “Speed Limit Warp 7.”

The CIA didn’t even admit Area 51 existed until June 2013.

Stock up on jerky before the road goes empty

E.T. Fresh Jerky sits near the junction of US 93 and State Route 318, and most road trippers coming from Las Vegas treat it as mile zero.

You can’t miss the building with its giant alien murals covering the exterior walls.

Inside, you’ll find dozens of jerky flavors plus dried fruit and nuts, which is smart shopping considering the next place to buy food or fuel is about 52 miles away in Rachel. Grab what you need and load up the cooler.

The highway sign is buried under stickers

About a mile west of the jerky shop, the official green Extraterrestrial Highway sign marks where SR 375 begins. So many travelers have slapped stickers on it over the years that you can barely read the text.

The Nevada Department of Transportation pulled the original sign in September 2019 before the “Alienstock” event to keep photo-takers from clogging traffic.

The replacement went up taller to discourage vandalism, and it now carries a stealth bomber silhouette in the design. Picnic tables sit under nearby trees if you need a break.

A two-story alien guards a gift shop

Just past the sign, a towering silver alien statue stands two stories tall in front of a Quonset hut. That’s the Alien Research Center, which is really just a gift shop selling alien souvenirs, books and apparel.

Further down the highway in Tikaboo Valley, a dirt road once led to a lone postal drop called the Black Mailbox, where UFO watchers used to gather at night.

It belonged to rancher Steve Medlin, who pulled it after repeated vandalism. The name stuck even after he swapped it for a white one.

Rachel has 48 people and one flying saucer

Rachel sits near the midpoint of the highway at about 4,950 feet, and the Little A’Le’Inn is the whole town’s center of gravity. It works as a restaurant, a small motel and a gift shop all at once.

You can order an Alien Burger and eat it under a flying saucer dangling from a crane in the yard. A time capsule went into the ground here during the 1996 dedication ceremony, sealed until 2050.

The Alien Cowpoke gas station next door is the only fuel stop on all 98 miles.

The Milky Way looks close enough to grab

The highway sits so far from anything that light pollution basically doesn’t exist out here. Pull over at any wide spot on the road on a clear night and the Milky Way stretches across the sky in sharp detail.

Meteor showers hit different when the horizon is flat and open in every direction. The Little A’Le’Inn rents mobile home units, tent camping spots and RV spaces if you want to stay the night.

Spring and fall give you the clearest skies and temperatures that won’t run you back to the car.

260 bird species hide in the Mojave Desert

Just east of Crystal Springs, the Pahranagat National Wildlife Refuge spreads across 5,382 acres of wetlands fed by Crystal and Ash Springs.

This land gets about six inches of rain a year, but the springs keep lakes, marshes and wet meadows alive in the middle of the Mojave.

Over 260 bird species show up here, which is more than half of every bird recorded in Nevada. The refuge sits on the Pacific Flyway, so spring and fall bring the biggest migrations.

The endangered southwestern willow flycatcher nests in the cottonwood and willow groves.

Rock carvings older than the Egyptian pyramids

The Basin and Range National Monument protects 704,000 acres of mountains and valleys next to the highway corridor, designated in 2015.

Along State Route 318, the White River Narrows Archaeological District holds petroglyphs carved into dark rhyolite cliffs roughly 4,000 years ago.

More rock art panels and prehistoric habitation sites sit in the Mount Irish Archaeological District on the flanks of the Mount Irish Range.

You’ll see animals, hunters and abstract shapes carved in styles found nowhere else. The Bureau of Land Management runs the monument with no entrance fee and no paved roads.

A real space rock slammed into this desert

About 377 million years ago, during the Devonian Period, a meteorite hit what was then a shallow tropical sea covering this part of Nevada.

The impact sent massive tsunamis across the region and scattered debris across roughly 1,500 square miles.

Geologists call it the Alamo bolide event, and you can find the evidence in jumbled rock layers across 11 mountain ranges in southern Nevada. Ground zero sits near present-day Rachel.

Researchers have pulled shocked quartz and elevated iridium from the site, both calling cards of a meteorite strike.

Apollo astronauts trained at this volcanic crater

Near the highway’s western end, the Lunar Crater volcanic field covers over 100 square miles in the Pancake Range.

The crater itself drops 430 feet deep and spans about 400 acres, carved by explosive volcanic eruptions rather than a meteorite. But the terrain looked so much like the moon that NASA brought Apollo crews here in 1972.

Astronauts John Young, Charlie Duke, Gene Cernan and Jack Schmitt from Apollo 16 and 17 practiced geological fieldwork and rover exercises on this ground. It became a National Natural Landmark in 1973.

The road ends at a ghost town with boiling green water

The Extraterrestrial Highway meets US Route 6 at Warm Springs, an abandoned settlement in western Nye County.

The ruins of the old Warm Springs Bar and Grill still stand near a pool of near-boiling thermal spring water that glows emerald green.

White mineral deposits trace the water’s path downhill, though the spring sits on private property and you can’t swim in it. From here, Tonopah is about 50 miles southwest on US 6.

Only about 200 cars a day drive this highway, but it remains one of the most famous road trips in the West.

Drive the Extraterrestrial Highway in Nevada

You can pick up State Route 375 at Crystal Springs, about 140 miles north of Las Vegas via US 93. The full drive from Crystal Springs to Warm Springs takes two to two and a half hours if you don’t stop, but you will.

Fill your tank in Alamo or Ash Springs before you get on the highway, because the next gas is 52 miles away at the Alien Cowpoke in Rachel.

Summer temperatures push past 100 degrees with no shade anywhere, so bring more water than you think you need.

Cell service drops out along most of the route, and do not approach the Nevada Test and Training Range or Area 51. It’s illegal and actively patrolled.

This article was created with AI assistance and human editing.

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