Question of the Day - 19 July 2019

Well, yes, geographically speaking, you're closer to Area 51 in Rachel than in what's typically called Amargosa Valley: around 60 miles as the UFO flies from the US 95 outpost of Amargosa Valley to Area 51, as opposed to only 30 miles from Rachel. And fyi, Crystal Springs is an actual place, but it doesn't have any population or services; it's just the intersection of NV 375 (the road to Rachel), NV 318 (the road to Hiko and Lund), and US 93 (the road back to Vegas and up to Caliente and Pioche); it's basically an underdeveloped park area with some shade trees and picnic tables. You can see our blog post about Rachel from a couple years ago; never in a million years did would we have thought we'd need one about Amargosa Valley junction, which we've passed through hundreds of times. You can also read the whole story of Area 51 in this QoD from 2017 and that QoD from 2010.

Area 51 occupies a little square in the northeast quadrant of the huge Nellis Air Force Range. It's just outside the northwest corner of the Nevada Test Site, which the "raiders" would have to cross, via Jackass and Yucca flats, to get there. From Rachel, they could walk through the valley between the Belted Range and Bald Mountain and arrive in less than half the time. 

Of course, this is extremely forbidding country with none of the modern conveniences that the crowd from Facebook (where 1.2 million potential raiders as of this writing have signed up for the "event") is accustomed to: good cell reception and wifi, a Starbucks on every corner, smoothie and tattoo shops and gyms every few miles, comfy beds, "Big Bang Theory" reruns, running water and toilets, and Uber. 

And that's without mentioning the forbidden aspect of the place. The authorities won't exactly throw open the gates and welcome a million or so marauders aiming to storm a space that's roughly the size of Connecticut and has been absolutely off-limits to civilians for decades.

Good thing it's all just a publicity prank, though it did prompt the Air Force to issue a pretty stern warning about "protecting national assets." Whether or not that was referring to the alien corpses some say are stored at Area 51 isn't known.

The Facebook page is inviting respondents to convene at 3 a.m. Sept. 20 to storm Area 51 and "see them aliens." The meet happens at the Area 51 Alien Center, which is just a little roadside attraction at the junction of US 95 and NV 373, with a convenience store and gift shop full of UFO souvenirs, a diner, and a brothel. (The actual town of Amargosa Valley is on the California border about 18 miles south on NV 373. It used to be called Lathrop Wells and was the scene of the "brothel wars of Nye County," immortalized in the 1985 book of the same name by investigative reporter Jeannie Kasindorf.) The junction of US 95 and NV 373 is around 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas and 20 miles southeast of Beatty. 

The "organizers" of the "raid" on Area 51, it appears, are more interested in Internet memes and video-game spinoffs than they are in geography, as your question rightly observes, let alone actually showing up at Amargosa Valley junction and possibly confronting the "deadly force" promised by the No Trespassing signs along the entire barbed-wire perimeter of the Range. 

However, something of this magnitude can take on a life of its own and already seems to have done just that. And it's not just from participants (in whatever is supposed to happen, other than seeing them aliens), but also from spectators.

We'll keep our eye on this situation leading up to September 20, the fall equinox, just in case perhaps a couple dozen people don't get the joke, arrive at the Alien Center, and immediately run the diner out of burgers, fries, and extraterrestrial bumperstickers and blow-up dolls.