Go ahead - Snicker all you want, but if you want to believe, I can tell you it's out there. 'There' being the Nevada Desert.

Follow me along on this tour of Area 51 and the ExtraTerrestrial Highway. By the time we're done, you'll be checking the prices for tin-foil hats on eBay.

Ground Zero for all alien activity on Planet Earth is Area 51. It's actually a military base about 83 miles north-northwst of Las Vegas. And the base is home to a very secretive airfield. The U.S. Government rarely talks about it. If they have to answer, they say it's supposed to be used for testing and development fo experimental aircraft and weapons systems. You can't fly over it, and access is so restricted that no one has any pictures which throw any clarity on the issue.

This allows the authorities to avoid giving any explanations for all the UFO sightings and alleged contacts with aliens. The alien sanctuary in Area 51 enables the Extra Terrestrials (ET) to come and go easily, and call earth a second home - a vacation home, if you will.

They don't have to worry that their life on earth will turn into an appalling reality TV show - like the poor Gosselin kids on Jon and Kate plus 8. Sometimes I wonder if the Gosselins are indeed aliens. I mean, earthlings couldn't possibly screw up their own life and their kids so bad.

As you can see, the aliens aren't quite as bad as they're made out to be in the movies. Decent chaps, actually.

But they seem to have caught on to the Vegas tendency for cashing in on everything - their spacecrafts are on display, and there's even gift shops selling alien junk and trinkets and t-shirts from faraway galaxies.

If you think Las Vegas motels with all that neon and the strippers and garish signs are outlandish, wait till you get to the Little A'Le'Inn in Rachel, which is the only major human settlement in the vicinity of Area 51.

Rachel is also the only well known reststop on Nevada State Highway 375, which stretches for 98 miles from US-93 in the southeast to US-6 in the northwest. This stretch is now officially known as the ExtraTerrestrial Highway or ET Highway.

And it's a road well-traveled, especially in the summer. It's close enough to be a daytrip out of Sin City, so there's plenty of tours which bring in busloads full of curious people enjoying the wackiness of Las Vegas vacations.

Also, the ET Highway is the connection between Yosemite National Park to the west and Zion National Park and Grand Canyon to the east. That means the ET Highway and Rachel and the Little A'Le'Inn, all get to see plenty of people passing through on summer roadtrips.

If you want to take a chance with some close encounters of the third kind, and risk ending up as a small footnote in the X-Files, then get that tin-foil hat, and spend a night at the Little A'Le'Inn in Rachel, Nevada.

ET Highway photo by thievingjoker. Little A'Le'Inn photo by goforchris.