Looking for intelligent life

Glenn Campbell
Review-Journal

Governor ignored citizens in renaming highway Bob Miller and the 20th Century Fox Film Corp. have planned an extravagant unveiling this week for the new Extraterrestrial Highway in Lincoln County.

The two-day event begins today in Las Vegas with a gala reception at Planet Hollywood hosted by Gov. Miller. Thursday morning, a convoy of dignitaries, press and public will depart at 10 a.m. from the Las Vegas Convention Center for the tiny town of Rachel, 150 miles north. There, Fox is putting on a big production to unveil the new highway signs and promote its forthcoming movie, "Independence Day."

The aliens at Area 51 may be pleased with their new highway, but to ordinary earthlings the state has violated nearly every rule of responsible government. No one asked the citizens or elected officials of Lincoln County whether they wanted an "E.T. Highway." This is a Carson City production, funded and directed by the Fox studio, with virtually no consideration of the local impact.

The bill to rename State Route 375 failed last year in the Nevada Senate when Transportation Chairman Bill O'Donnell refused to schedule it for a hearing. The measure would have died there if not for the efforts a lobbyist in Carson City.

At the urging of the lobbyist and the state tourism commission, Gov. Miller bypassed the Legislature two months ago by authorizing the new name through the Nevada Transportation Board.

Gov. Miller flew to Los Angeles to finalize a deal with Fox to promote its movie at the unveiling ceremonies. Thus, Nevada has entered a brave new world in which private companies fund, organize and drive state events in exchange for publicity, while directly affected Nevadans are excluded.

Gov. Miller did not visit the highway itself during this process, and no local hearing was ever held to solicit the concerns of residents. No one from the state seems to have given any thought to the real effects of this designation and the new kind of publicity it has created. Until now, visitors were fairly sophisticated, having conducted at least enough research to find this lonely road.

Now the state is giving the highway a friendly name to attract the most naive and ill-equipped kind of tourist.

The "E.T. Highway" implies to tourists that they will see UFOs here. Upon arrival, however, there is nothing for most people to do but wander the desert and try to get closer to Area 51, the secure military facility west of the highway where most of the UFO stories seem to be centered.

That's when things get messy, because this tense and poorly marked military boundary has little respect for tourism or civil rights. The anonymous security guards patrolling the area are not held accountable by any public authority and are legally authorized to kill. Although they have never exercised that option, guns in the face and rough physical treatment are the usual reception for any innocent mistake.

Because it was seen as a fun designation without great importance, the governor apparently felt he could ignore the rules about local public hearings and the separation of state and commerce. There may indeed be intelligent life elsewherein the universe, but it is hard to find it in Carson City.

Glenn Campbell is the director of the Area 51 Research Center in Rachel.