The top-secret Area 51 government base is near SR 375, and many travelers have reported UFO observations and other strange alien activity along this road.

The small town of Rachel, located near the midpoint of the highway, caters to tourists, geocachers, and UFO seekers with alien-themed businesses.

It used to be marked by a single postal drop known as the "black mailbox": the dirt access road leads to the restricted lands surrounding Area 51.

[2] After passing the summit, the route descends into the southern end of Railroad Valley, curving nearly due north for several miles as it follows the base of Reveille Range.

[18] In 1989, an engineer named Bob Lazar claimed to have worked on alien spaceships and to have viewed saucer test flights in Tikaboo Valley, telling his story to a Las Vegas television station which was subsequently broadcast as an exclusive report.

[3] By the 1990s, stories of the top-secret U.S. government base at Area 51 had become mainstream, and many books and personal accounts had been published regarding extraterrestrial spacecraft and alien activity in the region surrounding Groom Lake.

[20] The tourism commission hoped that the renaming would "draw travelers to the austere and remote reaches of south-central Nevada, where old atomic bomb test sites, secret Defense Department airstrips and huge, sequestered tracts of military land create a marketable mystique".

The studio used the opportunity to promote the release of the film Independence Day, whose plot involves an alien invasion of Earth and the secret facility at Area 51.

[21] State dignitaries at the ceremony were joined by studio executives and Independence Day stars Jeff Goldblum, Robert Loggia, Bill Pullman, and Brent Spiner.

Tourists could contact the Nevada Commission on Tourism to receive a traveler's kit containing information about the highway, nearby cultural attractions, and area services.

[20] Despite tourism generated by people searching for signs of alien life, only "an average of about 200 cars drive some portion of the Extraterrestrial Highway every day, making it one of the state’s least traveled routes.

"[6] In keeping with the supposed alien links of the area, in 2006, KFC established what was said to be the first corporate logo visible from space, made from 87,500 square feet (8,130 m2) of tiles and sited just off the Extraterrestrial Highway in Rachel.