"Area 51 isn’t the only weird thing in the Nevada desert, as our writer discovered when he drove the Extraterrestrial Highway to see if the truth really is out there.

‘That’s where they probe you,” the shop assistant said when I asked her what really goes on at Area 51. She followed this up with a raising of the eyebrows and a waggle of her extended finger. I got the message.

I was at the Alien Center, my first stop on a 600-mile road trip in rural southern Nevada, making a loop around the huge slab of desert that’s home to a US air force base shrouded in mystery. Built in the Fifties, the base has become a beacon for conspiracy theorists who believe the government uses it to store broken-down spaceships and little green men (with their apparently invasive interrogation techniques). The official line is that Area 51 is a training facility for military aircraft … but they would say that, wouldn’t they.

The Alien Center is really just a petrol station with your standard diner, gift shop and brothel attached. But since I’d been on Route 95 for a couple of hours after leaving Las Vegas, it seemed a good place to take a breather…"