THE WALL STREET JOURNAL. **** Saturday/Sunday, September 7 - 8, 2019 |A
they felt like they had to go. I
feel like I have to go. It’s nothing
really to do with the aliens,” he
said. “...Maybe the aliens have
something to do with it.”
He also could use a break
from his workaday life. “I don’t
do anything fun. I have a restau-
rant. My whole life is the res-
taurant,” Mr. Bowman said. “So,
just to do something wild and
crazy. That’s probably one of the
real reasons.”
Local, state and federal offi-
cials are in a state of alert. The
county sheriff’s department has
a dozen deputies to cover 1,
square miles, and some experi-
ence tracking alien-seekers lost
in the desert.
“We’ve had everything from
the curiosity-seekers to the UFO
people to ‘I’m paying for this
place, I want to know what’s
there,’” Lincoln County Sheriff
Kerry Lee said. “People who are
just average Joes, to families, to
a lot of foreigners.”
Eric Vaughan, 45, of Port-
land, Ore., said he planned to
bring 400 alien-theme T-shirts
and 3,200 bottles of water to
sell at Alienstock. He said he be-
lieves in distant forms of life but
doubts any have visited Earth.
“It really is for me more
about the belief and the hope
that there’s other life out
there...rather than trying to
meet aliens or anything like
that,” Mr. Vaughan said. “I want
to meet other people and make
some friends.”
Area 51 was the Air Force
site for developing the U-2 spy
plane in the 1950s. The Central
Intelligence Agency first ac-
knowledged the facility in 2013.
Curious civilians are still or-
dered to keep out of the Nevada
Test and Training Range, com-
monly referred to as Area 51.“When an unauthorized per-
son accesses a military installa-
tion they are detained until they
can be turned over to the appro-
priate law-enforcement authori-
ties,” an Air Force spokeswoman
said.
Christopher Bader, a Chap-
man University sociology pro-
fessor who studies how people
view the paranormal, said many
are turning away from tradi-
tional religion to a patchwork of
beliefs that might include aliens,
ghosts or Bigfoot.
“We’re facing a crisis on how
do we assess information, how
do we assess evidence, what is
good information and what is
bad information,” Mr. Bader
said. “That’s a real crisis of
truth that the paranormal steps
right into.”
A third of Americans in a re-
cent Gallup poll said some UFO
sightings have been alien space-
ships visiting Earth, while 60%
believed they could be explained
by human activity or natural
phenomenon.
Steve and Glenda Medlin,
cattle ranchers, said their mail-
box stood alongside state route
375, on a 98-mile stretch offi-
cially designated the Extrater-
restrial Highway. Visitors
stuffed it with letters to aliens.
It became known in the UFO
world as “the black mailbox.”
The Medlins, patience worn
thin, eventually removed it and
got their mail delivered to the
house. A stranger put up an-
other black mailbox in its place.
Now an army of campers
looms, seeking answers in the
late-summer desert.
“If the people are coming
from back East or wherever the
hell they’re coming from, they
don’t know what this desert is
like,” Ms. Medlin said.WORLD NEWS
Storm Area 51, to coordinate
rides and supplies. “I do believe
in aliens,” he said. “How could
you not?”
He might run into Noemi Ba-
rajas, a 31-year-old tattoo artist,
who also plans to go. As a teen-
ager, Ms. Barajas spotted a UFO
the size of a compact car hover-
ing outside her house in Ana-
heim, Calif.
“I would like to meet some-
one out there that had an en-
counter as well,” she said.
The region’s two businesses
are trying to make the most of
it. The Alien Research Center in
Hiko, Nev., a roadside attraction
and souvenir shop, sells every-
thing from plastic little green
men to Tequila bottles shaped
like the heads of space aliens.
Owner George Harris is host-
ing “Storm Area 51 Base Camp,”
featuring UFO lectures and a
telescope. He is preparing for
thousands to descend.
The “Alienstock” festival
opens the same day about 40
miles away, at Little A’Le’Inn,
the only motel and restaurant in
Area 51’s orbit. The phone has
been ringing off the hook with
callers too late to book one of
the motel’s 13 rooms, said Con-
nie West, the owner. Over the
past 30 years, she has seen the
ups and downs of UFO interest.
“This is my livelihood,” she said.
Ms. West has ordered porta-
ble toilets for what she hopes
will be paying customers for her
campsites in Rachel, Nev., popu-
lation in the double digits.
Rob Bowman, a 48-year-old
pizza restaurant owner in San
Saba, Texas, said he planned to
set up camp on Bureau of Land
Management property, after
making the 20-hour drive with
his 17-year-old son and two
brothers-in-law.
Mr. Bowman is drawn to
Area 51 the way people flocked
to a remote butte in the 1977 ex-
traterrestrial movie “Close En-
counters of the Third Kind.”
“They had no idea why they
had to get to that mountain, but
ContinuedfromPageOne
Area 51
Draws UFO
Parties
The Alien Research Facility, a souvenir shop in Hiko, Nev.ROLLO ROSS/REUTERSMOSCOW—The Bank of
Russia cut its key interest rate
Friday for the third time this
year amid a sluggish economy
at home and easier monetary
policy abroad.
The bank lowered its rate
to 7% from 7.25%.
With signs mounting that
the world economy is slowing,
the U.S. Federal Reserve low-
ered interest rates in July for
the first time in over a decade
and many investors expect the
bank to do so again this
month.
European Central Bank offi-
cials have indicated they will
launch a big stimulus package
soon, which could include rate
cuts and asset purchases.
In Russia, the central bank
is responding to slowing infla-
tion and lethargic economic
growth.
Governor Elvira Nabiullina
has indicated that she wants
to complete the rate-cutting
cycle in small steps by
mid-2020.
“Monetary conditions have
continued to ease,” the Bank
of Russia said in a statement.
This was partly driven by a
“further downward revision of
expected interest-rate paths in
the U.S. and the euro area.”
The bank also cited friction
in international trade as a fac-
tor in the slowdown in global
economic growth, which could
lead it to act again.
The rate cut is a reversal
from last year, when the bank
increased rates in December.
In January, the Fed surprised
investors by signaling that it
was done raising interest
rates for now, opening the
way for a series of cuts by
policy makers in developing
countries.
Russia recorded its first
monthly deflation in two
years when consumer prices
fell by 0.2% in August.
BYGEORGIKANTCHEV
Central
Bank in
Moscow
Cuts Rate
build on antigovernment dem-
onstrations in Moscow this
summer that drew the biggest
crowds in nearly a decade.
“The momentum is just be-
ginning for us,” said the oppo-
sition’s Lyubov Sobol, a
would-be candidate who went
on a month-long hunger strike
that lasted into mid-August af-
ter election authorities denied
her application to run for
Moscow’s city council.
Arrests and legal actions
are threatening to sap the mo-
mentum, however, as are op-
position leaders’ conflicting
strategies.
Some activists oppose par-
ticipation in the municipal
elections, calling for more
street protests instead. Others,
such as protest leader Alexei
Navalny, have put their weight
behind fielding as many candi-
dates as possible. Mr. Navalny
was barred from registering to
run in last year’s presidential
election, and isn’t competing
for a seat on the Moscow city
council.
The rift in the opposition
has alienated some supporters
who want the movement to
take a common stand.Opposition politicians have
been denied a nationwide plat-
form for years, with some be-
ing arrested or even killed. Lo-
cal elections have been seen as
the last remaining outlet for
competitive politics in Russia.
In 2017, the opposition won
a sizable victory in Moscow
municipal elections, and last
year several Kremlin-backed
gubernatorial candidates suf-fered rare defeats in regional
races.
“Going local and regional is
good because it helps the oppo-
sition broaden its reach and de-
bunks the regime’s portrait of
the opposition as spoiled Mus-
covites unrepresentative of the
‘real narod, ’ ” or ordinary peo-
ple, said Virginie Lasnier, a po-
litical-science research fellow
at the University of Montreal.But city elections like the
centerpiece ballot in Moscow
are being pushed off limits for
the opposition.
“Even that vulnerability
must be closed,” said Tatiana
Stanovaya, founder and CEO of
political analysis firm R. Poli-
tik.
The run-up to Sunday’s vote
became a lightning rod for
protesters in mid-July after
city officials in Moscow re-
fused the candidacies of sev-
eral important antigovernment
activists. The demonstrations
snowballed into weeks of ral-
lies and street marches, some
drawing as many as 50,
people.
The Moscow electoral com-
mission barred opposition
candidates it says failed to
collect enough legitimate sig-
natures to be placed on the
council ballot—a claim the
protesters deny.
Last month, a Moscow
court reversed a decision to
ban opposition candidate
Sergey Mitrokhin of the
Yabloko Party from Sunday’s
election, a rare concession
that followed the weeks of
protests.Opposition leaders say they
believe they have galvanized a
sizable segment of Russian so-
ciety that has grown frus-
trated with declining living
standards.
Support for Mr. Putin has
weakened at home despite his
success abroad at helping to
re-establish Russia’s claim to
be a world power.
The Russian government, in
public comments, shrugged off
the protests, suggesting they
speak to the country’s demo-
cratic credentials.
Mr. Putin said during an in-
vestment forum in Vladivos-
tok on Thursday that some-
times protests can have
results by shaking up power,
but that “things should be
done within the framework of
the law.”
The government response
on the ground has been less
muted. Authorities have de-
ployed armed riot police and
filed legal cases against more
than a dozen opposition lead-
ers.
Five people have been con-
victed and sentenced to prison
on charges relating to pro-
tests.MOSCOW—Targeted by po-
lice and barred from the ballot
in Moscow’s city elections,
Russia’s opposition is trying to
gain a political foothold in
other municipal races Sunday
as it rides a rising wave of dis-
sent against President Vladi-
mir Putin.
But to convert a surge in
support into a coherent politi-
cal challenge to Mr. Putin, op-
position leaders must first
overcome a crackdown against
them, and their own internal
divisions.
The push for a voice in lo-
cal politics offers Russia’s
loose opposition coalition an
opportunity to indicate the
breadth of its popular backing.
The United Democrats, as
the alliance is known, have
registered more than 400 can-
didates in districts in St. Pe-
tersburg, Russia’s second city
and Mr. Putin’s hometown, and
supports candidates in six
other cities across the country.
Attempting to inject a
wider range of views into city
politics, the alliance aims toBYTHOMASGROVE
ANDANNM.SIMMONSRussian Opposition Looks for Votes
Russian opposition figures Lyubov Sobol, in Moscow in August, and Alexei Navalny, in July, have sought to turn large-scale Moscow protests into momentum at polls.SHAMIL ZHUMATOV/REUTERSFoes of Putin hope
protest momentum
will lift them at
elections on Sunday.SERGEI ILNITSKY/EPA/SHUTTERSTOCKFROM PAGE ONE
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