It has been 15 or more years since I've driven through Rachel and my memory may not be so good on what I saw there, but I remember Rachel not having any businesses except a small cafe. It was my understanding that it a source of information about UFO's and Area 51. I would think you could find the phone number of this business and give them a call. The folks there seem to play up all the Area 51 stories and the state designated the highway through there as the "Extraterrestrial Highway" so I don't think they would be bothered by your inquiry.
As for Area 51 here is what I have observed. You can find some good pictures many people have taken on trips in the area and their contacts with security personnel. The nation has needed and continues to need some secrecy in regards to weapons technology. This area seems to be facilitating it. I've heard from some sources around Tonopah that sightings of the various stealth aircraft were made from time to time outside the boundaries of the Nellis AFB/Nevada test site area. I've also heard that the reason we in Mono and Inyo Counties, California; and in western Nevada are within the largest area of the lower 48 without weather radar is because the NWS was not allowed to locate a site on Mt. Brock, near Tonopah, due to the military's concerns of having radar so close to the north boundary of the military area.
Area 51 is sometimes referred to as "Groom Lake", a large dry lake bed in or near Area 51. In the early years of the Reagan administration this was outside the military reservation on public lands administered by the U.S. Department of Interior's Bureau of Land Management. Reagan illegally withdrew the area from public use to include it in the reservation. There was a huge controversy over this as he had exceeded the presidential authority to do such by tens of thousands of acres. The commodity users of the area, mainly ranchers and miners, along with those who must defend the management of public lands found it impossible to fight the administration as they were using stonewalling and "possession is 100% of the law techniques." In fact, BLM employees doing field work were suddenly barred from entering the area where they had been the week before. They had not been informed. The user groups and conservation organizations knew that this was not a gem of our public lands but justifiably worried if they get away with it here, where else will the military march to and suddenly close using national security and threats from enemies as justification. Soon after the MX missile proposal, which would have ripped up hundreds of thousands of acres of land in Nevada, became a big battle which found conservation groups, miners, and ranchers in what some may call an unlikely coalition.
I also heard one of those "a friend of friend of mine" type stories of a man's long time acquaintance with an alleged contractor who worked on compressors for a contractor of Nellis AFB. He was supposedly called up to Area 51 for an emergency repair and was flown in an aircraft with blacked out windows with no access to the cockpit. They were flown in a very indirect fashion to a site where upon exiting the aircraft he could not identify where he was. He related being taken tens of stories underground to some mechanical room to make the repairs. "Thousands" of people were seen at this installation. I heard this from someone I know who works for a public land management agency, but how many "friend of a friend of a friend" or "I know a guy whose cousin's ex brother-in-law" cycles did this story actually go through?
This illegal action and the battle over it, the possible sightings of unknown type military aircraft, and the remoteness of the area has caused a lot of stories to spread. Area 51, myth or reality? I've related some personnel observations and some information made available to me while employed by the U.S. Forest Service during the 80's. I suspect we may never be able to fully distinguish between fact and fiction. I think the latter is far more prevalent than even the perspective of many skeptics. For me it sounds like people have been watching too much of "The Outer Limits" and "The X Files" and I suspect that it is harder to keep secrets in this country than many believe. I guess every generation has to pass down some legends, although I'm not sure why.
