Route 66 Marks 100th Anniversary with Ties to Astronomy and UFO Sightings

U.S. Route 66 is marking 100 years since it opened as one of America's most iconic highways.

The road runs 2,448 miles from Chicago to Santa Monica, California. States and towns formed groups to maintain surviving sections after officials decommissioned the highway in the mid-1980s.

Hundreds of miles cut through the American Southwest, where Northern Arizona holds striking landmarks. Meteor Crater stands out as one of the world's best-preserved meteorite impact sites and a top stop along the route. Residents also reported a UFO crash in Kingman, Arizona, during the 1950s on the route's western stretch. Flagstaff sits midway through Arizona's portion and serves as a gateway to the Grand Canyon and outer space.

Fox News correspondent Steve Doocy visited Kansas for the centennial.

Astronomer Percival Lowell came to Flagstaff before crews built Route 66 to construct an observatory. "They look up, and they see what looks like a big birthday cake up on the side of the hill," said Lowell Observatory historian Kevin Schindler.

Lowell thought life existed on Mars. "And we know today that we haven't found any intelligent life on Mars. But he built this consciousness that it could be there," Schindler said.

In 1930, astronomer Clyde Tombaugh spotted Pluto, then the solar system's ninth planet. "And the fellow who discovered Pluto, Clyde Tombaugh, was born in Streator, Illinois," Schindler said. "Not all that far off of Route 66, and then he made his great discovery right here."

The observatory keeps the Pluto-spotting telescope for education.