6/15/08

Stephenville UFO report out

The world waited for Mutual UFO Network's (MUFON) official report on the Stephenville unidentified flying objects report.

And waited. And waited.

That was cool. That meant a lot of work was going on and State Director Ken Cherry and Chief Investigator Steve Hudgeons were pouring through hundreds of eyewitness accounts, plotting on maps, coordinating radar data, and organizing field investigators.

Finally, the report was forthcoming in the May edition of the MUFON Journal. Eagerly, those of the UFO community as well as those not so familiar began scouring the document.

For what?

To find out, the Stephenville investigation was the largest sighting the Texas group had ever handled. And it showed. Crowds flooded the January Dublin meeting, more than willing to share their experiences of the unusual event.

Eight MUFON investigators answered the call for volunteers to interview witnesses. With all of the media attention, the job must have seemed overwhelming.

We find out Texas has had more than 550 sightings from 1947 to Nov. 1, 2007. The author of the article said that information was for perspective, but it seemed more like filler. Especially because the title of the article leads the reader to believe he or she will find out more about Erath County sightings. The title is "Stephenville: Report of Cluster of UFO Sightings in Erath County, Texas, Nov. 2007 to Feb. 2008."

Steve Allen is the pilot who first brought the sightings to the attention of the world. He and three friends saw something so unbelievably large and absolutely silent Jan. 8 they didn't feel it should remain between friends. And, when a few minutes later the object appeared for the second time, apparently being chased by F-16 jets, it made the sighting all the more interesting. Allen is mentioned, but the report does not recognize if his sighting was identified or is to remain unidentified. And, what about those jets? Did they show up on radar? Is there anything new in this report regarding Allen's sighting that wasn't already known?

A map is included with Allen's location in Selden along with the time (6:15 p.m.) Allen claimed he saw something a mile long and a half-mile wide. There are other anonymous witnesses plotted on the map at other locations from Stephenville to Dublin but no mention of sighting times. There are arrows, which show directions of something traveling along the path of the witnesses. But, where are numbers like altitude and speed? Why isn't there any information in the report to explain how the researchers knew the path this object took?

The report says many of the sightings have been identified, including one video presented by an unknown witness that resembled a black snake "being blown across the sky." MUFON identified this object as a "military sleeve." Where's the data? Meanwhile, it's mostly recognized that UFO sightings are eventually identified. James Fox, UFO filmmaker, believes as many as 95 percent are identified and he has been known to say it's the other 5 percent we should be worried about.

What the report does not say is which cases were not identified or give any exact numbers.

Cherry has been quoted as saying most of the people in Erath County saw planets, stars or clouds. Maybe, but where's the data? What planets and stars did they see? It would seem easy for an untrained observer to make that mistake.

The Doppler radar information provided by William Puckett for the official report was interesting. Puckett apparently found an object that piqued his interest at 6:34 p.m. Jan. 8. It was something that was not using a transponder and something that did not show 10 minutes before or 10 minutes after this time period.

Puckett is quoted as saying, "I found a fast moving target moving on an eastward vector of about 700 mph. This was clearly not a passenger jet. It could have been a military jet or an unknown object. The object was not transponding."

Puckett goes on to state weather conditions for the area Jan. 8.

Well, we all knew there were jets in the area. Even Maj. Karl Lewis with the Naval Air Base finally admitted there were 10 from his base alone on the evening in question after first denying there were any.

The report also mentions three area law enforcement officers and their accounts on Jan. 8, but mistakenly calls them "constables." A recent phone call to one of the officers confirmed that none of the three ever made an official report to MUFON investigators. Nor does the report state how the information or the computer drawings was obtained.

Bruce Maccabee, Ph.D., a ufologist studying the field for years was provided with a copy of David Coran's video. Coran is a Stephenville resident and first showed his film to Steve Allen. Allen gave Coran some money and Coran told him to use the film as he pleased, according to Allen.

Then Ken Cherry arranged a meeting between Coran and UFO Hunters of the History Channel to purchase the video. Maccabee is the organization's state director for Maryland. Without the original film or camera or being able to look through that camera at the precise time and place the film was taken, Maccabee determined that Coran was viewing an out-of-focus star. It's an analysis that many in the UFO community agree with.

A conclusion, Allen says, he will never believe. Allen said the tape he has shows trees and rooftops clearly in focus while the "star" is putting on a light show.

Thanks, Steve Allen, for giving us all courage; courage to report, courage to write, and courage to look deeply into the unknown.

In Ken Cherry's short article for the Journal, he says, "No doubt, this report will not satisfy the skeptics or true believers."

No doubt, he's right.

-- Angelia Joiner is a former Stephenville Empire-Tribune reporter who covered the UFO sighting extensively.

6/14/08

Strange lights over Texas

UFO Stephenville Texas unidentified flying object

Courtney Perry / For The Times

Stephenville is the largest town in Erath County, Texas, where cows tend to outnumber people. But the town became famous after scores of people reported seeing UFOs earlier this year.

UFO sightings in the town of Stephenville set off a furor of theories, media coverage, even T-shirts. But was there an explanation?

By Denise Gellene, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
10:28 PM PDT, June 13, 2008

STEPHENVILLE, TEXAS -- Constable Lee Roy Gaitan saw the brilliant red orbs hovering in the sky and hollered for his family to come out.

It's probably an airplane, said his wife, Wendy, who didn't budge from the couch. Only 8-year-old Ryan went to the front yard.

Photos: Lights in the sky over Texas

That's a UFO, the boy said.

Gaitan, a stocky, 44-year-old lawman who has spent 16 years patrolling the Texas scrubland, faced a bit of a dilemma. With an election coming up, he could tell the world of this incredible sight -- and look like an idiot -- or keep his mouth shut.

"People would say, 'Hey, this guy is nuts. He's crazy,' " said Gaitan of his sighting Jan. 8.

In the morning, there were no unusual police reports, leaving him to wonder whether anyone else had seen the lights. But the next day, the Stephenville Empire-Tribune came out with a front-page story: "Possible UFO Sighting -- Four area residents witness mysterious objects."

Soon, scores more said they had seen the same thing. Stephenville, a ranch town 70 miles southwest of Fort Worth, became home to the biggest mass UFO sighting since the 1997 Phoenix Lights, in which thousands of people, including then-Gov. Fife Symington, reported seeing a boomerang-shaped formation in the sky.

With so many reports from so many people pouring in, there was no easy way to dismiss it all as a hoax. A town that had called itself "The Cowboy Capital of the World" now found itself riding an emotional bronco. Things changed.

The night sky above Stephenville is a jet black canvas that seems the perfect backdrop for the sharp white specks of stars and any imaginings of strange glowing lights.

Stephenville, the largest town in Erath County, is in the heart of Texas dairy country, which means lots of open land and few towns to interrupt the flow of grazing.

Cows easily outnumber the 34,000 humans in the county and, in honor of the dairy industry, there is a Holstein statue nicknamed Moo-la in Stephenville's town square.

After football season ends in the winter, life slows. The green fields turn a dreary brown, punctuated by leafless oaks that reach into the endless Texas sky.

It was a cool, clear January night when Steve Allen, 50, and a group of friends were warming themselves around a fire of brush and debris in nearby Selden, just south of Stephenville.

They first saw a set of brilliant white lights heading from the east that looked like they were at the corners of something a mile long and a half-mile wide. The lights were quicker and quieter than anything Allen had ever seen.

"They came within a mile of us," said Allen, the owner of L&S Enterprises and Texas Freight, a local trucking company. "It flipped us all out."

The lights headed toward Stephenville, where they came to a stop. They reconfigured to form an arch "shaped like the top of a football," Allen said, and realigned into two vertical lines of randomly flashing lights. Then the object burst into a dirty white flame.

"It looked like something firing up, like a blowtorch," Allen said. "It simply vanished."

Ten minutes later, the group saw the lights coming from the opposite direction. Trailing them closely, Allen was certain, were two military jets, followed by two massive red orbs.

Allen, who as a licensed pilot was comfortable judging distance, said the lights were 3,000 feet above the ground.

When the light show was over, he went home and told his wife, who urged him to keep the encounter to himself.

Allen spent a sleepless night, enthralled by what he had seen. In the morning, he contacted the Empire-Tribune.

His call went to education reporter Angelia Joiner. She knew nothing about UFOs, but Allen sounded like a sensible man.

Photos: Lights in the sky over Texas

"He was a pilot and seemed very intelligent," said Joiner, a 47-year-old former schoolteacher who had been a reporter for 18 months. Allen's friends confirmed the account, convincing Joiner the sighting was real.

Still, it was a strange story and Joiner's bosses were concerned. Managing Editor Sara Vanden Berge said she was so anxious that she cried the next morning when she saw "UFO" in the headline. Everyone is laughing at us, she thought.

That was before the television crews started showing up. First came the local reporters, then people from "Good Morning America," NPR and CNN.

"Do you believe alien beings are out there?" CNN's Larry King asked, looking into the camera. "Do you believe they've come to Earth?"

A Japanese film crew showed up and theorized that the UFO was related to the local dairy farms, Allen said. Aliens like milk, they told him.

The town was swept into a UFO maelstrom. People sported aluminum foil alien hats at Stephenville High School basketball games. Men with belt buckles big as fists were wearing "Alien Capital of the World" T-shirts rushed into production by a local company.

The high school science club decided to capitalize on the events by selling its own T-shirts that said: "Erath County -- the New Roswell," referring to the UFO mecca in New Mexico. The shirts carried a picture of a cow being beamed up to a spaceship with the caption: "They came for the milk."

The school netted $7,000 for college scholarships. "Money just fell out of the sky," Principal Travis Stillwell said.

Sensing a historic moment for the town, the Literary Lion bookstore invited customers to jot down their accounts for future generations. Owner Sarah Canady put out salsa and chips for the crowd.

The reports attracted the attention of the Mutual UFO Network, a group that investigates UFO sightings. People who had never talked about UFOs suddenly came forward with tales going back years.

Meeting at the Rotary Club in nearby Dublin, the group collected dozens of reports, including one from Kay Harris, a former factory worker who handed out photocopies of a map charting the route of a flying disc that passed over her home in 1995. She said she had pulled out a handgun but held her fire. "I was not about to start War of the Worlds," Harris said.

Gaitan watched the furor unfold. He had initially been hesitant to mention the event but now couldn't stop talking about it. Media calls came from all over the world, and by mid-February he had logged more than 100 interviews.

His instinct as a lawman was to stick to the facts, so he avoided leaping to conclusions about the lights. Still, he couldn't dismiss a nagging thought at the back of his mind. How could we be alone in a universe so big, he wondered.

"It would be like having a 20- to 30-acre lake and being the only creature in it," he said.

In the midst of the frenzy, his 15-year-old daughter, Katie, came home from school one day and flatly told him that UFOs weren't real. Her school friends didn't believe in them either, she said.

He found himself explaining that "UFO" didn't necessarily mean flying saucers and little green men. It just meant no one knew what the lights were.

Gaitan asked Katie if anyone at school was teasing her because he was on television talking about UFOs, and to his relief, she said no.

Joiner was swamped by calls about strange objects in the sky. Even though she was supposed to be covering the schools, she couldn't help pursuing the UFO story.

"As much as I would have liked to cut it off, I couldn't," she said. "I didn't want to abandon the witnesses."

A logical explanation for the lights was the military; a portion of Erath County falls under a fly zone used in training exercises. When Joiner checked, however, the 301st Fighter Wing stationed near Fort Worth said no aircraft had been near Stephenville when the lights were first observed Jan. 8.

There was no solid way to refute the UFO claims, so theories abounded. The UFO needed power, one story went, so it was headed to a nearby nuclear plant. Another explanation had the UFO looking for President Bush at his Crawford ranch, about an hour's drive from Stephenville.

In the deeply religious community, some believed the lights could be a sign from God. A Bible study group at the Bread of Life Ministries discussed the events at one meeting, and Sandra Evans, 59, said she thought maybe they were guardian angels sent to Earth.

Her husband, Keith, 60, pastor of the church, wasn't sure. "Could be the military," he said. "Could be the end of times."

James Huse, 53, thought that whatever the lights were, they had brought him unexpected good luck. People suddenly repaid him money, legal problems with his father's estate resolved and an old girlfriend called him out of the blue.

"It's kind of a crazy thing -- it's almost like a blessing," said Huse, a retired telephone equipment installer.

Allen felt that he had witnessed something transcendent and was driven to understand what it all meant.

He flew his Cessna over Erath County's countryside, scouring the land for any sign of an alien spaceship. For three afternoons, he surveyed hundreds of square miles but found nothing.

Two weeks after the sighting, a break came in the case. Correcting its earlier statement, the Air Force said 10 F-16s were on a training mission over Erath County when the lights were initially spotted.

The town splintered into believers and skeptics. To some, the lights were becoming a joke.

"It's ridiculous," said Pam Kinsel, a member of the Stephenville High School science club. "It makes us look like a bunch of retarded hicks."

"Yeah," sighed her friend Morgan Lanier. "Inbred."

Joiner doubted the weird pattern of lights reported by Allen and others could be explained by military aircraft. Allen wasn't buying it either. "Our military wishes it had what we saw," he said.

Gaitan reasoned from the presence of the F-16s that he probably had seen a military experiment the Air Force couldn't fully disclose. "We're in the middle of a war right now," he said.

Gaitan nonetheless found himself repeatedly scanning the sky for another glimpse of the lights. One February morning at dawn, while driving the highway west of Stephenville, Gaitan spotted a mysterious ball of light shining through a field of leafless trees. He pulled over and aimed his police camera in its direction.

Gaitan radioed one of his buddies, Sgt. Jim Clifton of the Erath County Sheriff's Department, to take a look. "In my 35 years of law enforcement, I have never seen anything like it," Clifton said.

Less than 24 hours later, Gaitan was at home in Dublin when he spotted a strange pattern of red, green and white lights. He was off-duty, so he and his wife chased the lights in their car, recording images as they followed them into the countryside.

Wendy, 37, who doubted the first sighting, was now convinced the lights were from a technologically superior ship from outer space.

"Who is to say they are not going to invade?" she said.

As winter turned to spring, and the brown fields became green again, the inconclusiveness of the cosmic news began to fade into the daily grind of terrestrial events. The town started looking forward to graduation at the high school, and the first awarding of college scholarships funded by T-shirt sales.

Joiner, frustrated with juggling her duties as an education writer, quit the paper and signed on as a special correspondent for the Jerry Pippin radio show, which regularly reports on unexplained phenomena. In April, she gave a talk at the National Press Club in Washington about covering the Stephenville lights.

It's become her life. "I am looking at the sky more. Friends and neighbors are looking at the sky more," said Joiner, who has never seen the lights herself. "Is it coming back?"

Allen became friends with Joiner, and when she left the paper he and another witness came up with the idea of a website to keep the story alive and possibly make some money from the sale of T-shirts and videos of subsequent sightings. They also recruited Gaitan, since he was one of the main witnesses.

Despite his skepticism, Gaitan agreed to join. He contributed some photos to the site, but recently said he wouldn't be shooting any new ones.

Weary of the tumult, he hardly searches the sky anymore.

denise.gellene@latimes.com

6/11/08

MUFON SAYS NOTHING EXCITING HAPPENED IN ERATH COUNTY, TEXAS, AND THOSE GLYPTHS IN THE SKY WERE JUST A STAR

June 11, 2008 at 09:39:23

by Bill Knell Page 1 of 1 page(s)

http://www.opednews.com

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It seems that Ken Cherry, Texas State Director for Mutual UFO Network (MUFON), simply cannot say that anything really strange happened in Stephenville, Dublin or Erath County, Texas. The preliminary report which he helped to prepare says there is no conclusive proof that what folks in those areas say was a UFO. The report also indicates that the video of all those glyphs in the sky was probably just a star.

I recall when the Stephenville, Texas, story first broke on the national news here in the USA. Cherry appeared on Fox News and said that he planned to get some people down to Stephenville on the weekend or whenever they could get there. He pointed out that MUFON investigators are all volunteers and that he is a business owner himself. Well, I think that Ken should stick to his business and leave UFO research to those who have the time and expertise to examine the greater body of evidence surrounding what really happened in Erath County.

The Stephenville, Dublin and Erath County UFO encounters are not just about one sighting. They involve multiple sightings, credible witnesses, photographic and video evidence, a government cover-up, harassment of witnesses and other events involving high strangeness. To focus in on one sighting and pretend that all the available evidence doesn’t point to a series of unexplained events is irresponsible and a game that I would expect skeptics, not credible UFO investigators, to play.

Skeptics prove that if you want to explain away anything, it can be done. They begin their investigations by trying to debunk a paranormal or supernatural event, instead of objectively examining it. The flaw in that formula is that debunking doesn’t allow for the thoughtful consideration of evidence. It limit’s the investigator’s ability to consider the big picture and other circumstances that may be related to any given case. Skepticism is the easy road. Objectivity is hard.

Apart from coming to some very suspicious conclusions based on the available evidence, there is another consideration that causes me to question the reliability of the suppositions in the MUFON report. MUFON has a long and well deserved reputation of trying to please skeptics. They practically made a superstar out of Phil Klass. Anyone that’s been researching UFOs for more than a few years knows that you will never succeed in keeping the true believers or skeptics happy. It’s impossible to avoid running afoul of their narrow viewpoints.

MUFON is also known as a group that doesn’t work and play well with others. I seriously doubt that the investigators that prepared this report took the time to speak with people that didn’t come to them. MUFON has never learned that an investigation means more than just examining the information contained in sighting reports. You have to get out there and speak with other credible reporters and researchers that are on the scene. They may have important information about the events you are investigating. If you don’t, your report isn’t complete and can easily mislead the public about the facts and circumstances of any given UFO event.

I want to be fair and remind readers that MUFON is a grass roots organization and, arguably, the oldest UFO investigative and research group in existence. I know for a fact that many of their local chapters are made up of people who are sincere, dedicated and fair. You cannot judge the entire organization by what any one member or group of members may do. However, I think that the conclusions in the report on Stephenville are reprehensible and exhibit and amazing lack of investigative skill.

Some of the explanations that the Texas MUFON investigators managed to cook up to explain the Erath County sighting and video include a military target sleeve, sensitivity of cameras, lights from other sources, sun dogs, lens flares and bad film. These brilliant deductions were announced on May 18, 2008 at a public library meeting (I hope it was held in the FICTION area). Is it any wonder that at least one Texas newspaper likened the MUFON investigation team to the Scooby Doo Gang? Enough said. For more, visit http://newsletter.ufoguy.com

Jet hits UFO

http://livenews.com.au/Articles/2008/06/11/Fighter_plane_struck_by_UFO_in_Romania

Fighter plane struck by U.F.O in Romania

Jesse Perez

11/06/2008 4:14:00 PM.

Defence chiefs in Romania are investigating claims that one of their MIG 21 fighter planes was struck by an Unidentified Flying Object.

The claims came from a leaked report revealed that the cockpit of the jet was shattered in the collision.

Romanian defence ministry officials have ruled out a collision with "normal" objects such as birds and meteorites.

In the report, Chief investigator Commander Nicolae Grigorie said: 'We can definitely say what this thing was not, but we cannot say what it was.'

The incident was recorded on an in-flight camera as the plane was flying above Transylvania.

Pilot Marin Mitrica was injured slightly but managed to land the plane after the blow.

The collision is still a mystery to defence chiefs, and the investigation has been passed on to the Security Committee of European Air Forces.

http://www.shortnews.com/start.cfm?id=71334

06/11/2008 08:02 AM ID: 71334
UFO Collides With Fighter Jet Over Transylvania
	Transylvania: A leaked report has revealed that a Romanian MIG-21 was hit by a number of unidentified flying objects. The pilot was able to land the plane despite the impact shattering the cockpit and causing him minor injuries. The inflight camera was able to capture the incident. Officials from the Romanian Ministry of Defence have indicated that it was not a birdstrike, meteorite, or ice. "We can definitely say what this thing was not, but we cannot say what it was," said Chief investigator Commander Nicolae Grigorie. The incident has been referred to the Security Committee of European Air Forces for further scrutiny.

http://www.thespoof.com/news/spoof.cfm?headline=s3i36733

Romanian MIG 21 mid-air UFO collision was Scareforce One blue ice

Written by queen mudder

Story written: 10 June 2008

image for Romanian MIG 21 mid-air UFO collision was Scareforce One blue ice

The President's plane was considerably lighter after the incident

Central Europe - (ET Mess): Diplomatc relations between the US and Romania have hit rock bottom after it emerged that an apparent UFO mid-air collision with a MIG 21 fighter jet was nothing more than half a tonne of well-aimed blue ice from George W Bush's Airforce One global runabout.

Bush was enroute to Slovenia for a Non-Aligned Crack Barons convention when the incident occurred.

His plane was buzzed by Romanian fighter jets after straying into Transylvanian sovereign airspace during an electrical storm.

"We thought he might be on a secret trip to his fatherland," Transylvanian air accident chief investigator Commander Nicolae Grigorie explained today, "and had skipped formalities such as an entry visa and landing taxes."

The Airforce One pilot reacted quickly, immediately retalliating by climbing high above the Russian-made MIG and opening up the sluices just after the President had had his usual post-prandial dump.

Shocked Romanian defence chiefs said the action constituted an act of whore and immediately filed a complaint with the UN Security Council.

An official report says the MIG's cockpit was shattered and the hapless pilot had to bail out at 33,000 feet, his near-useless parachute clogged up with shards of frozen semi-digested chili remains.

Condoleezza Rice is a militant vegan.

6/3/08

New Alien Video Shines (Photoshopped) Light on UFO Hoaxers

The latest alleged close encounter is of a new kind: Paranormal researchers, NASA geeks and even skeptical magicians all agree that the invasion of extraterrestrial evidence has gone over the edge with digital manipulation. Why that's not good for skeptics or believers—and why you've been watching a fake of a fake for almost a week.

Bryan Bonner's mock video used DIY digital effects and a store-bought costume to show how easy it would be for Stan Romanek to fake his evidence of alien life. The fake, pictured at left, was released the day before a news conference when an actual still from Romanek's footage was released (right), though bloggers have picked up the Bonner footage as the "real" thing. (Stills via the Rocky Mountain Paranormal Research Society and the Rocky Mountain News)

By Erik Sofge

Published on: June 3, 2008

If real life were anything like a sci-fi movie, Stan Romanek might just hold the future of mankind in his hands. Judging from his own (now very public) accounts, Romanek has had a staggering amount of contact with extraterrestrials. He has photographed a so-called flying orb emblazoned with what appears to be a face. He has met aliens in person, and drawn sketches of their vast eyes and swollen craniums. And late last week, Romanek stirred up a Web frenzy by showing a room full of reporters in Denver a brief clip of what he says is an alien peering into his window.

Clearly, this is no coincidence.

Many of the legions of UFO believers and spotters—whether driven by publicity, paranoia or hope—have taken a single suspicious photo. Some have reported an abduction or two. But for one man to have such a voluminous (and diverse) history of close encounters with nonhuman intelligence, you'd think Romanek had been chosen as Earth's unlikely ambassador to the stars. That, or he's coming out with a movie.

In what amounts to a bizarre new kind of viral marketing, the footage screened on Friday—to be included in an upcoming documentary about Romanek's experiences—is also part of a ballot initiative to create a commission that would formalize contact with aliens. The man heading that effort, 54-year-old Jeff Peckman, has a curious political track record running parallel to his extraterrestrial PR. In 2003, he campaigned for an initiative to reduce Denver's collective stress levels, using such measures as group meditation and the playing of sitar music in public buildings. But Peckman's efforts to promote Romanek's footage have been considerably more successful, garnering national headlines and an appearance on Larry King Live. And the hyperbole is frustrating the already combative cult of UFO followers, skeptics and believers alike.

"We saw this guy trying to pass off things that looked paranormal as something related to aliens," says Bryan Bonner, head of the Rocky Mountain Paranormal Research Society, which has been recreating Romanek's photos and videos for several years—to disprove him. That's because the same type of evidence once used by paranormal scientists to indicate the presence of ghosts is now being doctored by amateurs as proof of alien life.

Neither Romanek nor Peckman responded to requests for comment for this article, but their new footage—for now reduced to a single night-vision still image they've made public—and the ensuing fakes, headlines and hysteria have shed light on what researchers monitoring the field say is an increasing trend of hoax hype in a digital age.

The Watchdogs of Photoshopped Fame

Bonner and his team of investigators, who specialize in reports of haunted houses, actually saw the video months ago, when he says it was making the rounds in the UFO community as Peckman was garnering interest for a 4000-signature ballot initiative to start an Extraterrestrial Affairs Commission in Denver. "It sparked our interest, but he seemed like another nut off the street," Bonner remembered. "Then he says he has evidence."

Bonner assumed that the Romanek footage was that so-called evidence, and with Peckman's press conference preview on Thursday confirming this, Bonner's team put together a mock video of its own that night. To counter claims that it would have taken thousands of dollars for Romanek to create a convincing, blinking prosthetic creature, the investigators from Rocky Mountain Paranormal rented a dummy alien from a costume shop, then spliced together quick-and-dirty special effects to make its giant eyes appear to blink.

In a strange twist, Bonner's mock video has been embedded on various blogs and linked on forums, mistaken for the actual Romanek footage. But that's an increasingly common mistake when so much can be made to look real with even an amateur's desktop software. "The problem with any data—I don't care if it's a video, a photo, electromagnetic readings—it can be faked," Bonner says. "And because of the digital age, it can be faked easily."

One film, released in 1995 to some notoriety in the geekosphere, purported to show a military autopsy performed on an alien. More than a decade later, the filmmaker changed his story, claiming that the video recreated footage he had seen, which had degraded before he was able to gather the necessary funds to buy it. And a few months ago, an anonymous source released footage of another alien autopsy, although the corpse in question is a rubbery, toylike thing, roughly the size of a baby chimpanzee. No explanation has been provided for where the video came from, why the alien is so small, or why there's such an obvious edit before the creature's entrails are removed (they also change color). "Any evidence is only as good as the reputation of the group that gave it to you," says Bonner.

By that measure, Stan Romanek is a problematic source. The evidence he has presented since his first reported contact in late 2000 is full of red flags. One photo posted on Romanek's Web site shows what he interprets to be a UFO covered in bubblelike pods. The next UFO he encountered had a classic flying-saucer profile. Another one appears as a sphere with barely visible facial features. According to Bonner, Romanek has also tried to talk with aliens using the classic paranormal "Frank's Box" gadget, which is generally a modified car radio that picks up random snippets of speech from AM stations—often for attempted communication with the dead. Even less consistent are Romanek's personal encounters, which include mysterious wounds that glowed under a black light, a chair that spun on its own, and an ominous black silhouette moving through his home.

At Friday's news conference, according to a video on the Denver Post's Web site, Peckman deflected those inconsistencies by citing public sentiment—a majority of Americans do believe extraterrestrials exist—and saying the new footage would help push awareness for his alien oversight board in the local November election. "There's already quite a bit of information out there—there's momentum, there's support, and I believe it will pass," Peckman said. "I don't think it would pass today, because there's been too much denial of information, too much misinformation."

The Gadget-Built Currency of Conspiracy

In the sprawling community of hardcore extraterrestrial believers, footage like Romanek's is not only rare, but widely derided. Clark McClelland, a former Spacecraft Control Operator at NASA who claims to have seen extraterrestrials firsthand, called the Denver footage "a pathetic disclosure."

The central currency of this subculture is evidence of "orbs," unexplained glowing balls that appear only in photographs. James Randi, a professional magician and legendary skeptic, whose foundation is still offering $1 million for verifiable proof of the paranormal, receives a handful of orb photographs each week. "Most of the photos aren't fakes," he says. "These are just people who don't know how to operate a camera." The orbs themselves are not only easily explained, but even more easily replicated. "The majority are dust motes that are brightly lit. With an infrared camera they show up particularly well," Randi says. Even with a standard camera, spotters can create their own suspicious balls of light with a particulate that's close to the lens and properly illuminated by the flash.

Lens flare can also be easily misinterpreted for the presence of an orb, particularly when the apparent object winds up with something that could be described as a face. Laying aside the ridiculous engineering implications of a head-shaped spacecraft, there's nothing new—or mysterious—about seeing faces where they shouldn't be. "It's a condition we all have, called pareidolia," says Bonner. "It served an evolutionary purpose. When we were out in the bushes, trying to fend for ourselves, it meant we didn't get eaten by the big fuzzy thing trying to kill us before we killed it. We still have those instincts, but we don't know how to interpret it. So we look at clouds, or orbs, and we still see faces."

When they aren't deliberate hoaxes, the oddly shaped spacecraft that populate so many UFO shots are often just misinterpretations of digital artifacts. Tweaking an image in a program like Photoshop can only exacerbate things, as an object is either intentionally or accidentally crafted into a more intricate vessel—deeper shadows, a more metallic sheen, even a more distinct face. All of which can be—and has been—debunked or recreated by photographers and video experts.

But in both Bonner and Randi's experience, explanations and counter-evidence tend to fall on deaf ears. "They need what we call a ‘woo-woo solution,'" Randi says. "They resist all attempts to rationalize. They see the thing demonstrated for them, replicated for them, and they'll just shake their heads and smile—and walk away."

Angelia Joiner and The Stephenville Lights – and Alfred Webre - Wednesday June 4 - on the Richard Syrett Show

Toronto, ON, Canada June 2, 2008 – Angelia Joiner former staff writer for the Stephenville Empire Tribune will join host Richard Syrett and co-host Victor Viggiani this Wednesday June 4 on News Talk 1010 CFRB AM Toronto from 11:00 pm to midnight EST to discuss the Stephenville Lights UFO phenomenon.

Angelia uncovered what is today considered by many one of the most puzzling UFO events in North American history. Her eye witness interviews include pilots, police officers and local citizens, each of whom attest to having seen massive, solid rectangular unidentified craft hundreds of metres in length – moving silently 270 metres above them.

Angelia Joiner tells her story about how a small town in Texas in January of 2008 became a world focal point as their newspaper – The Stephenville Empire Tribune – first covered the story, creating international repercussions, and then shortly thereafter ceasing all coverage. Ms. Joiner's less than ceremonious departure from the Stephenville Empire Tribune portrays how, and possibly why mainstream journalists are pressured to play-down UFO events of high significance.

Rivaled only by the stunning Phoenix Lights of 1997 as brought to us by Dr. Lynne Kitei in an earlier interview on the Richard Syrett Show, the Stephenville Lights phenomenon enters the litany of UFO sightings receiving a "no comment" from our government and military officials.

Journalists world-wide are invited to call-in to speak with Ms. Joiner.

Other coverage of this event: http://www.reporternews.com/news/2008/feb/29/unwelcome-visits/

At midnight EST Richard and Victor will speak with Alfred Webre about the United Nations Decade of Contact Petition. The petition seeks 10,000 names to present to the UN a viable agenda of disclosure.

Currently at over 6700 names, the petition supports the disclosure of ET contact issues, public funding of ET research and a ban on weaponry in space.

While interviewing Alfred Webre – guests may call-in and speak with him and, all listeners are encouraged to go to the site to add their names to this historic appeal.

To review the petition go to:
http://www.exopolitics.com/

All of this on News Talk 1010 CFRB Toronto AM radio.

Listen Live on the net at: www.cfrb.com

To speak with Richard, Victor and their guests call: Toll Free 1.800.561.CFRB – Local 416.872.1010 – or - Cell *TALK

Any journalist or editor wishing to speak with either guest confidentially is asked to use the contact information below.

6/1/08

Stephenville, Texas UFO Sightings Timeline and Summary

Stephenville, Texas (1-8-2008)

From The Black Vault Encyclopedia Project

On January 8, 2008, a UFO was sighted above Stephenville, Texas. Many residents, a pilot, police officer, and buisness owners claim to have seen a large round object hovering at about 300 feet above the town.

A freight company owner said that it had to have been at least one mile long, and a half a mile wide. Officials tried to explain it to the people, but all of the witnesses said that it was larger, faster, and quieter than an airplane. And also unlike an airplane, the lights on the craft seemed to change configuration.

News Stories about the Case

News Articles about the Case

UFO fever sweeps Texan town (ITN - 1/16/08)

The quiet Texan farming community Stephenville is being gripped by UFO fever after a string of sightings.

Dozens of people - including a pilot, county constable and business owners - insist they have seen a large silent object with bright lights flying low and fast.

Some even report seeing fighter jets chasing it.

Local newspaper reporter Angela Joiner said she had received loads of emails about it.

"It is the talk of the town right now," she said.

Stephenville officials insist there is a logical explanation but the locals swear that it was larger, quieter, faster and lower to the ground than an airplane.

A spokesman for the nearby Joint Reserve Naval Air Station said aircraft from his base were in the area on the night of January 8 when most people reported the sighting.

But he did say the object may have been an illusion caused by two commercial airplanes.

About 200 UFO sightings are reported each month, mostly in California, Colorado and Texas.

Fourteen per cent of Americans surveyed last year say they have seen one.

UFO seekers flock to mystery lights in Texas (The Telegraph - 1/16/08)

By Tom Leonard in New York

Amateur UFO investigators are to descend on a farming community in Texas where dozens of people reported seeing mysterious lights in the sky.

A pilot, policeman and local business owners are among those who insist they have seen a large, silent object with bright lights flying low and fast over the town of Stephenville, 60 miles south west of Fort Worth.

Some said they saw fighter jets chasing the craft, which was mostly spotted on one evening - January 8.

The local airforce base said none of its planes were in the area last week.

A spokesman has suggested that the UFO might have been an illusion created by sunset falling on commercial airliners.

Unconvinced, local people insist the object was larger, quieter, faster and closer to the ground than an airplane.

Steve Allen, a pilot and freight company owner, said: "People wonder what in the world it is because this is the Bible Belt, and everyone is afraid it's the end of times."

Mr Allen, a freight company owner and pilot, described the object he saw as a mile long and half a mile wide.

"It was positively, absolutely nothing from these parts," he said.

Looking through the telescopic sights of his rifle, Ricky Sorrells, a machinist, said he saw a flat and seamless metallic object hovering about 300 feet over a field.

Lee Roy Gaitan, an Erath County constable, said: "I didn't see a flying saucer and I don't know what it was, but it wasn't an airplane, and I've never seen anything like it."

He added: "I think it must be some kind of military craft - at least I hope it was."

The US airforce no longer investigates UFOs. Around 200 UFO sightings are reported each month, mostly in California, Colorado and Texas, according to the Mutual UFO Network, which plans to visit Stephenville next weekend.

Fourteen per cent of Americans polled last year said they have seen a UFO.

UFOs put Stephenville in world spotlight (Star-Telegram - 1/16/08)

BY BUD KENNEDY bud@star-telegram.com

Stephenville's latest close encounter is weirder than any light in the sky.

Stephenville is under assault — not by Martians, but by people hunting them.

The phones haven't stopped ringing at Steve Allen's trucking company in nearby Glen Rose. He's the guy who was out Jan. 7 watching the sunset at a friend's house near Selden when they all saw some weird flashing lights.

Now, he can't work for all the phone calls from London and around the world.

Some of the callers are scarier than space aliens.

"I'll be OK," he joked Tuesday, "as long as I don't get abducted."

I couldn't even get a call through to county Constable Leroy Gaitan. He told reporters that he and his son, 8, saw the lights from nearby Dublin.

All I can say is, if space aliens were hovering over Texas last week, then maybe that explains the Cowboys. The Stephenville newspaper, the Empire-Tribune, actually broke the story Thursday. But as far as I can tell, absolutely nobody in Texas paid attention until after Dallas was knocked out of the football playoffs.

The news finally went national Monday.

But technically, we all got scooped.

On Dec. 11 — more than a month ago — a Scottish writer and evangelist wrote exactly what would happen.

Catherine Brown, 43 and a mother of four, wrote about a heavenly vision predicting a "stunning star" over Texas that would make "front-line news."

I’m not kidding.

She posted this last month to the Web site for Elijah List Ministries, an Oregon-based publishing house that seems like sort of a clearinghouse for end-of-the-world religious prophecy:

"I see Texas ablaze and a stunning star, like the star from the East rising over the land. I hear the Spirit of the Lord saying to: 'Watch for cosmic signs and wonders in Texas.'

"He said there will be a cosmological phenomenon that scientists cannot explain, and the media will carry as front-line news.

"People will begin to ask about 'the Light.' ... For a period of four months -- from Christmas to Easter -- there will be a window of opportunity for salvations, signs, healings and wonders in Texas."

Brown has never seen Texas in her life, she said Tuesday by phone from her office at Gatekeepers Global Ministries in Ayrshire, Scotland.

"I saw this huge light over Texas," she said "It was actually just a short vision. When I saw the news today, I thought — how interesting."

In 2003, she predicted a rare earthquake in the Netherlands.

In Glen Rose, Allen said he hopes to talk with Brown. He had been quoted by The Associated Press saying that Texans are curious about the flying lights because "this is the Bible Belt, and everyone is afraid it’s the end of times."

A pilot, Allen said he is a greeter at a Baptist church near Chalk Mountain.

"I knew it wasn't like anything we've ever seen before in these parts," he said. "It definitely gave you a Biblical flashback."

Most experts are crediting a more worldly source: military training or defense aircraft testing, maybe pilots testing the giant flares that fire off in a circle of flame around aircraft to divert missiles.

This isn't the first time folks around Stephenville have seen weird things fly.

In 1897, six years before the Wright Brothers' maiden flight, farmer C.L. McIlhany of Stephenville told The Dallas Morning News that he and more than 20 other leading citizens had seen an "aerial monster" 60 feet long land in his pasture.

The aircraft had a pilot and engineer from New York, McIlhany said, who claimed they were testing it for investors and landed to make repairs.

In yet another good prediction, McIlhany is quoted as saying: "What you reckon is going to happen when dynamiters get to riding in airships and dropping bombs down on folks and cities? Is this world ready for airships?"

Apparently, they're always ready in Stephenville.

Dozens Claim They Spotted UFO in Texas (NPR - 1/16/08)

Day to Day, January 16, 2008 · Faster than a speeding bullet — and bigger than a Wal-Mart.

That's how residents near the west Texas town of Stephenville described an object they spotted in the sky one night last week.

Dozens of the town's residents — including a pilot and a police officer — said a UFO hovered over the farming community for about five minutes last Tuesday before streaking away into the night sky.

Pilot Steve Allen saw the object when he was out clearing brush off a hilltop near the town of Silden. Allen described the unidentified object as being an enormous aircraft with flashing strobe lights — and it was totally silent.

He said the UFO sped away at more than 3,000 mph, followed by two fighter jets that were hopelessly outmaneuvered. Allen said it took the aircraft just a few seconds to cross a section of sky that it takes him 20 minutes to fly in his Cessna.

The veteran pilot said the UFO, an estimated half-mile wide and a mile long, was "bigger than a Wal-Mart."

Military Dismisses Sighting

The Stephenville Empire-Tribune, which has written about the mysterious object, said about 40 people saw the thing — though some were too sheepish to admit the sighting until others came forward.

Police officer Leroy Gatin said he was walking to his car when he saw a red glow that reminded him of pictures he'd seen of an erupting volcano.

He said the object was suspended 3,000 feet in the air. Gatin said he was so awestruck that he called his son to come and see — but he didn't talk much about it until he saw a story about a UFO in the local paper.

Military officials, however, were skeptical. They said the residents are letting their imaginations run wild and passed it off as an optical illusion. They said it was likely nothing more than a reflection of sunlight on two airliners.

Officials at a nearby air force base also said their fighter pilots didn't chase down anything that night.

The incident was eerily similar to a UFO sighting a little more than a year ago at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport.

As many as 12 United Airlines employees spotted the object and filed reports with United.

Reported by Wade Goodwyn; written and edited by Deborah Tedford

UFO team asks if the truth is out there - in Stephenville (Star-Telegram - 1/16/08)

By Matt Frazier Star-Telegram Staff Writer

Seen any UFOs lately?

The Texas chapter of the Mutual UFO Network is looking for people who have seen strange flying objects in the Stephenville area, about 70 miles southwest of Fort Worth.

A pilot, the county constable and business owners all insist that they saw a brightly lit, silent object about a mile long and a half-mile wide, flying low and fast.

"I've received more phone calls on this than on anything else in the past 15 years," said Kenneth Cherry of Keller, director of the UFO network's Texas chapter. "Normally we send one person to investigate a sighting. For this one, we are sending four or five investigators."

The group will begin talking to witnesses at 1 p.m. Saturday in a meeting room in downtown Dublin near the Dr Pepper plant.

To report a sighting, call Cherry at 817-379-0773 or fill out a report form at http://www.mufon.com.

Dozens report seeing UFOs over Texas town (USA Today - 1/17/08)

Cue the Twilight Zone theme ... Dozens of people say they saw a UFO hovering over their rural community near Stephenville, Texas. The Stephenville Empire-Tribune says at least 40 people have reported sightings of the object, which reportedly appeared in the sky just after 6 p.m. on Jan. 8.

Lee Roy Gaitan, a local police officer, tells the newspaper: I was outside with my eight-year-old son, Ryan, when I saw lights. It was like nothing I've ever seen before. It was dark already. At first it was two red burning glows that went away and then came back on. I went inside to tell my wife. When I came back out I saw something like lights you'd see in a bar. My little boy and I counted and we came up with nine flashes and they were real spread out. But I couldn't see them attached to anything, just the lights. So I went to my pickup and got my binoculars to see if I could see a plane or something. Even with the binoculars there was no outline. It started moving towards Stephenville and moving so fast I had trouble following it with my binoculars. It covered a big area. It sounds crazy but we really saw what we saw.

The paper has more eyewitness accounts, including this one from pilot Steve Allen: The ship wasn't really visible and was totally silent, but the lights spanned about a mile long and a half mile wide. The lights went from corner to corner. It was directly above Highway 67 traveling towards Stephenville at a high rate of speed - about 3,000 mph is what I would estimate.

Chuck Mueller, a helicopter pilot who served in Iraq, says he saw unusual lights on the horizon a few days after the UFO sightings were reported near Stephenville.

Mueller tells KXAS-TV that he was flying a medical helicopter around dusk when "we saw the lights come on, one little orange light, and then another one and another one in sequence across the sky." He was shocked at first, but then concluded that the lights, which appeared to be more than 30 miles northeast of the original sightings, were coming from flares that were dropped over the Brownwood Military Operations Area.

There's just one problem with that theory. The NBC station says the military didn't have any planes in the air at the time of the original sightings.

A spokesman for the 301st Fighter Wing at the Joint Reserve Base Naval Air Station tells the Associated Press that he's convinced there's a logical explanation for the lights. "I'm 90 percent sure this was an airliner," Maj. Karl Lewis tells the wire service. "With the sun's angle, it can play tricks on you."

The sightings are big news in rural Texas. The top item on the Stephenville Empire-Tribune's website tells readers where to report a UFO sighting and, below that, the paper notes that a local businessman is offering a $5,000 reward for "video that would confirm a UFO sighting in Selden on Jan. 8."

They're also big news around the world. "The reported sightings have become a catalyst on blogs and in chat rooms, triggering scientific and philosophical debates, religious inquiries, conspiracy charges and bad Texas jokes," the Star-Telegram reports.

The Mutual UFO Network is holding a meeting this weekend for people who saw the object. The non-profit group says its investigators will begin taking statements at 1 p.m. on Saturday.

The Star-Telegram says this isn't the first time people in that part of the state have reported seeing strange things in the sky. Back in 1897, a Stephenville man told The Dallas Morning News that a 60-foot-long "aerial monster" landed on his farm.

Update at 11:46 a.m. ET: Thanks to reader "pudycat" for pointing out in the comments section that CNN has posted what it says is a video of the object.

(Photo, by Donna McWilliam of the AP, shows a man standing near the area where he saw an unidentified object in the sky.)

Researchers, others visit Stephenville to gather information, insight about UFO sightings (American Chronicle - 1/17/08)

By Steve Hammons

As researchers, news media representatives, government officials and others visit Stephenville, Texas, to find out more about recent events there, the general public might be getting better insight and perspective on the topic of possible extraterrestrial visitation to our planet.

The many sightings of unusual flying craft by solid witnesses over recent months, years and decades seem to be helping people get used to the idea that something very interesting might be going on.

For many people, the idea of intelligent beings visiting Earth from other planets, other dimensions or who knows where is interesting and exciting. It can also cause concern, anxiety or even be somewhat frightening.

There are natural reasons for all of these reactions.

We might hope that visitors from outside of our normal world could bring solutions to our problems of war, disease, poverty, suffering, natural resources depletion and the many other troubling situations we face today.

At the same time, we are well aware of our own human history of invasion, infiltration, conquest and destruction. Visitors might have goals along these lines too.

We just don´t know. At least the general public doesn´t know.

BEHIND THE SCENES

Reports, claims, accounts and rumors frequently surface about behind-the-scenes activities and operations by our military and intelligence services that are related to this scenario.

Many of these reports might seem to have some truth in them. There is a certain logic and circumstantial indication that governmental efforts have been underway for quite a while to deal with such a situation.

How much is really accurate and how much is partially true or totally untrue can be difficult to figure out.

Did "the Roswell incident" in 1947 include clear evidence to the Army Air Corps and higher officials that extraterrestrial visitors were here?

Did President Harry Truman authorize special groups to research and formulate plans and activities to deal with this challenge? Some documents seem to back this up.

Did President Dwight Eisenhower actually have a meeting in 1954 at Edwards Air Force Base in California with a type of these visitors? Stories and alleged eyewitness accounts have surfaced.

Did President Ronald Reagan receive an intelligence briefing in 1981 that presented a fairly comprehensive overview to him about this? An alleged version of this briefing was recently posted on the Web.

And, have specially-trained military and intelligence personnel actually been involved in surveillance of UFO incidents and witnesses and been prepared to respond to UFO incidents and crashes? An alleged 1954 special operations manual is posted on the Web and describes proper procedures for dealing with such situations.

These are just a few of many pieces of fascinating information out there. And there are many more.

BE PREPARED

The Stephenville, Texas, sightings particularly spark interest due to the reported size of the object or craft – claimed to be approximately a mile long in size, according to some witnesses.

The 1997 "Phoenix lights" craft was also reported to be about this size by witnesses in Arizona. The huge scale of the UFO was part of the surprise and interest by people in that case, and the similarity to the Stephenville sightings might be significant.

Another similarity: Some witnesses in Stephenville claimed that Air Force F-16s were in pursuit of the object. In the Phoenix case, there were also reports that F-16s were scrambled from Luke Air Force Base on the west side of Phoenix, a major F-16 training center.

Reports of military jets chasing UFOs, not only in the U.S. but in many countries, are fairly common. Mexico, Brazil, even Iran have had very interesting incidents over the years involving military pilots and unidentified and unusual flying craft.

Accounts of these events and background information that is widely available help us be prepared for the possibility or probability that we one day may be, or already have been, visited by intelligent beings from outside of our normal understanding and everyday reality.

Books and novels, reports and articles, TV shows and movies all help us prepare for situations that might be psychologically, emotionally and spiritually challenging.

There are claims and rumors that the 1977 Steven Spielberg movie CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND was, in part, based on a real situation in regard to a special U.S. military team that went onboard a visiting spacecraft after a planned and coordinated landing, and spent a significant amount of time with these visitors.

Throughout the decades of interest in UFOs and ETs, starting in the 1940s, the importance of preparing Americans and people around the world for surprising or confusing news about such a situation has reportedly been a major concern.

Preparing us in a gradual and safe way for such news might have been one of the reasons for certain levels of security. This makes sense. This process may be going on now, and might continue to develop in coming days, weeks, months and years.

It could be a complicated situation that involves important elements of national security, human development or even the survival of Earth and our species.

Understanding as much as we can seems to be a good way to be prepared for the many possibilities and scenarios that may be coming down the road or zipping through the Texas sky.

The contents of all material available on this website are copyrighted by our author-contributors or Ultio LLC.

Pilot Says He Can Explain Stephenville UFO Sightings (NBC 5i - 1/18/08)

FORT WORTH, Texas -- A Fort Worth medical helicopter pilot said he knows what caused the strange lights that appeared in the sky near Stephenville last week.

Chuck Mueller was flying a medical helicopter from a Fort Worth hospital, heading south just after sunset last Thursday. He said he saw unusual lights on the horizon near Granbury.

His description is similar to what a county constable and dozens of others in Stephenville had described seeing two nights earlier.

"And it was something that I'd never seen before," Mueller said. "And I looked at the medic and he looked at me, and we were like, 'What was that?'"

Mueller, a former Army pilot in Iraq, said an explanation "kind of hit" him.

"I'll bet that was an airplane dropping flares, dispensing flares as he was flying along," he said. "It all makes sense. The color was right."

Stephenville is close to the Brownwood Military Operations Area, a major training area for fighter jets.

Other witnesses said they would like to believe Mueller's theory, but it doesn't answer all of their questions.

"But it doesn't explain these little lights," Erath County Constable Lee Roy Gaitan said. "And then the thing about it is just the speed."

They said the lights zipped across the sky at lightning speed.

"An airplane can't do that," Gaitan said. "A helicopter can't do that."

An Air Force spokesman at Fort Worth's Joint Reserve Base said there were no military planes at all in the area last Tuesday.

Mutual UFO Network Comes To Stephenville (CBS 11 News - 1/20/08)

DUBLIN, Texas (CBS 11 News) -- During the past week, CBS 11 News has received dozens of photos and videos from our viewers showing strange objects in the sky.

Several dozen people -- including a pilot, county constable and business owners -- insist they have seen a large silent object with bright lights flying low and fast. Some reported seeing fighter jets chasing it.

Some may have an ordinary explanation.

Maj. Karl Lewis, a spokesman for the 301st Fighter Wing at the Joint Reserve Base Naval Air Station in Fort Worth, has said no F-16s or other aircraft from his base were in the area the night of Jan. 8, when many sightings were reported.

But it's the allure of these unidentified flying objects that's drawn UFO experts to Dublin, which is 12 miles from Stephenville, this weekend.

The Mutual UFO Network met with residents who said they saw the something unexplained in the North Texas sky.

"We believe there is some sort of phenomenon in action here," said Kenneth Cherry, director of the network's Texas chapter. "We see a pattern. But it will take months to investigate."

The network is dedicated to "scientific study of UFOs for the benefit of humanity," according to its Web site.

During the town hall-like gathering, dozens compared stories as media from across the world watched.

North Texans are having fun and cashing in on the newly found international fame. The Erath County cow mascot statue now sports a tin foil hat on its head and even some humans have donned the new lids as excitement continues to grow.

James Huse, a retired electronics technician, said what he saw on Jan. 8 was neither a helicopter nor a plane.

Steve Allen of Glen Rose, who said he was a pilot, said the lights he saw while sitting around a campfire were brighter than the glare from welding.

"The first time we saw it, the duration was three minutes; then it started slowing down and passed us, and the lights in the back reformed into an arc shape, and they would flash on and off with no particular pattern," he said. "Then those changed into two vertical lines. It was totally silent."

Network investigators asked the witnesses to sketch what they saw and to answer questions about the direction, distance and flight of the object they saw.

Cherry said the organization will study the material and release its findings on whether what happened in Stephenville can be explained.

"We do not promote the existence of alien ships," Cherry said. "All we are trying to do is figure out if we can explain it or not, and then we'll let the chips fall where they may."

The information collected from Saturday's interviews will be analyzed and published in the MUFON Journal in April.

Group takes statements about UFO sightings (AP - 1/20/08)

DUBLIN, Texas — Interviewers with the Mutual UFO Network met with about 200 people who said they saw something mysterious in the night skies over Stephenville in late December and early January.

"We believe there is some sort of phenomenon in action here," said Kenneth Cherry, director of the network's Texas chapter. "We see a pattern. But it will take months to investigate."

The network is dedicated to "scientific study of UFOs for the benefit of humanity," according to its Web site.

While members of the organization met Saturday with the witnesses, at least a couple hundred onlookers gathered as well, some wearing aluminum-foil hats.

Several dozen people — including a pilot, county constable and business owners — insist they have seen a large silent object with bright lights flying low and fast. Some reported seeing fighter jets chasing it.

James Huse, a retired electronics technician, said what he saw on Jan. 8 was neither a helicopter nor a plane.

Steve Allen of Glen Rose, who said he was a pilot, said the lights he saw while sitting around a campfire were brighter than the glare from welding.

Network investigators asked the witnesses to sketch what they saw and to answer questions about the direction, distance and flight of the object they saw.

Cherry said the organization will study the material and release its findings on whether what happened in Stephenville can be explained.

"We do not promote the existence of alien ships," Cherry said. "All we are trying to do is figure out if we can explain it or not, and then we'll let the chips fall where they may."

No kidding, but I believe I just saw a flying saucer (Houston Chronicle - 1/20/08)

Despite ridicule, more people are reporting UFO sightings

By LANA BERKOWITZ

Would you laugh if I said I had seen a UFO?

A pilot, county constable and business owners were listed as the witnesses for the recent UFO sighting in Stephenville. These credible, upstanding people reported seeing a large silent object with bright lights flying low and fast. The size has been estimated as a mile long and half-a-mile wide.

When you report something like that, people are going to talk.

However, Ken Cherry, Texas state director of the Mutual Unidentified Flying Object Network, said the reports coming out of Stephenville indicate people are becoming more comfortable admitting they've seen a UFO.

"In terms of the number of witnesses, this is an unusual event," Cherry said.

He noted that the Stephenville area is the heart of the Bible Belt, and MUFON held its fact-finding forum Saturday in Dublin, which is a dry county. "These people are church-going, sober hard-working individuals and probably the last thing in the world that they think about is sitting down and watching an episode of Star Trek or some sci-fi program, yet they've managed to find us," Cherry said. "I'd say a very small percentage of people who see things actually report (it), and yet we've just received a flood of reports.

"Scores and scores of people have seen it, and they are pretty vocal about it. They don't mind talking to me about it at length."

Jim Sparks, author of The Keepers: An Alien Message for the Human Race (Granite Publishing, $24), said when you see a UFO, you believe. Plus, people are more apt to come forward when there are several witnesses.

Sparks' alien abduction experiences began in 1988 while he was living in Sugar Land, and he knew he faced ridicule when he told his story.

"I can't blame people. A lot of people are just plain scared," he said.

It's human nature to fear rejection, Sparks said, and he said a culture of government disinformation labels anyone who claims to see a UFO to be a liar or crazy.

Gail Brittain of Pasadena is president of the Houston UFO Club, which was organized to support abductees. She said she doesn't worry about ridicule.

"To hell with them. I don't care what people think about me. I know what my world is like. I'm sane," Brittain said. "There are so many kooks, but our club isn't kooky."

John Greenewald Jr., author of Beyond UFO Secrecy (The Black Vault, $34) said there are UFO sightings all the time, and he wonders if the media has discovered that UFO news draws big numbers to their Web sites, which in turn leads to more coverage of reports.

Richard Dolan, author of UFOs and the National Security State (Hampton Roads Publishing, $18.95), is not convinced that UFO reports are getting more mainstream acceptance.

"I think people in general are afraid of ridicule very much to this day," Dolan said. "Think about how Dennis Kucinich has handled the UFO thing. He got outed by Shirley MacLaine (in her book Sage-Ing While Age-Ing) and would not talk about it at all until he was pressed against the wall.

"And poor Bill Richardson got reamed by (MSNBC's) Chris Matthews on television when he came out. Matthews really, really tore him to pieces."

When NBC News' Tim Russert asked the Ohio representative during October's Democratic presidential debate in Philadelphia about the sighting, Kucinich said, "It was an unidentified flying object, OK? It's, like, it's unidentified. I saw something." Afterward Internet buzz went crazy calling Kucinich crazy.

Richardson, who is governor of New Mexico and a former Democratic presidential candidate, told Matthews that he promotes Roswell, N.M., as a UFO tourist attraction. He said he hasn't seen a UFO, but he wants the federal government to declassify all the information about the infamous 1947 Roswell crash.

There always will be ridicule, said Dolan, who hasn't seen a UFO but has received some jabs since he was bitten by the UFO bug about 15 years ago. "Fortunately for me that's really never been an issue that's affected me. I'm pretty secure in what I'm about, and if people want to laugh, they can laugh."

Dolan said he has interviewed 500 to 700 witnesses. "All I can do is ask people to be as explicit as they can be. In most of these cases they don't seem like they are hoaxing. They seem like they are rational," he said. "So you're really left with a situation where a really rational, clear-thinking person is describing something that is not supposed to exist. That's what the UFO mystery is.

"What I'm more interested in is the amazing, well-plugged-in people that I have had the privilege to meet as a result of this research.

"They may not be shouting their interest in this topic from the rooftop, but at a private level they are very deeply interested, and some of them claim to have been briefed on the topic," Dolan said. "The thing is, if it is a topic of national security implications, then you would assume that people are not just going to start blabbing around."

lana.berkowitz@chron.com

Stephenville and the end of it all (Star-Telegram - 1/20/08)

By BUD KENNEDY Star-Telegram staff writer

A German newspaper has scooped us.

When mysterious lights were reported in Stephenville, the Regensburg ShortNews bannered the news with the headline:

ALIEN INVASION

End of Times Near

The report went on to explain how the good people of Erath County have spent the last 12 days scouring the skies for unidentified flying objects after several people said they got buzzed Jan. 8 by something bright and about the size of a flying Wal-Mart.

As a report, the ShortNews comes up -- well, short.

No photos. Not even a shot of Tony Romo with Jessica hovering.

Plus, the report never explains exactly what a big, bright illusion in Texas has to do with the end of the world.

If a higher power wanted to warn us about impending Armageddon, would the warning start in the sky over the Loco Coyote Grill?

As it turns out, the bright light was probably a weather phenomenon called a "superior mirage."

Even folks who believe in the impending end of the world don't think it will involve UFOs or anything in a cellphone picture on Anderson Cooper 360.

To check, I went directly to the local experts on end-of-the-world delusions: Endtime magazine.

Pentecostal Pastor Irvin Baxter of Garland founded Endtime 18 years ago in Indiana. It has 30,000 readers, even though the title prediction has never come true.

Four years ago, Baxter moved Endtime to Texas, where most of his readers live somewhere between reality and the Book of Revelation.

Endtime connects world events to biblical predictions. It's sort of a U.S. News and End of the World Report.

On his MySpace.com page, Baxter delivers his urgent message.

"We are in the endtime right now," he writes.

"If you would like to subscribe to my magazine, Endtime magazine, please call ... "

Notably, although he thinks the world is coming to an end, that doesn't stop him from selling a six-year subscription ($59).

But even Baxter says not to worry about UFOs.

"I don't know whether I even believe in them," he said by phone from Outer Garland.

"Could there be life out there? Sure. But as far as whether they're part of any biblical prophecy -- I see no evidence of that."

Baxter sticks to more worldly fears:

ID cards are the work of the devil, or at least the shadow world government.

A select few "men who run the world" control the Vatican, communism and the environmental movement.

Secret microchips track us everywhere.

"These are things we can prove," he said.

Uh -- OK.

People who fear UFOs "don't really have a solid understanding of prophecy," he said. "We don't want to be part of any groundless speculation."

Of course not.

Closer to Earth -- not to mention Erath County -- the Rev. Kirk Plaxco leads the more grounded Stephenville Ministerial Association.

"There is definitely a fascination with the 'end times,'" he said by phone from the First Church of the Nazarene. "But I don't think a UFO sighting or a bright light in the sky is anything to worry about."

He and his fellow Stephenville pastors have a task this morning. They'll remind worshippers that all of us will someday meet our end, but nobody is licensed to predict the end of the world.

"If this is the 'end times,' then it really doesn't do us a lot of good to waste time hemming and hawing about it," Plaxco said. "We are told to live day to day for Jesus Christ. It doesn't matter which day."

Plaxco said "sensationalists" use events such as the UFO sightings near Stephenville to "get up and spout off."

But he also sees divine guidance in our fears.

"God put the fear in our hearts," he said, "so we would be hungry for answers."

And so we'd look toward the heavens.

bud@star-telegram.com

Bud Kennedy's column appears Sundays, Wednesdays and Fridays. 817-390-7538

National media, UFO investigators shine lights on Dublin (Dallas Morning News - 1/20/08)

Tinfoil hats, like the one worn by Toni Krey, 11, have joined cowboy hats as common headgear in Stephenville and Dublin, Texas. National attention has descended on the area after people have seen strange objects in the sky. Photo by: COURTNEY PERRY/DMN)

By JEFFREY WEISS / The Dallas Morning News jweiss@dallasnews.com

DUBLIN, Texas – Anyone looking for answers about the recent mysterious lights in the Texas sky left here disappointed Saturday. But the big meeting hosted by the Mutual UFO Network delivered in plenty of other ways:

Jokers in tinfoil hats, check. Funny UFO T-shirts, check. Crop circle conspiracy theorists, check. Fresh popcorn and Dublin's real-sugar Dr Pepper dispensed by the friendly folks from the Rotary Club, check.

And even a hint of science and a sense that the cheerful mob scene might actually contribute to knowledge, if not definitive explanations.

"I think a lot of people saw the same things," said Laura Washburn of nearby Glen Rose, whose son, Shane, saw something odd in the sky on the nights of Dec. 31 and Jan. 2.

The two of them spent a couple of hours among the more than 500 who packed the Dublin Rotary building, listening to others tell their stories.

"Hearing so many other people takes away the feeling that I don't want to be the only one, the one that people say is crazy," Ms. Washburn said.

The meeting was triggered by local reports of slow-moving, glowing objects in the sky the night of Jan. 8. Three men told their stories to Angelia Joiner, a reporter for the Stephenville Empire-Tribune.

"The people were so genuine and so credible," Ms. Joiner said Saturday. "You could tell they really saw something."

Plus, it was a good tale that she figured her readers would like. She was right about that. Once her first story ran, other people came forward. And once word traveled beyond the area, the world wanted to know more.

Every major news network has run stories about the lights near Stephenville. Two witnesses, plus Ms. Joiner, were remote guests Friday on Larry King Live.

MUFON was founded in 1969 and has chapters all over the U.S. The Colorado-based organization is a club for UFO buffs, but it's also a network of amateur investigators who try to evaluate every report they receive of something odd in the sky. MUFON announced last week that it would hold a meeting to interview witnesses of the Stephenville-area lights.

The first site for the meeting was a livestock sales barn. That humble location didn't sit well with the Rotarians of Dublin, about 10 minutes down the road from Stephenville.

"It's kinda like we have company coming and we need to take care of them," said Pat Leatherwood, a member of the Dublin Rotary Club. "Whether or not you believe it, you can still be nice."

Texas MUFON officials gratefully accepted the Rotarians' offer of a comfortable place to talk to witnesses. By the end of Saturday afternoon, more than 200 people had formally filed their stories.

MUFON investigators are a cross between the Ghostbusters of the movie and the amateur detectives of the Scooby-Doo cartoons. Like the Ghostbusters, they know they're taking on a task with a high giggle factor.

But like Velma and Scooby's other cartoon companions, MUFON investigators take a scientific approach. They look for clues, interview witnesses, analyze evidence. And like the teenage detectives on the TV show, MUFON usually concludes that there's nothing unworldly about the sightings it investigates.

MUFON certifies its official investigators. They're trained to recognize unusual cloud patters, star formations, bugs flying close to the camera, light reflecting from the lens and myriad other ways an odd image can show up on a photo.

Robert Powell of Austin, MUFON's national director of research, was in Dublin on Saturday to help with the investigation. He hoped to find stories that matched – people in different places who saw something similar about the same time. But he knew many such stories turn out to be something mundane.

"An unidentified flying object can turn out to be an airplane, and then it's identified," he said.

Steve Hudgeons of Fort Worth is MUFON's senior investigator for Texas. Mr. Hudgeons, 58, makes his living as a project manager for a construction company.

A few days before the big meeting, he described some of the problems his investigators would surely find. The biggest, ironically, is the massive publicity. Witnesses had a chance to hear from one another and talk among themselves. Often in such situations, people's memories shift, Mr. Hudgeons said. The other problem, he said, was that the intense media attention would pull people from the woodwork who have nothing useful to contribute.

"We are going to get people down there who have aluminum foil on their heads," he said with a sigh. "We always get that."

Which they did. They also got more witnesses in one place than MUFON had ever tried to interview. Like hooking a fire hose to a garden hose, the crowd blew out the normal careful interview process that MUFON tries to conduct about every report it gets. One woman had a story about something she saw in 1957. Others had accounts from last month or last year.

Their descriptions of the objects included an aspirin with lights around the edges, glowing orbs, a wedge-shaped row of lights and an enormous classic movie-special-effects flying saucer. Some witnesses were fuzzy about the time of their sighting. Others weren't clear about which way they were looking. But several were able to answer many of the questions on the MUFON investigation form. Where were they at the time? Which direction did they look? Did what they saw seem to hover? Wobble? Appear solid? Have fuzzy edges?

Over the next couple of months, MUFON's investigators plan to follow up with some of the witnesses and eventually produce a report about any patterns they find in the accounts.

In the meantime, the locals are mostly having fun with the story. A Stephenville hotel has a goofy image of a green cartoon alien in a hotel suite sitting by the front desk. "He's on the fourth floor" of the three-story hotel, guests are told.

But some people are worried that the story will leave an image of their area as being filled with a bunch of UFO-seeing nuts.

Chris Baker, 37, lives in Dublin. He's seen only one unusual sight in the sky lately: "Just snow."

"I'm hoping after this weekend is over that people will start to forget about it," he said. "I don't think there is enough to it to make it a tourist attraction like Glen Rose and dinosaurs."

UT Arlington’s planetarium director weighs in on (Stephenville) UFOs (Pegasus News Wire - 1/22/08)

In light of recent news about UFOs out of nearby Stephenville, Texas, Marc Rouleau, director of the Planetarium at UT Arlington, says tens of thousands of school children visit the facility every year and one of the most popular questions is: “Are UFO’s real?”

Technically, the answer is “yes,” since “UFO” really stands for “Unidentified Flying Object.” If you look up and see something you don’t recognize, it’s a UFO.

This does not imply that the object is an alien spacecraft, however. Most objects that get fingered as UFO’s turn out to have easy explanations. A bright planet, like Venus, has fooled many casual sky watchers, Rouleau said. Atmospheric phenomena, like lenticular clouds, can make many people stop and pause.

Some UFOs have turned out to have more of a human origin. There have been cases of secret aircraft being tested by the military that were viewed by civilians on the ground. In other cases, hoaxers were deliberately trying to fake a UFO sighting.

"In the 'old days' this maybe meant rigging up a pie plate," Rouleau said, "suspending it from a wire, and taking its picture."

"Today, computer animation software and a worldwide audience through YouTube is all you need," he continued. "Even if no easy explanation comes up, there are reasons why a lot of people are skeptical about aliens visiting Earth. The distances between stars are so great."

The next closest star system to our Solar System is 25 trillion miles away. That’s so far away that the fastest robotic spacecraft ever launched by humans would need over 50,000 years to make the trip. Even light, traveling at 186,000 miles per second, takes years to make the trip.

"Since nothing can accelerate faster than light, any creature that wanted to fly from Alpha Centauri to Texas would need to commit to at least several decades for a one-way trip," Rouleau said.

Source: UT Arlington

Texas UFO Sightings Explained? Turns out it was not a UFO, it was just the U.S. military. (WJBF ABC Channel 6 - 1/24/08)

Fort Worth, TX -- Turns out it was not a UFO, it was just the U.S. military.

The Navy says it was doing flight training maneuvers a couple of weeks ago over a base in Texas.

That's about the same time a lot of calls came in about "objects" with bright lights flying across the sky.

Members of the Mutual UFO Netork, or MUFON, aren't buying it. They say the Navy's explanations just don't add up.

Is Stephenville a tipping point in UFO disclosure? (American Chronicle 1/25/08)

By Steve Hammons

According to the Associated Press, "U.S. military officials said Wednesday (Jan. 23) that fighter jets were training in a rural area the night of Jan. 8 when dozens of people reported seeing a UFO."

"Although officials at the Naval Air Station Reserve Base in Fort Worth initially said none of their planes were in the area of the UFO reports, they changed their story Wednesday, saying that 10 F-16 fighter jets were training near Stephenville, about 70 miles southwest of Fort Worth, about the time of the sightings," the AP reported.

Were these military aircraft responsible for the unusual lights seen by some Texas witnesses? It seems possible.

That was one explanation for the 1997 "Phoenix lights" incident. At first, no Air Force aircraft were reported in the sky.

Later, it was claimed that visiting out-of-town Air Guard or Reserve units were training at a nearby military air gunnery range that night, and dropping flares

However, many of the Texans who reportedly witnessed unusual events in early January have stated that the lights they saw were not like any conventional aircraft, civilian or military.

Some claimed that what appeared to be military jets were pursuing the huge object or craft, which was able to take off at incredible speeds.

And some witnesses in both Texas and Arizona said they saw not far off lights, but an up-close solid object the size of several football fields – maybe a mile long and a half-mile wide.

PUBLIC INFORMATION OFFICERS

According to some researchers, it seems to happen in similar ways in many UFO sightings: Cover stories are attempted, hoax efforts are injected and activities are implemented to calm down the situation and create reasonable doubt about the UFO incident.

Special operatives or officers may even talk to witnesses about what they saw or experienced.

Consider a possible scenario that some UFO researchers say could be true. Military public affairs officers/public information officers (PAOs/PIOs) get a visit from agents of special activities groups who advise them to help out with a cover story, or maybe a few cover stories.

Maybe the PAO/PIO doesn't believe them. Maybe the special activities guys don't believe it either. But, hey, it's your job to follow orders and implement what the higher ups are telling you to do. That's how you earn your paycheck.

And, after all, it is a serious matter of national security. That part is probably true.

Do you want to keep making rank in the Air Force or watch your career take a nose dive? Or even face more serious consequences? Put out the press release, make statements to the media and do your duty.

Will people believe the alternate explanation story? Maybe. And maybe it doesn't matter. It will sow seeds of doubt in many people's minds.

Those Texas hicks saw Air Force jets, maybe dropping flares. They were Air Force planes. The lights were flares. It was some kind of reflection of light off of clouds. It wasn't a huge solid object that took off at supersonic speeds.

Or, are we at this point now that the special activities guys are just going through the same old drill, but knowing that the American people don't necessarily believe the cover stories anymore?

Maybe the acclimation processes and timing are right for citizens to start understanding more about a serious and important matter, including the activities of people and groups trying to manage the situation.

Roswell Army Air Field PAO/PIO Lt. Walter Haut passed on not too long ago.

He left sworn affidavits about his role in issuing the press release to the media back in July 1947 at the request of the base commanding officer, Col. William Blanchard.

Before his passing and in his affidavits, Haut expressed his beliefs about what happened in Roswell.

For those interested, Haut's role back then and in subsequent decades is enlightening.

OSINT AND HUMINT

Open source intelligence (OSINT) is intel that is available via public platforms: media, books, public records and similar kinds of sources. We had OSINT operations in World War II and it is now a growing and more valuable type of intel due to the explosion of information on the Web.

OSINT could be considered quite related to human intelligence (HUMINT) gathering and sources – getting and reporting information from people. When we are interviewing or talking with people and absorbing information, or when we read materials or see people on TV, we are taking in HUMINT.

When we learn what people are saying, writing or doing via TV, books the Web or other public platforms, we are gathering OSINT HUMINT.

As consumers of this kind of information, we use our judgment and common sense about what is true, false, slanted, deceptive and what kind of "spin" is involved. We know that things are not always what they seem and there are often hidden agendas of many kinds.

This is also true for news, information, research and OSINT. We want to look beneath the surface and get a good and accurate picture of the truth – or as much truth as is available.

In cases such as UFO sightings and other anomalous and unusual phenomena, this is just as important as picking a candidate to vote for, doing consumer research before a big purchase or getting information about a possible vacation spot.

As we know from advertising, public relations, politics and other fields, we want to be intelligent about not getting fooled, seeing past deceptive claims and being responsible consumers, citizens and human beings.

When trying to interpret what happened in Stephenville, Texas, this month or in Roswell, New Mexico, in 1947, and a lot of incidents and developments in between, being careful about the OSINT and HUMINT we are exposed to can be very helpful.

The word "intelligence" has many meanings. As we take a good look at pieces of evidence, many indications, apparently reliable HUMINT and other kinds of OSINT, we can make sense of reports like those coming out of Texas.

Analyzing this intel and coming to reasonably accurate conclusions is up to each of us. And we are up to this challenge.

NOTE TO READERS: Hammons is the author of two novels about a San Diego-based joint-service team of ten women and men who investigate emerging special topics – MISSION INTO LIGHT and the sequel LIGHT'S HAND. Readers can browse the novels online at the publisher's Web site. The books appear online exactly as they do in print. Once at table of contents of each book, visitors can click on each chapter to go directly to that chapter. Please click the links below to browse the novels.

USAF Admits Fighter Jets Were Operating Near TX UFO Sightings (Aero-News 1/25/08)

This week, US Air Force Reserve officials backtracked from their earlier assertions there were no military aircraft in the vicinity of Stephenville, TX on the night dozens of residents swear they saw a UFO.

As it turns out, several jets were conducting training operations nearby, reports The Dallas Morning News.

"In the interest of public awareness, Air Force Reserve Command Public Affairs realized an error was made regarding the reported training activity of military aircraft," said a terse statement released Wednesday. "Ten F-16s from the 457th Fighter Squadron were performing training operations from 6 to 8 pm, Tuesday January 8, 2008, in the Brownwood Military Operating Area (MOA), which includes the airspace above Erath County."

As ANN reported, several dozen people around the small north Texas town say they saw something VERY unusual in the skies during that timeframe. Witnesses described the UFO as being a mile long, a half-mile wide, with several bright lights and eerily quiet.

That description doesn't match up with a Viper... and Air Force officials remain at a loss to say what, exactly, those people saw. Major Karl Lewis, spokesman for the 301st Fighter Wing at the Joint Reserve Base Naval Air Station in Fort Worth, couldn't provide any details.

"What we do down there falls under operational procedures that cannot be released because of operations security for our mission," he said, adding the Air Force's official statement it had no aircraft in the area was due to "an internal communications error."

Meanwhile, many people remain convinced they saw something out-of-this-world. Over 500 people attended a meeting last weekend, hosted by the Mutual UFO Network. The group collected over 200 reports, according to the DMN... although not all of them were in regards to the most recent sightings.

The group's Texas director, Ken Cherry, says the military's backtracking on the jets adds to the credibility of some reports, given by witnesses who said they saw military aircraft trailing the unusual lights.

"We have witnesses who could clearly distinguish the difference between an F-16 and some extraordinary craft performing in a manner not typical of an aircraft," he said.

One of the first witnesses to come forward, Steve Allen, remains convinced the Air Force owes him, and others, a better explanation.

"A bunch of stuff is bubbling up," he said about Wednesday's news. "They may have to tell us the truth."

Stephenville is ready for UFOs to fly on out of the city (Star-Telegram 1/25/08)

By BUD KENNEDY Star-Telegram staff writer

Stephenville's newfound fame has not come without a price.

First, one of the most-quoted UFO "experts" in town last week turned out to be a Cleburne man who staged a 1998 armed standoff in Waco.

Now, one of the Stephenville city leaders who wanted UFO hobbyists to come investigate weird lights is having second thoughts about his city's intergalactic notoriety.

"I don't want us to get a reputation like Roswell," said Mark Murphy. Murphy, a City Council member, invited hobbyists to come interview witnesses who saw what is now described as a military training exercise.

Sixty years ago, spokesmen at the air base in Fort Worth said the silvery wreckage found near Roswell, N.M., was a weather balloon.

This week, their successors said the weird lights in the sky were jets from the 457th Fighter Squadron.

"I didn't expect this to become such a media circus," said Murphy, a college science lab manager interviewed on ABC's Good Morning America.

"I wanted to get some serious answers and find out what people saw. I didn't dream it would become anything like this," he said.

If Stephenville is embarrassed in any way over its new reputation as the Flying Saucer Capital of the World, neighboring Dublin isn't. The rival town wants to beam down more TV attention.

In a chamber-of-commerce version of an alien abduction, executives at the historic Dr Pepper bottler and soda shop in Dublin spirited a UFO hobbyists' meeting away from Stephenville.

Sandy Reed, the director of the Dublin economic development agency, said some members of the local Rotary Club were wondering how to get their town on camera.

"We talked about how this could be a good thing for us," she said. "We decided to have fun with it."

Until now, Dublin's primary claim to fame has been the soda shop and bottler, the last place on earth that follows the original Dr Pepper formula using natural pure cane sugar.

I asked Reed whether Dublin wants to get into the UFO-chasing business.

"We're in the Dr Pepper business!" she said. "Anything that gets more recognition for Dublin and brings people to town is good for Dublin."

Even if they're people like Jason Leigh, 59, of Cleburne, a UFO hobbyist, Navy veteran and veterans services activist?

Ten years ago, Leigh rammed his Jeep Cherokee into the Veterans Affairs Regional Center in Waco, complaining that he couldn't get the benefits he needed.

He eventually came out and apologized but not before demanding $1 million for a veterans fund and telling police that he had enough explosives to "turn downtown Waco into a flower garden."

According to Waco Tribune-Herald news archives, he served a short sentence over a .45-caliber pistol found in the Jeep.

When Murphy went to his computer looking for UFO information, he found Leigh's Web site selling UFO books and CDs and unknowingly asked for his expertise.

Leigh wound up quoted in an Associated Press video story sent worldwide and also on NBC Weekend. The Stephenville newspaper, the Empire-Tribune, called him an "expert on UFOs."

Murphy said he regrets calling Leigh.

"I think he's done us more harm than good," Murphy said.

He seemed surprised to hear that Dublin is trying to lure the UFO hunters away from Stephenville.

"Maybe they want to have this circus over there," he said.

And why not?

After all, Dublin already fills with leprechauns every St. Patrick's Day. What's a few more little green men?

bud@star-telegram.com Bud Kennedy's column appears Sundays, Wednesdays and Fridays. 817-390-7538

Military now says planes flying in area of UFO reports (AP 1/25/08)

By ANGELA K. BROWN Associated Press

FORT WORTH — So much for aliens in Texas dairy country.

At least that's what the military said today, reporting that 10 F-16 fighter jets were training in the Stephenville area the night dozens of residents reported seeing a UFO.

Although Air Force Reserve officials at the Joint Reserve Base Naval Air Station in Fort Worth initially said none of their planes were in the area Jan. 8, they said today that they had made a mistake and wanted to set the record straight "in the interest of public awareness."

Some residents aren't buying it, though, saying the military's revelation actually bolsters their claims because several reported seeing at least two fighter jets chasing an object.

"This supports our story that there was UFO activity in that area," said Kenneth Cherry, the Texas director of the Mutual UFO Network, which took more than 50 reports from locals at a meeting last weekend. "I find it curious that it took them two weeks to 'fess up. I think they're feeling the heat from the publicity."

From well-respected business owners to a county constable, several dozen people swear that what they saw was larger, quieter, faster and lower to the ground than an airplane. They also said the object's lights changed configuration, unlike those of a plane.

"I guarantee that what we saw was not a civilian aircraft," Steve Allen, a pilot and freight company owner, said today.

Allen said that the planes' training area in the Brownwood Military Operating Area that includes Stephenville's Erath County does not include the airspace where he saw the object. Also, Jan. 8 was not the only day sightings were reported.

Anne Frazor, who owns a fabric store in Stephenville, about 70 miles southwest of Fort Worth, said many in town have seen military aircraft zoom overhead from time to time as part of training operations. But she said that is different than what she saw Jan. 8.

"I couldn't begin to say what it was, but to me it wasn't planes," Frazor said.

Since the reported sightings two weeks ago, the 17,000-resident town has had some fun with the international publicity. Some high-schoolers made T-shirts that read "Stephenville: the new Roswell" on the front and "They're here for the milk!" on the back. A picture features flying saucer beaming up a cow.

This week Tarleton State University is even hosting a lecture by a UFO researcher on the U.S. government's secret response to UFOs, based on previously classified documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.

The U.S. Air Force says it has not investigated UFO sightings since 1969 when it ended Project Blue Book, which examined more than 12,600 reported UFO sightings — including 700 that were never explained. That program started a few months after the 1947 crash near Roswell, N.M., which the government said it was a top-secret weather balloon but others involved later said was an alien spacecraft.

"What we want is the government to admit there are UFOs and what they know about them," Cherry said.

Local reporter on Texas UFO case leaves newspaper; integrity of local, national news media explored (American Chronicle - 2/9/08)

By Steve Hammons February 09, 2008 The local newspaper reporter in Stephenville, Texas, who helped cover a UFO sighting case there is no longer working at the Stephenville Empire-Tribune newspaper, effective last Thursday, Feb. 7.

Journalist Angelia Joiner had been covering the UFO story which broke early in January and brought national and international news media representatives and researchers to Stephenville, other nearby small towns and the surrounding region.

Mainstream media such as the Associated Press, CNN and other major TV networks and newspapers covered the incident with great interest. The international press also paid special attention to the UFO sightings in Stephenville and towns in the area.

Media personalities such as CNN's Larry King and NBC's Today show host Matt Lauer explored the sightings on their shows.

In Stephenville, Joiner was a staff writer at the small-town newspaper there. She did an excellent job of researching and interviewing local residents who were surprised, curious and concerned about the very unusual objects they reportedly saw.

As national and international interest in the case grew in January, Joiner was contacted for information as the reporter on the scene with some of the best knowledge of the local community.

Her articles helped inform not only local residents who relied on professional reporting for their community, but also assisted other Americans and people internationally understand that Stephenville people and residents in the area were down-to-Earth, solid and of good character.

The factual and level-headed journalism Joiner provided helped the national news media understand and respect the citizens in these communities. This resulted in some of the most serious and credible reporting in the national media on such an incident in recent memory.

The AP article was carried in hundreds of papers and news outlets. People like Larry King and Matt Lauer talked about the subject with intelligence and open minds.

All these outcomes were related in part to the high level of credibility of local witnesses who were courageous enough to come forward and the professionalism of local reporter Joiner and her colleagues in the national and international news media.

However, some of these witnesses and Joiner seem to be paying a price for doing their civic duty and communicating about an incident that appeared to be very significant, and could even have affected the public safety of the communities in the area.

CENSORSHIP AND "NEED TO KNOW"

According to information obtained for this report, management at the Stephenville Empire-Tribune did not want further coverage in the paper of the sightings by local citizens of something that appeared to be highly unusual. Pressures may have been placed on newspaper management to discontinue articles on the subject.

According to the newspaper's Web site, "The Stephenville Empire-Tribune is a mid-morning paper published six days a week by Erath Publishers, Inc., a Consolidated Southwest Media company which is owned by American Consolidated Media. The Empire-Tribune is a member of the Associated Press, Texas Press Association, West Texas Press Association and the Inland Press Association."

Publisher Rochelle Stidham and Managing Editor Sara Vanden Berge were contacted for their comments for this report but did not immediately respond.

Did the paper's management face pressures to end coverage of the UFO sighting by a local peace officer, respected businessman and pilot and reportedly dozens of other local citizens? Did they back away from accounts of local citizens who said they were apparently being threatened for talking about what they saw?

Is this a case of media censorship or self-censorship and political correctness? Is it about professional courage and moral integrity? And, can the newspaper now be trusted by the community to cover important aspects of public health and safety, local political activities and other sometimes sensitive topics?

These seem to be questions for the citizens who read and subscribe to the paper and advertisers who use that newspaper.

The corporate owners of the Empire-Tribune (Consolidated Southwest Media, American Consolidated Media) and the professional news and journalism organizations with which the paper is affiliated (Associated Press, Texas Press Association, West Texas Press Association, Inland Press Association) might also want to review developments there.

As for the former reporter Joiner who had covered the concerns and accounts of local citizens so professionally, life goes on.

She appears to be confident that she did the best job she could have for her community as a responsible local journalist who realized something important had happened to her fellow citizens, neighbors and friends.

"I appreciate the opportunity I have had at the newspaper," Joiner said. "A story of this magnitude drained the limited resources a small newspaper has. I performed my other duties to the best of my ability."

Even as the national and international media interest calmed down somewhat, other ominous developments were occurring in the Stephenville area.

A local resident stated he had received threatening phone calls and threats of implied bodily harm or death for talking publicly about what he saw.

An intruder had also appeared on his rural property at 1 a.m., causing the resident to be concerned about the safety of his family.

As Joiner was covering this more serious aspect of the UFO sighting case (in articles published Feb. 3 and Feb. 4) which appeared to be a law enforcement and criminal matter affecting public safety, she was reportedly told by newspaper management to back off.

"My directions were to move on to something else," Joiner said.

The reason given to Joiner for this was, "because our readership had grown tired of the UFO stories."

However, Joiner was still a contact person and resource for community residents, researchers, news media representatives and others.

While trying to obey management's directives to cover topics other than the UFO sightings and related developments, Joiner said, "It was a difficult task to achieve. I was still receiving a surprising number of e-mails and phone calls on the subject."

"I tried to direct those calls and interviews to after hours or during lunch hours. And I forwarded e-mails to my home so that I would not be giving newspaper time to the subject. I honestly tried to do as they had asked."

The apparent irregularities and journalistic priorities of what was starting to emerge at the Empire-Tribune probably also started to dawn on Joiner as she realized things were not going in a good direction at the paper.

She gave her two-week notice, then was told to leave immediately.

"I had given notice when I realized my boss was unhappy with my performance, but was unexpectedly asked to pack my things and leave Thursday," she said.

Joiner apparently felt that people in her community had "a need to know" about what was going on when respectable citizens came forward with their accounts and subsequent serious incidents reportedly involved the safety of and threats to a local family.

GOING FORWARD

The Stephenville UFO sighting incident is not the first and will not be the last. The responses by local and regional public safety officials to such incidents have also occurred before, and will again. Local, national and international news media professionals are also part of the picture, past, present and future.

Americans wearing the military uniform of our country and our intelligence professionals are certainly also parts of the puzzle involving UFOs and how our society deals with an apparently sensitive and complex situation. Their respect and support for good American citizens will remain crucial in the days ahead.

Many of the residents of the Stephenville region are just such good Americans. Reporter Joiner knew this because she knows the people of her community.

Local journalists typically work on topics involving all kinds of community activities: the local schools and hospitals, area peace officers and public safety personnel, businesses and employers, civic groups and organizations. And when they do, reporters often feel a sense of responsibility to do their best for their neighbors and their communities.

This works in reverse too, at the local and national levels. Our newspapers, TV and radio media, Web-based news and other similar information platforms are sometimes only as good as the standards we expect of them, and the support we give to honorable and ethical journalists.

Like the old saying, "In a democracy, citizens get the government they deserve," the same can be said about our news media. We get the newspapers and news media we demand, deserve and support.

If we continue along a path of the "dumbing down" of Americans, as many have alleged, the fabric of our communities and our nation may deteriorate.

If we search for truth, integrity and honor within ourselves, our media and our government officials, we may just find that too.

The citizens of the Stephenville region, and all the rest of us, must decide about the directions we want to take. Do we want to continue being dumbed down? Do we want to stick our head in the sand and close our eyes?

Or, do we want greater respect as American citizens and intelligent human beings who have the ability to understand sensitive, complex and, yes, even highly unusual and unexpected situations?

When events occur that affect public health and safety, public information, our rights and responsibilities as citizens, what are our roles and those of our institutions such as local and national government and the news media?

These are questions that, it appears, must be faced and dealt with if our communities, our society and our nation will continue to thrive.

American Chronicle is a trademark of Ultio LLC.

New UFO Sighting Reported In Stephenville Texas (Washington Post - 2/12/08)

Fired Reporter Angelia Joiner Sparks Conspiracy Theories

The truth may be out there, but, when it comes to UFO stories, it is sure hard to find. Conjecture breeds conspiracy theories. Any official denial can be labeled a cover-up. In the end, it often boils down to a he-said-she-said scenario.

Such is the case in Stephenville, Texas, a small, rural community thrust into the spotlight after several unexplained disturbances in January. Though that spotlight has now faded, the town remains altered. Some members of the community want to move on; others cannot let go. And some, if you believe them, say that UFOs are still there.

According to Angelia Joiner, the reporter who wrote the original UFO stories, there was another UFO sighting on Saturday. "If the military is testing a secret military device, why do they keep doing it here?" she asked me. "If it's not a secret why do they keep scaring the bejesus out of people?"

Adding a further wrinkle to this story, Joiner was fired from The Empire-Tribune a week ago. She claims she had been told to back off the story and thinks the town's "upper crust" was "embarrassed" by all the attention. The Empire-Tribune has avoided comment, which of course only fans the flames of the conspiracy theories.

For its part, the military has done itself no favors, first denying that it had any aircraft in the area, then flip-flopping a few days later -- after more witnesses came forward. A spokesperson blamed internal miscommunication for the mix-up. Others, including CNN's Larry King, have asked whether it wasn't a cover-up.

But who can we believe? The truth remains unidentified.

Media-fed Stephenville UFO buzz continues (Pegasus News Wire - 2/14/08)

By Pegasus News wire

This new feature piece about the Stephenville UFO sightings notes that the incident (and events surrounding it) has such fascination that both the History Channel and news teams from Japan are scheduled to descend on the rural Texas communities involved. The conclusion espoused by those interviewed in this piece is that the government is testing out new aircraft technologies, and that this is what the witnesses in Stephenville got a glimpse of.

Which begs the question: why would the government test top secret technology over the relatively heavily populated skies of North Texas, rather than out at their Area 54 facility, for instance?

As reporter on the scene Richard Ray so aptly puts it: "This story's not going away - it's really got legs."

Texas deputy says UFO caught on patrol car video (American Chronicle - 2/24/08)

By Steve Hammons

A sheriff's deputy in Erath County, Texas, says he saw one of the unusual objects in the sky captured on a patrol car video camera.

The camera is mounted to tape the view from the dashboard of the patrol car.

According to local radio station news director Angelia Joiner, writing for the recently-launched Web site StephenvilleLights.com, Sgt. Jim Clifton of the Erath County Sheriff's Department and Erath County Constable Lee Roy Gaitan were responding to an alarm at a local restaurant on Feb. 2 when they saw something unusual in the sky.

Joiner reported that the officers observed the object on the "dash cam" in the patrol car and could clearly see it by using the camera's zoom feature.

"To your naked eye it looked like a bright light and I couldn't really tell if it was moving, but I don't think it was," Joiner quoted Clifton as saying.

Clifton explained, "What it looked like is difficult to describe because there is nothing to compare it to," according to Joiner's reporting.

The object was a transparent or translucent appearance, Joiner reported Clifton as saying.

The deputy also noted that the object had "a fog or vapor or cloud around it" and he saw red, white and blue colors.

Gaitan was one of the first of several witnesses to report publicly that he had seen up to ten highly unusual lights in the sky in early January.

Other credible local citizens also reported unusual lights and huge, apparently solid, objects or craft, including some apparently being chased by military aircraft.

Gaitan had said that other local peace officers have also witnessed the unusual happenings in the skies around Stephenville, the town of Dublin and other areas of Erath County.

NEWS MEDIA, RESEARCHERS

The Associated Press, CNN, TV networks and a vast number of media outlets carried the reports of the unidentified objects in the sky reported by Stephenville area citizens.

Joiner had been a reporter for the local Stephenville newspaper, the Empire-Tribune, until a falling out with management over the paper's coverage of the cluster of UFO sightings in the area that made national and international news.

The newspaper was recently purchased by Macquarie Media of Australia, part of a huge banking, investment and construction conglomerate, reportedly with powerful political connections, that has been in the process of buying up local community newspapers across the U.S.

Now working as news director at Stephenville radio station KCUB-FM, "Mandatory FM," (107.9 in Stephenville and 98.5 in nearby Ranger, Texas), Joiner covers local news of the region.

While mainstream media personalities such as CNN's Larry King and NBC's Today show host Matt Lauer discussed various aspects of the sightings, Emmy Award-winning investigative journalist Linda Moulton Howe visited the Stephenville and Erath County area in January to interview witnesses and research the incidents.

Howe's reports on her interview with Gaitan and her research in Stephenville and Earth County can be viewed on her Web site, Earthfiles.com.

Her radio report can be heard on the online radio show "Dreamland" at UnknownCountry.com, the Web site of well-known author Whitley Strieber.

Howe also recently appeared on the radio show "Coast to Coast AM" to update listeners about what she has discovered.

PEACE OFFICERS WITNESS OBJECTS

Constable Gaitan previously told Howe that another local peace officer had captured one of the UFOs on a patrol car video camera.

"As a matter of fact, it was that Saturday (Jan. 12, 2008). I had the privilege to see this video. I saw what the officer saw on video and this aerial object changed forms three different times," Howe quoted Gaitan as saying.

Howe reported that Gaitan told her, "The first time, I believe he said it was about 2 a.m. when he first saw it. It's a white glow moving very slowly in the sky."

"Then it changes from white to green to blue and red lights. It looks almost like a strobe."

"I watch this thing in the police video and it appears to be some type of aerial object that is round. It changes from white to these different colors," Gaitan said.

"The police officer says, 'Keep watching,' and I watched for approximately another eight minutes."

"And then this thing, right in front of my eyes, changes and it looks almost like a jellyfish. I compare it maybe even to a parachute – and now a very bright white."

"The green and blue and red is no longer flashing. It holds that shape for probably two minutes. And then to my surprise, it changes vertically like a line straight up and down," Gaitan said to Howe.

"It appears to be solid. And it's just white, no longer flashing. Just a bright, white line of light. It stays in that shape for probably a couple more minutes and then it changes back to its original white – and then goes back to the green, red and blue flashing."

"This thing is moving slowly. The officer is having to come into his vehicle and adjust his in-dash camera because the aerial object is moving."

"The police officer tells me he and another officer see another object just like it about a mile behind the one he's been watching. No videotape on the second one, but you can hear them (on in-dash video) talking about it."

Gaitan stated, "While they are videotaping the first object, they are having to zoom in. This camera, I believe, zooms in 600 times, but you are still not able to see any type of craft. I believe I watched the videotape for about 16 minutes, and then it's out of sight."

"I later find out I have a call from another law enforcement agency. He called me on a Saturday morning – I believe it was January 19, 2008."

"He calls me at my residence and tells me, 'Hey, I saw something January 8 to 9, the same night that you saw the lights.'"

"I asked him, 'What did you see?'"

"He said, 'I was working and see this large object traveling at a very low rate of speed approximately 300 to 400 feet up in the air.' He describes it to be approximately two to three football fields long."

"He described it to look something like a cigar with the ends both rounded off. He said he compared it sort of to a wing of a 747, but he said it was huge!"

Third Texas officer comes forward on UFO sightings

By Steve Hammons

A third peace officer in the Stephenville, Texas, area has gone on the record.

In the early morning hours of Jan. 31, he saw something very unusual from his bedroom window.

In a Feb. 28 report, Stephenville journalist and radio station news director Angelia Joiner writes on the new Web site StephenvilleLights.com that Mike Zimmerman saw something in the sky that he cannot explain.

Zimmerman, 62, is a veteran officer of 25 years with the Texas Department of Public Safety. He served on the protective detail for five Texas governors over a period of 19 years, including former governor George W. Bush.

Now retired from the DPS, Zimmerman works as an officer at nearby Tarleton State University, Joiner reported on StephenvilleLights.com.

WAKE UP CALL

At about 6 a.m. on Jan. 31, Zimmerman saw from his bedroom window, in generally an eastern or southeasterly direction, something he had never seen before.

In Joiner's report, Zimmerman is quoted as saying, "I saw three bright lights. Two white lights were grouped closer together and higher and the third one was closer to the horizon. That one was a was a reddish orange color."

Zimmerman showed Joiner a sketch and notes he had made. In her article, she wrote that "the two white lights were shooting out beams of white light in a pulsating strobe light effect. The reddish orange light closer to the horizon did not have beams shooting from it."

Joiner, a former high school science teacher, quoted Zimmerman as saying, "At first I thought it might be three helicopters with really bright search lights until I noticed the beams of white lights shooting out to the side of the bright lights."

Zimmerman woke up his fiancé and they both continued to watch for approximately three minutes, he said.

"What I saw is completely different from what Lee Roy (Gaitan) saw," Zimmerman told Joiner.

Zimmerman said, "The beams from the side weren't as obvious as the bright big lights and they were just real quick. The whole beam would just shoot out there and just disappear. If anyone had taken a picture with a timed exposure they would have caught all of them (shooting beams) at one time. It was strange. I have never seen anything like this before at all."

Suddenly, as the sun was starting to rise, the lights seemed to disappear, Zimmerman stated.

"I hope it's military," Zimmerman told Joiner. "I know they've got things. I could go either way (opinion of military or alien) but it was out of the ordinary and I have never seen anything like it before."

Zimmerman said that at the time of his sighting, he had wondered if the shooting beams he was seeing had something to do with nearby Army Fort Hood.

"That's the first thought I had, but that's a long way off and it appeared to be closer than that," stated Zimmerman.

Other witnesses who claimed to have observed military jets chasing UFOs in the region thought that the aircraft could be from Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base Fort Worth (NAS JRB Fort Worth) or the adjoining Carswell Field, used by defense contractors.

HONEST OFFICERS

Zimmerman follows two other local peace officers in coming forward about what they have witnessed.

First, Erath County Constable Lee Roy Gaitan was one of dozens of people who reported very unusual lights and solid objects over the Stephenville and Erath County region in early and mid-January.

Gaitan and other local citizens spoke to the local, national and international media who covered the Stephenville UFO sightings.

By mid-February, Gaitan was reporting that several other local law enforcement and public safety officers had seen the same kinds of strange things in the sky there.

He also indicated that some of this activity in the sky was caught on patrol car dash-mounted video cameras.

Gaitan also indicated that additional local officers were hesitant about going on the record publicly about what they had witnessed. Whether officers filed official police reports about what they have seen is unclear.

By late February, another local officer was stepping forward. In a report by Joiner on StephenvilleLights.com, Erath County Sheriff´s Department Sgt. Jim Clifton said that he, too, had seen very strange lights doing unusual things in the night sky.

Clifton told Joiner that he and Gaitan had responded to an alarm at a local restaurant on Feb. 2. After responding to the scene, they also observed an unusual object in the sky.

By looking through a patrol car "dash cam" and using the zoom feature, Clifton told Joiner, "What it looked like is difficult to describe because there is nothing to compare it to."

Clifton said the object was a transparent or translucent appearance, Joiner reported. He also noted that the object had "a fog or vapor or cloud around it" and he saw red, white and blue colors.

Now, Zimmerman joins Gaitan and Clifton as officers who feel comfortable in honestly reporting what they have seen.

Will other officers, and citizens, now feel that they can safely step forward without risking their jobs and credibility?

The straightforward statements by Gaitan, Clifton and Zimmerman should give other people confidence in value of honesty, even in unusual, sensitive and complex circumstances.

Diagram, description of Texas UFO by law officers released to public (American Chronicle, 3-25-2008)

By Steve Hammons

A law enforcement officer in Erath County, Texas, has provided a detailed diagram of an unidentified object seen by several officers.

The diagram and related information about the Stephenville region sighting were made available to the public today, March 25.

The drawing includes specific colors and dimensions of the object as well as related information.

The diagram and descriptions have been posted on the Web site StephenvilleLights.com.

Additional information is provided by local journalist and radio station news director Angelia Joiner who also writes for StephenvilleLights.com.

According to Joiner's reporting, the officer providing the drawing and eyewitness account does not wish to be identified at this time.

Joiner writes that the diagram and information were given to her from Erath County Constable Lee Roy Gaitan.

SEVERAL OFFICERS OBSERVE

The unidentified officer's narrative describes an incident that occurred Jan. 8, 2008, between 7:30 p.m. and 7:45 p.m.

The diagram of the object describes it as being somewhat flat and octagon-shaped with raised portions on the top and bottom. Views from the side, top and bottom are illustrated in the diagram.

The object is described by witnessing officers as 400 feet long and 35 feet from bottom to top.

Officers reported that it was a dull green in color, with lights in various configurations.

The verbatim narrative of the officer, referencing the diagram, is below:

"This is what I and several other officers saw. I did not see the back, only the frontal view."

"The two large lights were bright like landing lights, but solid light blue in color similar to LED. The wing tip lights remained steady. The top and bottom tower lights strobed sporadically."

"It had three towers on the bottom and two on top. It was bigger than a B1 Bomber."

"It lumbered around town then headed off towards Mineral Wells."

"It did not leave fast like some are saying. It left slowly. I saw it make a turn. It turned slightly at a 30 degree angle and stayed there for a moment with no movement. It then went to 90 degrees, added a large light in the middle, and moved off at 27 mph and accelerating."

"I had to go to a call at this time. When I came back I could see it leaving in the distance. It was about 500 ft off the ground. The colors above [in diagram] are the actual color."

"This drawing is a compilation of all the law enforcement that saw the craft."

MORE CONFIRMATION, MORE QUESTIONS

This new information provides some of the most specific descriptions of a solid object seen in the Stephenville and Erath County area.

Although some witnesses had reported only unusual lights, others claimed to have seen a very large object or apparent craft of some kind during the month of January 2008.

One witness observed a huge object directly overhead at an altitude he estimated to be that of three common grain elevators stacked end to end. He stated it appeared metallic-like, but without seams or rivets of any kind.

He was carrying a hunting rifle with a telescopic sight and used it to examine the appearance of the craft closely.

Dozens of other credible citizens in the area also reported seeing unusual phenomena in the sky in January.

Some reported F-16 military aircraft in apparent pursuit of an object.

That month, Angelia Joiner, then a reporter for the local newspaper in Stephenville, covered these reports.

National and international news media picked up the story and soon the world was wondering what was going on in the Stephenville and Erath County region, about 65 miles northwest of the area of the Bush ranch in Crawford.

By late February, accounts surfaced through Joiner and Constable Gaitan that more than one regional peace officer had not only witnessed highly unusual objects in the sky, but these had also been captured on the video cameras mounted on the dashboards of patrol cars.

This diagram and description by multiple law enforcement officers released today are just the latest information to be made public about this incident, which may have ramifications that are not yet fully understood.

Was the object sighted some kind of advanced U.S. craft? Was it an extraterrestrial and/or extradimensional craft? Was it a joint U.S. and ET craft? There seem to be fairly limited possible answers to questions about the origins of the object.

Was it there on a practice activity or visit? Or was there a more concrete mission involved?

Was there a conflict related to unauthorized activity within restricted U.S. airspace? If so, what are the details about the nature of this activity?

Is there any danger to the public in Erath County and in other parts of the U.S. and the world?

How much information can reasonably be made available to public safety officials and the public, and how is the best way to provide this information so that safety and security are maintained?

These are just some of the questions facing us as we try to understand the continuing information surfacing in the Stephenville region.

Stephenville-area UFO sightings still unexplained after investigation (Star-Telegram, 5-19-2008)

Click here to read the article

Linda Moulton Howe/Earthfiles report on Coast to Coast AM

Gregory W. created this illustration of the Texas UFO reported on by Linda Moulton Howe on 1/18/08.

In the second hour, Linda provided an update on the recent UFO sightings in Texas. Eyewitnesses there have claimed to see lights as bright as a welder’s torch, and pilots estimated the unidentified lights were moving at least 3,000 miles per hour, she said. Linda spoke with a Ricky Sorrells, a welder from Dublin, Texas, who described his encounter with a giant UFO, a mile long by a half mile wide. View Sorrells' drawings of the craft and read Linda's full report here.

Deeper views of Texas UFO sightings explored by Steve Hammons

The sightings of unusual lights and a huge object or craft in the vicinity of Stephenville, Texas, seem to have helped improve the public discussion, news coverage and understanding about these kinds of situations.

The news media appeared to cover the story fairly responsibly with initial "hard news" coverage from reputable organizations such as the Associated Press.

The news facts of the case – the who, what, when, where, why and how – were generally explored and presented in a straightforward way.

Of course, there were not always clear and easy answers to some of these journalistic questions.

We had several credible witnesses who were identified. A local county peace officer, a pilot and business owner, a metalworker and others stated they saw things ranging from highly unusual lights to a huge solid object approximately a mile long.

Some people saw the lights from a distance, though the lights definitely did not look like any conventional aircraft, according to witness reports.

One local resident stated he saw an object directly overhead at an altitude of about 300 feet and he used the scope of his hunting rifle to get a good look.

The extremely high speed of the object was also noted as an unusual feature.

There were no reports of anyone being injured or harmed.

GRADUAL ACCLIMATION

Whether it is part of a planned effort or a series of somewhat random incidents, Americans and people around the world are getting used to reports of this kind. These types of news stories still generate much interest, but we seem to be less surprised that incidents like this occur.

There have been reports that part of the activities of those involved in handling the UFO and extraterrestrial (ET) visitation situation is acclimating us to this surprising set of circumstances.

The Merriam-Webster dictionary describes "acclimate" as "to adapt to a new temperature, altitude, climate, environment, or situation" and "acclimation" as "the process or result of acclimating" and "physiological adjustment by an organism to environmental change."

Of course, in the case of humans, an adjustment of this kind would also be emotional, psychological, social and probably spiritual for many people.

The way our news, information and communications media deal with situations such as the Stephenville case can help this process along, or hinder it. Part of the many types of responses we might see in the media and society as a whole is probably based on the current state of acclimation to current "facts on the ground" ... and in the sky and space.

It is a big leap to go from thinking that humans are the most advanced life form around to considering that we might be in a phase of development similar to what other intelligent civilizations went through a long time ago.

Yet, gradually many people seem to be opening their minds and preparing themselves for the possibility that the many sightings and stories about UFOs might have some truth in them.

Another factor is that many patriotic Americans and people in other nations are inclined to go along with the decisions and security elements of their governments. If this is a top-secret situation, then many people respect that. We might trust that the right people are handling things in the best way.

Our dilemma is that some of these things are unclear, maybe purposely so. Are we really being prepared for the gradual awareness of unusual truths? There hasn't been an announcement on TV from national leaders about this, so does that mean that nothing of interest is going on?

Sometimes we have to read between the lines and see the forest for the trees. What is the big picture? What does our common sense tell us? What do our gut feelings, intuition and instincts say about situations such as the Stephenville sightings?

Our ability to absorb and interpret information from news reports, articles, books, movies, TV shows and other sources is key to advancing our understanding of the possibilities involved. We use our eyes and ears to gather information and come to conclusions based on what we see and hear.

In addition to our five physical senses, our inner awareness might also be helpful. This is where human intuition and instinct come into play. The growing understanding that humans have a "sixth sense" perception in addition to sight, hearing, touch, taste and smell can be a useful asset.

Whether it is in regard to everyday life or unusual phenomena, learning about and developing our sixth sense is another tool we can apply.

It may be true that when we look around the world at war, suffering, injustice, poverty and other problems, we might sometimes doubt that humans are really an "intelligent" species. But, the human race is developing and maybe the opportunities to move forward on these and other challenges will be available. Advance abilities of perception are part The development of the human race and the different societies and sub-groups around the Earth seems to be tied with the interesting events in the Stephenville area. Are average Americans and average people around the planet ready to handle seeing something like this? Can our brains, minds, hearts and souls deal with the possibilities?

These are questions about the psychology, emotional factors, social dynamics and spiritual strength of humans. Do we have intelligent responses and legitimate questions about what might be going on? Do we use our eyes, ears, senses and our sixth sense to gain understanding about a possibly complex situation?

For those who have read or seen accounts on TV or in movies about interesting and unusual phenomena, the connection between U.S. military and intelligence "remote viewing" (a type of ESP technique) and UFOs is part of the puzzle.

In the 1970s, '80s and '90s the Navy, Army, Air Force, CIA, Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and civilian researchers conducted research and operations using remote viewing. They had good results that seemed to prove that human extrasensory perception was real and could be very useful in many ways.

An interesting element in the many stories about "Project STARGATE" (one of the many code names for these efforts) is that some government remote viewers perceived UFOs and extraterrestrial visitors near Earth using these ESP techniques.

Certainly this is not proof positive of anything. It is not even as good as the witness accounts from Texas. But, it is interesting.

COMPLEX SITUATION

There are accounts from so-called "insiders" who may know quite a bit more than average people about what we are dealing with. Are there secret projects involving communication and cooperation with visiting non-humans? Have they shared advanced technology with us? Are there benefits or dangers about which we might have a "need to know?" Are some things best kept secret?

Does the background of this scenario go back only to the World War II era or much further into human history, maybe even ancient human history?

Maybe there are people who have found out about these things and they are sworn to secrecy, at least for now. Though we might be curious and try to satisfy our curiosity, we also may want to respect legitimate security surrounding these questions.

The debate about the "dumbing down" of Americans and other people may be relevant here. Are we capable of deep and intelligent perception about UFO sighting incidents and what they might mean? Let's hope so.

Because there seem to be indications that we will be finding out more about what is going on in these areas and many others.

Human consciousness may take a leap forward. Scientific understanding may make positive breakthroughs. Spiritual awareness may manifest itself in uplifting ways. Our perception and awareness may improve significantly. Solutions to the problems facing the human race may become available.

For those who feel that God or the Great Spirit has a plan, we might see the unfolding of this divine blueprint. We might even enjoy improved connections between Heaven and Earth, and with our loved ones who have passed on into the afterlife, another dimension or however we might describe it.

For those who believe that we are on our own, with or without visitors from other planets and/or dimensions, there might be hope that knowledge and intelligence will win over ignorance and we will move forward in significant and positive ways.

A big picture. A complex picture. How are all these elements related? How does the Stephenville case, the O´Hare airport incident, the Phoenix lights sightings and many other similar phenomena fit into this picture?

These are not silly questions. They are important questions for intelligent people to explore seriously, closely and deeply.

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Stephenville, Texas (1-8-2008)

From The Black Vault Encyclopedia Project

Contents

News Stories about the Case

News Articles about the Case

UFO fever sweeps Texan town (ITN - 1/16/08)

UFO seekers flock to mystery lights in Texas (The Telegraph - 1/16/08)

UFOs put Stephenville in world spotlight (Star-Telegram - 1/16/08)

Dozens Claim They Spotted UFO in Texas (NPR - 1/16/08)

UFO team asks if the truth is out there - in Stephenville (Star-Telegram - 1/16/08)

Dozens report seeing UFOs over Texas town (USA Today - 1/17/08)

Researchers, others visit Stephenville to gather information, insight about UFO sightings (American Chronicle - 1/17/08)

Pilot Says He Can Explain Stephenville UFO Sightings (NBC 5i - 1/18/08)

Mutual UFO Network Comes To Stephenville (CBS 11 News - 1/20/08)

Group takes statements about UFO sightings (AP - 1/20/08)

No kidding, but I believe I just saw a flying saucer (Houston Chronicle - 1/20/08)

Stephenville and the end of it all (Star-Telegram - 1/20/08)

National media, UFO investigators shine lights on Dublin (Dallas Morning News - 1/20/08)

UT Arlington’s planetarium director weighs in on (Stephenville) UFOs (Pegasus News Wire - 1/22/08)

Texas UFO Sightings Explained? Turns out it was not a UFO, it was just the U.S. military. (WJBF ABC Channel 6 - 1/24/08)

Is Stephenville a tipping point in UFO disclosure? (American Chronicle 1/25/08)

USAF Admits Fighter Jets Were Operating Near TX UFO Sightings (Aero-News 1/25/08)

Stephenville is ready for UFOs to fly on out of the city (Star-Telegram 1/25/08)

Military now says planes flying in area of UFO reports (AP 1/25/08)

Local reporter on Texas UFO case leaves newspaper; integrity of local, national news media explored (American Chronicle - 2/9/08)

New UFO Sighting Reported In Stephenville Texas (Washington Post - 2/12/08)

Media-fed Stephenville UFO buzz continues (Pegasus News Wire - 2/14/08)

Texas deputy says UFO caught on patrol car video (American Chronicle - 2/24/08)

Third Texas officer comes forward on UFO sightings

Diagram, description of Texas UFO by law officers released to public (American Chronicle, 3-25-2008)

Stephenville-area UFO sightings still unexplained after investigation (Star-Telegram, 5-19-2008)

Linda Moulton Howe/Earthfiles report on Coast to Coast AM

Deeper views of Texas UFO sightings explored by Steve Hammons

Discuss this Case

External Links

Do you believe the Stephenville UFOs are of alien nature?

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