Stephenville UFO Sightings

Stephenville Lights vs Phoenix Lights

2009-03-03T10:51:00.000-08:00

Photo captured in Stephenville on 2/5/09:

Phoenix Lights 1997:

Source: http://lucianarchy.proboards21.com/index.cgi?board=ufotexas&action=display&thread=5132

Unidentified freaky lights fill the Stephenville Sky

2009-02-08T15:50:00.000-08:00

‘Unidentified freaky lights’ fill the sky
By WHITNEY WHITE-ASHLEY
Staff Writer
Whitney.ashley@empiretribune.com
Published: Sunday, February 8, 2009 4:10 PM CST

County residents are once again seeing more than just stars in the night sky. Reports of large, orange lights started pouring into law enforcement Thursday night.

Erath County Sheriff Tommy Bryant said the county dispatcher reported six calls between 7:33 and 7:44 p.m. coming in from various areas in the county. From Highway 108 to Highway 67 and out to CR 454, callers reported clusters of large orange or amber lights.

Joel Stroup called the sheriff’s office when he spotted the lights on FM 205.
“The whole horizon coming into Stephenville was lit up with lights,” Stroup said. “There’s no doubt when you see them.”

Stroup said the lights were about the size of oranges and flashed on and off. After about 30 seconds, the string of lights disappeared.

Junior Chacen, who also witnessed the lights in October 2008, was once again at HEB in Stephenville when he saw the lights Thursday night.

“It was pretty much the same thing as last time,” Chacen said.

He saw about eight to nine lights moving in the sky. He said they disappeared after about 45 seconds.

“Shortly after that we did notice a couple of jets. Then everything disappeared,” Chace“n said.

Norma, who declined to give her last name, was lying in bed in her Dublin home when she saw the lights.

“I have cafe curtains in my bedroom and I was lying down in bed and heard motors that sounded like airplanes or helicopters. I looked out the window and I nearly lost consciousness,” Norma said.

She saw orange lights that seemed to drop off one by one.

“I wouldn’t call anybody or tell them because I was afraid they would think I was crazy,” she said. “When it happens to you, it is awesome. You become fearful.”

Justin Sellers, who commutes to work in the Fort Worth area, was driving home when he saw the lights north of Bluff Dale around 7:30 p.m.

“They kind of moved across the sky from the west to the east,” Sellers said.

He pulled over and saw what he thought were two military jets flying eastward. Then the lights disappeared.

Michelle Stilwell and her family were heading home on Lingleville Road when her 10-year-old daughter spotted something in the night sky.

“We saw lights in the sky, me and my whole family,” Stilwell said.

They saw four or five lights in the sky that flashed on and off.

When the family arrived home, her husband Travis, Stephenville High School principal, began searching the Internet for similar sightings.

The family tried to cope by naming the objects UFLs - unidentified freaky lights. But her two daughters were still worried.

“They were so scared they wouldn’t even go back to the car or get their backpacks,” Stilwell said. “It was the wildest thing I’ve ever seen in my life.”

Mike Carroll was standing outside when he saw something at 7:30 p.m. Carroll, who is the assistant athletic director and head athletic trainer at Stephenville High School, saw the lights during a football game last fall. But he said this time, the lights were much brighter.

“I saw four real bright lights right in a row on the horizon,” Carroll said.

He did not hear any sound and the display only lasted about 20 seconds.

“Two planes came in at a real high rate (of speed),” Carroll said, then the lights disappeared.

Steve Hudgeons, an investigator with the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON), confirmed that new reports have been logged on their Web site, www.mufon.com.

Stephenville Police Captain Jason King said they received a call just after 7:30 p.m. that a lot of cars were stopped near Highway 8 and Highway 108 looking at bright lights in the sky. He said an officer was dispatched and responded to the scene within four minutes, but found no cars and saw no lights.

“From our perspective, there’s nothing to it,” King said.

United States Air Force Reserve Major Karl D. Lewis with the 301st Fighter Wing said people most likely saw a training exercise.

“F-16s from the 301st Fighter Wing/457th Fighter Squadron continue to train in the Brownwood Military Operating Area (MOA) during the day and night for training operations. We were conducting our normal training in the Brownwood MOA on February 5th,” Lewis said.

Source: http://www.empiretribune.com/articles/2009/02/08/news/doc498f555d5ae4a435373093.txt

Mysterious objects reported in the Skies

2009-02-03T06:42:00.000-08:00

Mysterious objects reported in the skies

By Angelia Joiner
Special to the Reporter-News
Monday, February 2, 2009

Speculation abounds as to why unknown objects continue to fly in the skies over Erath County.

Slightly more than a year after the first report of mysterious objects, now known as Stephenville Lights, more witnesses are coming forth. Walnut Springs resident Matt Collins and his mother, Sharla, and sister Ashlee have all said they have witnessed bright lights in the sky that defy explanation.

On Thursday Matt said he and his sister were returning to their home on FM 203 shortly after 7 p.m. He said they had just been talking about the Stephenville sightings when his sister pointed and said, "'Look at that,'" Collins said. "I thought she was kidding at first because we had just been talking about the Stephenville sightings."

"My sister saw three light sets but by the time I located them there was only one. The lights would come on and stay on for about 20 seconds. Then it would go off and reappear a little to the right or left of where it was."

Matt said the air traffic route for Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport is near his home so he is accustomed to the presence of commercial and private aircraft.

Matt said the object appeared about 25 to 30 degrees off the horizon in the northwest sky toward Stephenville. He said he could definitely see a dark mass between the sets of lights.

"I'm not sure how close or far away it was," Matt said. "It could have been over Chalk Mountain. But, it was definitely in the direction of Stephenville."

Then on Saturday it was back. This time it was about 9:30 p.m., shortly after Matt appeared on the WB 33 (KDAF-TV of Dallas/Fort Worth) news discussing the sighting he had witnessed two nights before.

"I ran in the house and got my sister and woke up my mom," Matt said. He also took video footage of the incident, he said.

Sharla said she was amazed.

"I always thought people that said they saw UFOs were crazy," Sharla said. "Now, I think there is definitely something out there that we don't know about."

The family said the object was visible for about fifteen minutes and had a red center but that the outside of the light changed from red to yellow, to white and bright orange.

CNN called Matt on Monday and made arrangements to show the film he took in a future broadcast.

Apparently, the Collinses were not the only ones to see the objects.

On the same night, Cody and Carrie Tedford and their uncle Dwayne Clover were turning right off Loop 377 South in Stephenville returning to their home in Hamilton.

Cody said he caught something out of the corner of his eye and told his uncle to look out the back window.

Clover said his 5-year-old niece riding in the back seat with him could also see the object and made comments like, "Wow! Look at that."

They agreed the object was fairly low in the skies but estimated it could have been 60 degrees from the horizon and then made a slow descent to about 25 degrees.

"At first it appeared to be just sitting there hovering," Clover said. "But that might have been because it was moving toward us and we couldn't tell that."

Cody said he thought it was over the courthouse and moving toward the City Limits bar on U.S. 377.

"We thought it was landing," Clover said.

All said they saw a double row of horizontal lights.

Clover said he likes to watch planes and he works at a place where helicopters take off and land often, so he was sure it was not one of those types of aircraft.

"I don't know what it was. We weren't frightened," Clover said. "We were just watching it, trying to figure out what it was and it didn't fit for anything I knew. It was a clear descent and moving slowly and close enough to the ground to make you think it was landing."

A reporter from WB 33 said the Bosque County Sheriff's Office dispatcher received four calls reporting something unusual.

Two people in the Abilene area also reported sightings to the Mutual UFO Network Web site.

Source: http://www.reporternews.com/news/2009/feb/02/theyre-baaack/

Obama and the Release of the UFO files

2009-02-01T06:02:00.000-08:00

Obama administration to clash with corporations over UFO files

January 31, 6:09 AM

by Michael Salla, Ph.D., Honolulu Exopolitics Examiner

Lockheed Skunk Works, Palmdale, CA. Photo: Wikimedia

President Obama’s January 21 Memoranda to promote Open Government and strengthen the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) are intended to release unnecessarily classified national security files. Among the many millions of classified files to ultimately be released, some will concern UFOs and extraterrestrial life. From these releases, UFO enthusiasts and exopolitical researchers hope to find clues into how government policy has been developed. More importantly, FOIA releases will point to where the bulk of the nation’s UFO files are located. That’s when the Obama administration will run up against corporate control of UFO files and policy.

Testimonial evidence exists that corporations have become the ultimate repository of the nation’s UFO secrets. A number of whistleblowers have emerged revealing how corporate control has been achieved. A recently deceased corporate whistleblower revealed how during the mid-1980s, he worked for six months as an archivist for a large aerospace defense contractor based in California. It was a temporary assignment with his employer at an obscure office building. The archivist found many files dealing with flying saucers and extraterrestrial life. The files contained: “Reports, photos, media materials (tapes, films, video cassettes) and material from crashed saucers.” When asked where the files came from he revealed the “materials came from everywhere. CIA, Air Force, Navy, Army, DARPA, NORAD, DoD, FBI, and government officials to name most.”

Project Camelot Video of Corporate UFO archivist

If the archivist’s testimony is accurate, this means that prior to the mid-1980s UFO files were taken out of the possession of U.S. government agencies and military departments due to security concerns. One reason for this is that the proprietary rights of corporations would enable UFO files to remain hidden from the prying hands of congressmen, and private citizens using the Freedom of Information Act first passed in 1966 and strengthened in 1974.

The above scenario is supported by comments by Ben Rich, former CEO of Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works. In hand written responses to questions from John Andrews of the Testor Corporation in 1986, Rich confirmed the existence of both man-made and extraterrestrial UFOs. Most importantly, Rich revealed to Andrews how control of UFO files had slipped from the U.S. military to private corporations. Andrews relayed Rich’s responses to questions from UFO investigator William McDonald which confirmed:

There are two types of UFOs -- the ones we build, and ones THEY build. We learned from both crash retrievals and actual "Hand-me-downs." The Government knew, and until 1969 took an active hand in the administration of that information. After a 1969 Nixon "Purge", administration was handled by an international board of directors in the private sector.

Former astronaut, Dr Edgar Mitchell recently confirmed an incident in 1997 where the Head of Intelligence for the Joint Chiefs of Staff was supplied the code names of UFO related projects, but was denied need-to-access. The first to report the incident was UFO researcher, Dr Steven Greer, who in 2001 revealed that Admiral Wilson was furious over his failure to gain access. On a July 4, 2008 CNN interview, Dr Mitchell confirmed Greer’s version of events when he said that Admiral Wilson “had found the people responsible for the cover-up and for the people who were in the know and were told, I'm sorry, admiral, you do not have need to know here and so, goodbye.” A reliable source furthermore revealed to UFO researcher Richard Dolan that Admiral Wilson was frustrated by attorneys of a corporation that denied him access. I interviewed an active duty U.S. Navy officer in October 2008 who confirmed the powerful role of corporations involved in UFO projects.

A number of senior officials in the Obama administration were deeply involved in Clinton administration efforts to disclose files concerning UFOs. If President Obama’s January 21 Memoranda are fully implemented, FOIA requests will allow much information about UFOs to emerge. This will give important clues to where the bulk of the nation’s UFO files are kept. That is when the Obama administration will run up against powerful corporate interests claiming proprietary control of UFO information and advanced extraterrestrial technology. The Obama administration will ultimately need to confront corporate interests that house UFO files, and controlled UFO policy since the Nixon Administration.

Source: http://www.examiner.com/x-2383-Honolulu-Exopolitics-Examiner~y2009m1d31-Obama-to-clash-with-corporate-control-of-UFO-files

Possible UFO Sighting In Stephenville

2009-01-31T14:32:00.000-08:00

Possible UFO Sighting In Stephenville

Reporter: Matt Collins

At about 7:15pm this evening on the horizon in the North West, there they were 3 hovering bright red lights.

Nothing like I have ever seen.

They would sporadically appear and disappear in different locations in the same part of the sky.

I waited for about five minutes and finally another light, of the same brightness and intensity, appeared in the same location, only this time it was moving across the horizon.

Just like the other lights before it, this one disappeared the same way.

Me and my sister both witnessed the lights over Stephenville.

The reason I know these were not airplanes or jets is because just off to the North of the UFO's was the path that airliners and other jets arrive at DFW, so I had an almost side by side comparison of the two different crafts as a point of reference to make my judgment call.

Source: http://www.kwtx.com/iwitness/headlines/38721747.html

More Sightings in Stephenville

2008-11-03T10:29:00.000-08:00

More sightings

Residents remain puzzled by lights

By WHITNEY WHITE-ASHLEY
Staff Writer
Whitney.ashley@empiretribune.com

Published: Sunday, November 2, 2008 2:35 PM CST

Questions and reports of new sightings continue to flood into the Empire-Tribune office. For nearly two weeks, area residents have been glued to the night skies and have witnessed, taped and photographed mysterious lights flashing across the sky.

Theories about the lights have ranged from military tests, to atmosphere phenomenon, to otherworldly visitors. But stories are starting to come in from across the state and from all types of people.

Lonnie Hammonds said he saw the lights in Hamilton County on Oct. 28 and 29. “It was right on top of the mountains and it looked pretty close,” Hammonds said. “It has to be something military.”

Hammonds also said when the object started to move, it sounded like the sound barrier was broken.

“I’ve never seen anything like that and I’m 83,” said Jimmie Butler of Dublin, who saw the lights on Oct. 23. Butler doesn’t believe what she saw was any kind of plane.

Tarena Major, who has started watching the Stephenville skies since spotting the lights last week isn’t buying into the F-16 story either.

“You can see the fighter jets, but that’s not what we’re looking at,” Major said.

Keith Aikens lives in White Settlement, where he’s been busy deer hunting. He said he saw something while he was sitting in his deer stand that made him think he was crazy until a friend showed him reports in the E-T.

Aikens said the object hovered just above his stand. He was so frightened that he called 911.

“It was huge,” Aikens said. “I had no idea other people were seeing it too.”

He also saw a video on the WFAA Web site that he said looked like what he saw - and he doesn’t believe it was a plane.

“I live right next to Carswell (Air Force Base), about a block from the runway, and they weren’t planes. I’ve seen the stealth; I’ve seen the space shuttle land out here and I’ve never seen anything like this,” Aikens said.

Cody Miller of Dublin said he has seen something like it before, last fall. He was mowing on a “beautiful” and clear day when he noticed something metallic in the sky.

“It didn’t have any windows or propellers. I was that close to it,” Miller said.

He also didn’t hear any sound.

Janice, a Stephenville resident who asked to not have her last name included, said she has noticed the lights since 2006.

“I have been seeing these lights for a long time. They’re very prominent here,” she said.

Janice believes the lights are coming from otherworldly creatures.

“I think they’re looking for something and they haven’t found it,” Janice said.

She also said she doesn’t think people should be afraid of what they are seeing.

The military continues to explain the sightings as nothing more than F-16s moving from the Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base in Fort Worth to the Brownwood Military Operation Area.

Alejandro T. Rojas, Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) director of public education, said they are continuing to evaluate the situation in Stephenville.

“We do have several witnesses,” Rojas said.

MUFON has also filed for copies of radar reports from the Federal Aviation Administration and the Naval Air Station in Fort Worth under the Freedom of Information Act.

http://www.empiretribune.com/articles/2008/11/02/news/doc490e0bffeb6c0929779714.txt

Stephenville Lights - Today's News

2008-10-31T13:56:00.000-07:00

The triumph of ostriches

http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20081031/BLOG32/810310272/2121?Title=The_triumph_of_ostriches

By Billy Cox

Published: Friday, October 31, 2008 at 12:57 p.m.
Last Modified: Friday, October 31, 2008 at 1:04 p.m.

What a difference 55 years makes, ay?

UFOs evidently continue to troll the skies near Stephenville, Tex., people on the ground continue to see them and even take photos, and jet fighters continue to keep a wary tab on events (see http://www.empiretribune.com/articles/2008/10/26/news/doc4904c9d94bd6a785478381.txt).

And the military continues to maintain its rigid silence because to do otherwise would be an admission that we’ve blown hundreds of billions of dollars on a leaky roof.

But once upon a time, back before the Pentagon knew how hopeless its situation really was, the Air Force actually encouraged Americans to help collect UFO data. Check out David Duncan’s little gem at http://www.thekeyhoereport.com/uncategorized/retro-ufology-from-1953/.

It’s a 1953 Popular Science article detailing how the USAF distributed 35mm cameras to “detectives on the trail of the flying saucers.” If that seems a little exotic, remember that in 1952, UFOs weren’t just buzzing the capitol, the Pentagon was holding press conferences about it and telling Americans not to freak.

Anyhow, fitted with special diffraction grating plates, these Videon Stereo cameras were designed to bend light in a way that would identify their source as a solid or a gas. But writer Ralph Steiner assured readers who wanted to photograph UFOs that custom cameras weren’t necessary.

“Any stereo camera will do,” he wrote. “In fact, when I phoned the Pentagon to inquire whether the Air Force would be interested in photos taken with single-lens cameras, I was assured that any shot of a flying saucer made through a diffraction grating — even with a box Brownie — would be more than welcome.”

Steiner included beaucoup photo tips and a USAF address for sending undeveloped film. Can you imagine the military soliciting the public for that sort of evidence today?

“Uh, folks, we’re really having trouble keeping UFOs out of restricted airspace over President Bush’s ranch in Crawford lately, so we’d like you to try to photograph the suckers with these special cameras so we can take the evidence to Congress and lobby for countermeasure funding in a more open and accountable fashion.”

The same month the Popular Science piece ran, the CIA secretly convened a panel of scientists — later known as the Robertson Committee — to figure out how to manage the UFO problem. The consensus was to sweep the subject off the front pages by debunking the phenomenon (see http://www.cufos.org/IUR_article3.html).

It’s one of the Agency’s few legacies where the cliche successfully applies today: Mission Accomplished.

http://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2008/10/31/Watercooler_Stories/UPI-35261225449000/

UFO sightings reported in Texas

STEPHENVILLE, Texas, Oct. 31 (UPI) -- Residents of North Central Texas have reported a fresh wave of UFO sightings in the wake of a string of January sightings that made national headlines.

The Stephenville Empire-Tribune said dozens of residents in and near Erath County reported strange lights in the sky Oct. 23, the same night the U.S. military confirmed F-16s flying in the area, the Fort Worth (Texas) Star-Telegram reported.

"I think more people are willing to come forward now that more people are talking about this," said Whitney White-Ashley, a reporter with the Empire-Tribune.

Alejandro Rojas with the Mutual UFO Network, a nationwide organization dedicated to scientific study of UFO sightings, said most of the reports were of an oval shape with lights around the outside. He said the group has requested radar data from the F-16s and has been interviewing witnesses.

"These are descriptions that were sent into our Web site the night of the sighting, so they could not have been something just copied from media coverage," Rojas said.

The sightings come after a flurry of reports Jan. 8 of an object above the Texas cities of Dublin and Stephenville that did not behave like a conventional aircraft.

The Stephenville Lights Video

2008-10-30T09:48:00.001-07:00

Stephenville Texas, Light in the Sky was filmed on October 29th at 6:30 PM in Stephenville near the airport. This light was disappearing and re-appearing in different locations.

Also, in today's local newspaper Empire Tribune:

http://www.empiretribune.com/articles/2008/10/30/news/doc4909de1a74069619358593.txt

Sightings continue to puzzle residents

By WHITNEY WHITE-ASHLEY
Staff Writer
Whitney.ashley@empiretribune.com

Published: Thursday, October 30, 2008 11:27 AM CDT

Recent unexplained lights spotted in the skies of Erath County continue to haunt residents who can’t dismiss what they saw last week. New reports of lights spotted above Stephenville Tuesday night have witnesses like Sandy Bell of Freestone County talking about their experience.

Bell said she saw lights on the horizon last week and again on Tuesday when she went outside to feed her dogs shortly after 8 p.m.

“I have gotten into the habit of scanning the sky because of what happened last week,” Bell said. She saw an objet on the horizon to the southwest.

“I watched it briefly, it was large (I was seeing it from far off), it had a definite red glow and had a faint strobe effect with a whitish blue light emitting around it,” Bell said.

Bell and her boyfriend used a high power rifle scope to get a closer look.

“We could clearly see an oval or round object that had a red glow, it pulsated,” Bell said. “Whatever this was, it was big because we were seeing it from a great distance from where it actually was.”

The object looked more orange through the scope.

The object would occasionally throw a white or blue light. Bell said planes routinely fly along Interstate 45, but that this object did not resemble anything she had seen.

“We really could not believe our eyes. It finally just looked like it disappeared over the horizon (or lowered itself to a point we could not see) at exactly 8:33 p.m.,” Bell said.

Stephenville residents also caught glimpses of the lights.

Junior Chacon was in the HEB parking lot around 7:45 p.m. Tuesday when he saw something in the sky towards Dublin that looked like a large star.

Then he noticed two sets of three lights that would turn on and off; they would move apart and then come back together.

He said there were about eight other people, including customers and employees, standing in the parking lot and watching the lights.

Clinton Holland was driving down Lingleville Highway with his friend Aaron Adams around 7:40 p.m. on Tuesday when they, and several other cars, pulled over to watch some lights they noticed on the horizon.

Adams said it started as a single bright light sitting just above the power lines and was headed toward Dublin. He had a hard time telling if the light was blinking, or if the power line was obstructing his view.

Holland said he soon noticed multiple lights, but couldn’t tell exactly what was happening. Lights kept “dropping” and disappearing, but he didn’t know if something was actually falling from the sky or if the lights were rotating around an object.

Tarena Major was on Highway 377 in Stephenville when she made her husband pull over. They had noticed a bright light.

“I saw a big light that was kind of low, like a star,” Major said.

Shortly after two smaller lights appeared on both sides of the large bright light, then they disappeared.

“It was a big light show, but definitely not airplanes,” Major said.

Many people are still searching for or offering explanations for the big light show. Some believe they are intergalactic visitors, while others think they are top-secret military flight-tests.

United States Air Force Reserve Major Karl Lewis, public affairs officer at Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base in Fort Worth, responded to the latest sightings and a series of questions about training schedules and tactics with a simple response.

“We routinely train, during the day and in the evenings, in the Brownwood

Military Operating Area (MOA),” Lewis said in an e-mail.

But for many, that answer isn’t enough and they believe that what they saw in the night sky was not simply an F-16 in training.

Dwight Williams with Dyess Air Force Base in Abilene said their flight patterns usually head to the west.

“Most of our action is north and west. If we go east, we’re going to the east coast,” Williams said.

The Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) has sent a field investigator to Stephenville to conduct field interviews with witnesses this week. The investigator will evaluate pictures, videos and testimony in an attempt to sort out the information.

and

http://www.wfaa.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/localnews/tv/stories/wfaa081030_lj_ufo.162e879ce.html

More UFO sightings in Erath County
11:43 AM CDT on Thursday, October 30, 2008 By JIM DOUGLAS / WFAA-TV

ERATH COUNTY — There are more new reports pouring in about UFOs over Erath County.

In fact, there were so many reported sightings on Tuesday that an aircraft coordinated with spotters on the ground Wednesday hoping to get fresh video.

"I never watched Star Wars growing up. I was too busy hauling hay," said Ricky Sorrells.

But the rancher and welder was among the first in January to take the heat for publicly admitting he saw mysterious lights over Erath County.

Sorrells said he has occasionally seen them since then — including Tuesday night.

"They were huge," he said.

But this time, it's different.

Over the last few nights, many other people have reported sightings.

A stunned family in Dublin shot a video.

An organization called the Mutual UFO Network has an investigator interviewing witnesses.

WFAA-TV

Ricky Sorrells wants to know what those lights are.

"I'm tickled to death about it. I've got people calling me saying 'I saw them too. You're not crazy,'" said Sorrells.

Angelia Joiner started writing about the phenomenon as a reporter for the Stephenville Empire Tribune. No longer with the paper, she's now travels the country as a UFO researcher.

Joiner said a small plane will start assisting spotters on the ground with cameras.

Back in January, folks around Stephenville had a lot of fun with UFOs. This time, with so many sightings, it seems to be a little more serious.

"It tells you it's not a conspiracy," Joiner said. "They've seen them in Hico, Stephenville, Dublin — lots of towns."

For the record, Joiner and Sorrells are not saying they believe the lights are from spaceships.

"All we want to know is: What is it?" Sorrells asked.

E-mail jdouglas@wfaa.com

New UFO sightings investigated in Erath County

2008-10-30T07:46:00.000-07:00

By MATT FRAZIER

mfrazier@star-telegram.com

That’s not the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown.

Texas’ UFOs are back — just in time for Halloween.

Reports of UFOs sighted over North Central Texas last week are the latest in an apparent sequel to the Stephenville sightings in January, which made headlines nationwide.

Dozens of residents in and around Erath County reported seeing strange lights in the sky the evening of Oct. 23, according to the Stephenville Empire-Tribune, which also reported that the military has confirmed the presence of F-16s in the area at that time.

"I think more people are willing to come forward now that more people are talking about this," said Whitney White-Ashley, a reporter for the paper.

CNN reported last week’s sightings, interviewing Dublin resident Andy Monroe, who caught a 30-second video of a line of red lights he says encircled an oval shape floating in the sky.

Most of the descriptions are of an oval shape with lights around the outside, said Alejandro Rojas with the Mutual UFO Network, a nationwide organization created in 1969 to scientifically study UFO sightings. A MUFON investigator is interviewing witnesses, and the group has already sent requests for radar data from the F-16s.

"These are descriptions that were sent into our Web site the night of the sighting, so they could not have been something just copied from media coverage," Rojas said.

January sightings

In or around Jan. 8, dozens of people around Dublin and Stephenville — about 70 miles southwest of Fort Worth — reported seeing something that did not move like conventional aircraft.

Descriptions varied. Some told of objects up to a mile long and hundreds of yards high. Others reported seeing two to eight lights that flew in formation, changed color and shone with intensity greater than a welding flame. Some witnesses said the objects were accompanied or followed by military jets.

Latest Texas sightings

According to MUFON’S Web site:

Near Dublin. A couple said that at about 7:20 p.m. Tuesday they were headed west on U.S. 377 when they saw a flying object sporting three sets of three lights in a semicircle.

Dallas. A man said he was walking his dog at about 11:30 p.m. Tuesday when he saw a triangle-shaped object with orange lights flying silently almost due south over downtown.

Fairfield. Residents reported seeing from their porch an oval object glowing red while hovering at about 8:30 p.m. Tuesday in the southwest. "Occasionally it would throw a whitish blue light. We could see other air traffic way high above it [planes fly along Interstate 45 as a normal route]. This looked nothing like what else was in the sky."

Source: http://www.star-telegram.com/state_news/story/1006837.html

Stephenville Lights, UFOs over Texas in the News again

2008-10-28T12:39:00.000-07:00

http://www.wjbf.com/jbf/news/science/article/texas_ufo_mystery_lingers/8053/
http://www.khou.com/news/local/stories/khou081027_mp_stephenville-ufo-sitings.155dda835.html?npc
http://www.the33tv.com/pages/content_lan....7907&feedID=460

Texas UFO Mystery Lingers

Over a three-month period, this summer, there were 1,000 UFO sightings filed with the National UFO Reporting Center...75 of those reports came from Texas. So, why do the aliens prefer Texas? We don’t know, but some folks in that state really believe something odd is going on in the sky over their town...Jim Douglas shows us the evidence…

ABC News
Published: October 28, 2008

Stephenville, TX—Andy Monrreal, UFO witness: “You could see the oval shape...got my friend, I said, ‘dude, you got to come look at this.’”

Andy Monrreal was hanging out with his Dublin High School friends when they all saw whatever it was.

Andy Monrreal, “You could see a shape. It was like a complete circle.”

Andy rolled off a half minute of video on his mom’s digital camera. His dad saw it, too.

Jaime Monrreal, Andy’s father: “I never seen nothing like that in my life...big lights and everything.”

So did mom…

Andy’s mother: “It was a round thing. You could see lights around it, flickering and changing. It was awesome...just turning and flickering.”

Back in January, Erath County went UFO crazy after a handful of people reported similar lights over Stephenville. International press and UFO hunters descended on the town. This time, many more eye witnesses are phoning the Stephenville Empire Tribune, or the ET.

Whitney Ashley, reporter, Stephenville Empire Tribune: “I’ve got at least 10, right now willing, to go on record.”

Reporter Whitney Ashley said many people don’t want to talk publicly, like several workers at the paper, who also saw the lights.

Ashley: “The Sheriff’s Department got lots of calls in the southern part of Erath County, down around Dublin, home of Dr. Pepper. Well, actually my brother called last night, said he saw some stuff down by the Austin area.”

The description sounded a lot like this: “3 lights strobing, and they disappeared, and then three more appeared to the ight and left of it.”

The Joint Reserve Base, in Fort Worth confirms seven F-16s training in the area, at the time. Several witnesses told us they saw the fighters, after they saw the mysterious lights.

They're baaaack: Texas residents report more UFO sightings
10:02 AM CDT on Tuesday, October 28, 2008
By JIM DOUGLAS / WFAA-TV

Video

Stephenville residents report more UFO sightings

October 24, 2008

1/14: North Texas town abuzz

1/20: Group takes UFO sighting statements

7/1: UNT checks UFO claim

9/17: Has UFO fame changed Stephenville?

LINK: National UFO Reporting Center

View larger

E-mail Clip

Another UFO?

By Shana Franklin

October 27, 2008

Andy Monrreal is staring at it again. A videotape he shot of what he and friends say has to be a UFO. Monrreal says, "I'm amazed." On Thursday night, the Dublin teenager was doing what he usually does, play pool with friends. Then he and a buddy took a break and walked outside on the back porch. Monrreal says, "I looked up in the sky and saw these lights and I was like whoa. I started thinking it looks like a UFO. His mom heard him screaming for the camera, "Ah, ah, mom, there's something. I don't remember what his exact words were." Other buddies dropped their pool cues.. And came running. Mitchell Greenway says he saw, "Bright lights. I thought Andy was crazy." Another friend agrees, "He was just banging at the window."

But now Andy, his friends and parents are convinced it was a UFO. Jesse Bamber says, "I just saw all the bright lights, They were just going in and out." Andy's mom, Maricella Monrreal says, "It was just all these flashing lights flicking lights, you know, round in a circle, just moving fast something we've never seen before." Andy says, "I saw the US Army jets flying by it, like 2 of them, it;d come back, again, then 2 more. I guess UFO's are real."

That pains Andy's pals a bit, who in January thought their fellow Erath County residents were crazy after multiple reports of UFO sightings in nearby Stephenville. Mitchell Greenway says, "I thought now I don't need to say bad things about people anymore cause I thought everyone else was pretty much idiots. Now, we believe it. Yeah, Erath idiots like everyone else."

UFO's
i remember seeing the lights to on thursday night i was coming from pulidos me my brother n sister we were on the southloop and i was like do u guys see the lights and they were like yeah it was probably around 10' o"clock i didn't really believe in them until now!!!
Posted by Ronald Towers at 7:36 pm Oct 27, 2008

UFO group probes light mystery in Erath, Comanche

2008-10-28T05:35:00.000-07:00

10:17 PM CDT on Monday, October 27, 2008
By JIM DOUGLAS / WFAA-TV

Also Online

REPORT: Stephenville residents report more UFO sightings

ERATH COUNTY - An investigator with the Mutual UFO Network has travelled to Erath County to talk to dozens of people who all reported seeing unusual lights in the sky last week.

Similar reports were made in January that led to international attention to Stephenville, which was previously best known for cowboys and dairy farms.

On video, a Dublin High School senior captured 30 seconds of the lights that were spotted by people across Erath and Comanche counties Thursday night.

U.S. Air Force officials at the joint reserve base in Fort Worth said seven F-16s were training in the area at about the same time the lights were spotted. Still, there are those who say that doesn't appear to be the answer.

"These don't look like conventional flying lights of any kind," said Jay Miller, an aviation photographer who has snapped hundreds of aircrafts from various angles all over the world.

Taking a look at the video, Miller said he doesn't believe the lights are that of an F-16.

"I'm not saying this isn't an airplane, but the arrangement [and] color, what have you, isn't what I would consider normal for a fixed-wing plane," he said.

Some witnesses also reported seeing flares.

"I'm very familiar with flares and they would react much differently than this," he said.

Andy Monrreal, who shot the video, said he saw the F-16s, but said that was after he already saw the mystery lights three times. Monrreal said he could also make out a disc-like shape, which some other witnesses also described.

Around the time of the previous sightings in January, the Mutual UFO Network sent a team of investigators to Erath County. In this case, the organization has only sent one investigator.

Although Miller said he is puzzled by the lights, he said they did leave him with one overriding impression.

"They don't look extraterrestrial to me," he said. "They look very much manmade."

E-mail jdouglas@wfaa.com

The Stephenville UFOs Are Back - October 2008

2008-10-27T16:46:00.000-07:00

October 27, 2008 at 12:25:01

The Stephenville UFOs Are Back - October 2008

by Bill Knell Page 1 of 1 page(s)

The Stephenville UFOs are back and so are the military jets that chase them. A number of unidentified lights were again seen in the skies over Earth County, Texas, beginning on October 21, 2008. The lights displayed various colors and moved rapidly in all directions over Stephenville for two nights in a row, but that was just the prelude to a much more exciting incident which occurred the next night in nearby Dublin, Texas.

On October 23, 2008, several teenagers and a few adults were at Dublin High School in the late evening when they saw an oval-shaped object with brilliant lights on it. Andy Monrreal used his mom’s digital video camera to film the object for about a minute. Monrreal gave a description of the object to a news crew from News 8 (WFAA) in Dallas/Fort Worth. He said, “"You could see a shape. It was like a complete circle.

Monrreal’s parents also saw the object and his father commented, “"I never seen nothing like that in my life… big lights and everything." His mother said, “"It was a round thing. You could see lights around it, flickering and changing. It was awesome. Just turning and flickering.” A total of eleven witnesses reported seeing the same object and many confirm that military jets were in the area at the same time.

In what seems like a rerun of the original events that brought so much attention to Erath County back in January, the Joint Reserve Base in Fort Worth confirms that at least seven F-16s were training in the area at the time the object was observed. However, these training exercises were not announced in advance and the area where the UFO and the jets were seen is not airspace generally reserved for training.

Erath County, Texas, became known as a UFO hotspot during January of 2008 when one mass sighting and several subsequent incidents brought the area to the attention of the worldwide news media. Amid conflicting statements from local military authorities commenting on aerial training maneuvers and inept UFO research organization investigations, the sightings were blamed on everything from stars, moons and planets to flocks of birds, untrained observers, military exercises and misidentified aircrafts.

It wasn’t until after I mentioned that a UFO flyover of the Bush Ranch in nearby Crawford, Texas, might have explained the large number of military jets observed in the skies over Erath County on January 8, 2008, that some investigators and reporters began to look at the Stephenville incidents more seriously. In fact, the Mutual UFO Network ultimately turned up evidence that radar reports indicated at least one of several objects seen over the Stephenville area on January 8, 2008, and being pursued by military jets was coming directly from the direction of the Bush Ranch.

The large oval object seen over Erath County on October 23, 2008 is similar to one observed on January 8, 2008, by several law enforcement officers in and around the Stephenville area. These officers were able to see more detail than most of the residents that just reported the lights at that time. The same object was later observed by Ricky Sorrells of Dublin who has been it several times since. He said that the thing hovered just three hundred feet above his head in a field behind his home and may have been the size of two or three football fields.

Sorrells’ story became troubling as reports of harassment by military authorities surfaced. After reporting his sighting to a local news reporter, he claims that military jets and helicopters started flying at all hours over his property disturbing livestock and keeping him from getting a good night’s sleep. Even worse, Sorrells’ says that he has been directly and indirectly threatened to “keep your mouth shut about what you saw.”

Although the national media is ignoring these latest rounds of UFO sightings and jet chases, the Stephenville story is one that will not just go away because reporters are busy with politics and economic issues. What they do not seem to understand is that this UFO flap and others currently going on all over the world will someday have a direct impact on those issues. If these sightings persist and the government finally runs out of excuses and their ability to influence what the media says about them, that day may not be long in coming.

For more including video, visit http://ufoguy.tripod.com/newsletter.html

http://ufoguy.tripod.com

Bill Knell is a popular Speaker, Author and Consultant with eclectic interests. Best known for his Paranormal Research and Seminars, Bill also excels in the area of personal, business and financial advice and management. Featured in the Wall Street Journal, Omni, the L.A. Times, Toronto Star and NY Times; seen on CNN, NBC Nightly News, Fox Television and many Cable Networks; heard on Mancow, Bob and Tom and Howard Stern; consultant to films like Independence Day, Men in Black, the Fifth Element and World of the Worlds.

The Stephenville Lights are Back

2008-10-26T16:23:00.000-07:00

They’re back

Unexplained lights spotted in Stephenville skies

By WHITNEY WHITE-ASHLEY
Staff Writer
Whitney.ashley@empiretribune.com

Published: Sunday, October 26, 2008 3:20 PM CDT

Dozens of Stephenville and Erath County residents reported seeing unidentified lights in the Texas sky last week.

Accounts started trickling in on Tuesday. But on Friday, they poured in, with dozens of people claiming to see unexplainable lights across the area Thursday night.

Erath County Sheriff Tommy Bryant said dispatch received multiple calls from people claiming to see bright lights in the southern part of the county Thursday. Callers reported that the lights would flash and disappear, then reappear a short time later. Charlie Carrasco, who lives in Stephenville, said he saw two fighter jets flying low to the ground around 8:30 p.m. Thursday, chasing flashes of light in the air.

Juli Gibson was riding her horse in the southwestern part of the county around 8 p.m. when she noticed the lights.

She said there were four white lights flashing on and off.

“It’s like they were talking to each other,” Gibson said. “It was just weird.”

The flashing lights spooked even her horses.

Ashleigh Cole was also working with her horses around 8:40 p.m. when she turned her attention to the night sky.

“It seemed like it was really close,” Cole said. “I’ve never believed anybody when they say they saw a UFO, but I saw one myself.”

She said there were three lights in a row that would move straight up in the sky and at an angle.

She was about 10 miles south of Dublin and thought the lights were flashing and moving around for about five minutes.

Stephenville resident John Darby and his daughter were driving on Highway 67 near the Seldon cutoff when they saw the lights around 8:30 p.m. Thursday.

“At first I thought it was my lights reflecting off the power lines,” Darby said.

But he quickly realized it was something more than a reflection.

The lights started out small and orange. They grew larger and began to display different colors in a beachball-like pattern. Then they disappeared.

His daughter jumped out of the vehicle trying to take a picture with her cell phone. The lights reappeared in the sky when she came back to the truck.

Darby said there were about nine jets traveling at a high rate of speed and headed for the Metroplex.

He is convinced they were not passenger airplanes.

“If it were my speculation, they were doing maneuvers with some kind of tracers,” Darby said.

Monica Diaz was driving on the Northwest Loop near the high school in Stephenville around 8:15 p.m. on Thursday when she saw the lights.

“It looked like a row of stadium lights,” Diaz said.

The four lights would turn on and off individually, but they would move as a group. The show only lasted about 30 seconds.

She pulled over and watched the sky but she never saw or heard anything else.

“It was very odd,” Diaz said. “I don’t believe it was aliens but it was definitely something different.”

Diaz said the lights were white and round and didn’t resemble anything close to an airplane.

D’Ann Wheeler is a Hico resident and a skeptic.

“I never had a personal experience until last night (Thursday),” Wheeler said.

She and a friend, who confirmed Wheeler’s story but did not want to be identified, were stargazing around 9 p.m. when they noticed a lot of activity in the sky.

“There were jets all around them (the lights) but you couldn’t hear the jets,” Wheeler said.

She saw two sets of lights that she described as a string of pearls. Then the lights just disappeared.

“I have never in my life seen anything like this before. I went in the house and shook my head and thought, what did I just see?” Wheeler said. “The lights disappeared and then came back on a second time. They stayed on for about a minute.”

The lights were large and white, and moved up and down with the jets close behind.

“I know they were big and far apart, but I couldn’t tell how big or far apart,” she said.

Wheeler said the sight unnerved her the rest of the night and she had a hard time sleeping. She even went back out around midnight to check the sky, but she didn’t see anything.

Ashley Ainsworth was driving on Highway 377 near Tractor Supply Company around 8:30 Thursday night when she and several other cars pulled over to watch the lights dancing through the sky.

She counted six yellow lights on the horizon that moved in a circular motion. They disappeared completely but started blinking on and off.

“I’m not into that alien thing, but it’s kind of weird,” Ainsworth said.

She reported her sighting to Mutual UFO Network (MUFON).

Darlene Ross, who lives south of Ranger, noticed two orange lights in the sky about 8:45 p.m. Thursday. The two lights turned into four lights in a straight line, one stacked on top of the other.

“It was just the weirdest thing I ever saw in my entire life,” Ross said. “It was acting weird and it was scary.”

Nick Horn caught part of what he saw Thursday night on video.

He was at his house west of Stephenville talking on his phone outside. He saw on orange light above the house and went inside to get his family.

He said jets were flying across the sky coming out of nowhere. He grabbed his video camera and caught about 20 seconds of lights flashing across the sky.

Nick’s four-year-old brother Matthew was so excited that he tripped over a rock and bumped his head on the sidewalk.

“I saw four, five, six jets, then bam, hit my head,” Matthew said.

Unlike other witnesses, Nick said he got a good look at the lights above his house. It appeared to be a metal object hovering about 400 feet in the air.

He said it moved away from the house and disappeared before reappearing closer to Dublin.

Steve Hudgeons, MUFON Chief Investigator in Texas, said he received reports of three sightings near Stephenville on Thursday. At press time, he had not yet interviewed the witnesses.

At least one witness came forward to say she saw lights in the Stephenville skies on Tuesday night.

Sherry Sechrist was outside of her house in town when she and her family noticed the lights around 8:30 p.m.

She snapped a few pictures on her cell phone and her mom even caught video footage on her phone.

Sechrist said the lights would flash and move up and down and side to side. She could hear jets buzzing around the lights, but doesn’t think the jets produced the lights.

“I’d like to know what goes in reverse,” Sechrist said. “The lights would fly over and then they would stay still.”

United States Air Force Reserve Major Karl Lewis, public affairs officer at Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base in Fort Worth, responded to the numerous sightings.

“Seven F-16s from the 457th fighter squadron flew from Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base Fort Worth to the Brownwood Military Operation Area (MOA) for normal training operations, Thursday, 23 October 2008, from approximately 7:30 p.m. to 9 p.m. local time,” Lewis stated in an e-mail.

Similar sightings made national headlines 10 months ago after reporting unidentified flying objects in the southeastern county skies.

Source: http://www.empiretribune.com/articles/2008/10/26/news/doc4904c9d94bd6a785478381.txt

CNN Stephenville UFO Video

2008-10-25T17:52:00.000-07:00

Channel 8 WFAA Dallas covers Stephenville Lights

2008-10-25T06:18:00.000-07:00

http://www.khou.com/news/state/stories/khou081025_rm_ufo-sightings.14ab206e2.html

More UFO sightings reported in Stephenville
04:56 PM CDT on Saturday, October 25, 2008
By JIM DOUGLAS / WFAA-TV

Video

Jim Douglas reports

October 24, 2008

1/14: North Texas town abuzz

1/20: Group takes UFO sighting statements

1/24: Military admission fails to resolve UFO mystery

7/1: UNT checks UFO claim

9/17: Has UFO fame changed Stephenville?

LINK: National UFO Reporting Center

View larger

E-mail Clip

More lights spotted in Stephenville skies

2008-10-24T14:27:00.000-07:00

More lights spotted in Stephenville skies

by WHITNEY WHITE-ASHLEY
Staff Writer
whitney.ashley@empiretribune.com

Published: Friday, October 24, 2008 10:43 AM CDT

Dozens of Stephenville and Erath County residents have reported unidentified lights in the Texas sky this week.

Recent accounts started coming in Tuesday, Oct. 21. More sitings were reported Wednesday night and a stadium full of parents watching a Junior High Football game spotted more strange lights Thursday night.

Many witnesses reported seeing the lights and then watched jets chase after them. Local residents made headlines nine months ago after reporting unidentified flying objects in the southeastern county skies.

Source: http://www.empiretribune.com/articles/2008/10/24/news/doc4901ecfe63c39602731678.txt

Texas Official Demands Answers About Alleged UFO

2008-09-05T18:17:00.000-07:00

Sep 5, 2008 6:30 pm US/Central

Texas Official Demands Answers About Alleged UFO

Pam Harris

STEPHENVILLE (CBS 11 News) ― Dozens of Stephenville residents reported seeing UFOs in the area in January. At first, the military reported there were no aircraft in the area that night. Two weeks later, officials said they were conducting training exercises in the area.

Now some city officials want to know if a government exercise was being performed, why they weren't notified ahead of time.

"I want to know why public officials weren't notified of a large military operation in our area," said Stephenville City Councilmember Mark Murphy. He has filed a complaint with U. S. Air Force and the Federal Aviation Administration, demanding answers.

"My main concern is public safety," said Councilman Murphy. "I want to make sure that if anything like this is going on, people are alerted."

But residents were mixed on what the public needs to know.

"I think the government needs to let us know when we need to know, but on something like this, it's not appropriate," said Stephenville resident Cliff McMinn.

"I think the city has a right to know," said Dell Eastwood, a resident of Stephenville. "I guess the federal government doesn't think they do."

According to a local aviation expert, the military must communicate with the FAA, but they are not required to contact city officials. Councilman Murphy thinks that rule should be changed.

"Just so we know they're going to be operating in this area," he said. "It's only a courtesy - intergovernmental courtesy."

Councilman Murphy says he doesn't need to know details about what the military was doing over the skies of Stephenville that night, he just wants corrective action to be taken.

http://cbs11tv.com/watercooler/Stephenville.UFO.Latest.2.811195.html

Complaints Filed with FAA on Stephenville Case by Texas Representative

2008-09-04T09:01:00.000-07:00

BREAKING NEWS FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Stephenville Texas representative to Place 7 Mr. Mark Murphy has filed complaints with the FAA and the DOT (pursuant to 14 CFR 13 on air safety) on behalf of himself, his family, and his constituents as an elected representative regarding the events which took place over Stephenville Texas on the evening of January 8, 2008.

Mr. Murphy requested a reprimand of the USAF for large scale military operations in a populated area without notification of local authorities. City officials are supposed to be notified when such events are going to take place. No such notification was given prior to the F-16s flying over the city.

This is a bold step to force some action which is long over due. The fact that there were F-16s flying in and around the Stephenville area is serious because Stephenville is not within the military operating zone. Long time Stephenville resident and UFO witness Steve Allen said he saw a large UFO pass over head at a high rate of speed followed by a F-16 in pursuit.

All 301st public affairs chief Maj. Karl Lewis said is that 10 F-16s were in the sky that evening flying a training mission. No mention of large UFOs which out-passed F-16s as the multiple witnesses said they saw.

More at: http://www.ufocasebook.com/2008b/faacomplaint.html

OMEFT Interview with Angelia Joiner

2008-07-19T18:29:00.000-07:00

On Friday, July 11, 2008, a seminal event in the history of UFO investigation took place. A report titled, "Stephenville Lights: A Comprehensive Radar and Witness Report Study Regarding the Events of January 8, 2008 4pm to 8pm" was released to the public.

The report carefully documents information gleaned from four hours of civil aviation radar tracking data from several facilities during the core period of sightings over Erath County, Texas. More importantly, the authors, Glen Schulze and Robert Powell, correlate the positions, headings and speed of several unmarked objects detected by radar with ground sightings from eight different eyewitnesses.

Such a meticulous comparison involving multiple sightings and apparently multiple objects over a long period of time has never been accomplished before.The radar data corroborate the witness testimony and also document the actions of military aircraft in the area of interest.

News of the release of this report was broken nationally on that evening's episode of "Larry King Live" on CNN. Schulze and Powell were guests on the show, as were several Erath County residents who have become famous in ufology circles.

Instrumental in bringing the radar report to the national stage was Angelia Joiner. Angelia first broke the story of the UFO sightings in an article on January 10th in the Stephenville Empire Tribune, and subsequent articles launched the event into the global spotlight as regional, national and international news outlets picked up the story.

I had the chance to speak with Angelia Joiner about the report on Sunday two days after the release of the report.

What follows is an interview with Angelia:

Larry King Live

Razpad: I want to ask you how you got the show [Larry King Live] turned around to the topic of the report.

AJ: I did contact the CNN producer (before July 4th). I told her that I had some new developments and I thought Larry King would be interested. Well, lo and behold and to my surprise, she said, "We'll be calling you next week because we'll be coming back there."

I tried to find out why they were coming back. I knew that Ricky Sorrells had been invited by James Fox to go to Los Angeles to appear on the Larry King Live show [in May]. Ricky didn't feel like he could leave his animals, his cows were calving, and he had some other things going on, so he refused that offer. I thought they were coming for Ricky. I called Ricky over the weekend and he didn't think it was for him because he had not heard from James Fox for a while.

The producer did get back in touch with me. She said that James Fox was coming with her. She told me they planned to interview Ricky Sorrells and me. She told me Dr. [Seth] Shostak, Ken Cherry and Mike Zimmerman would be on and they would be talking about the [David] Coran video. Mike Zimmerman is the former protector of five Texas governors. He is somebody that I interviewed then put the story on www.stephenvillelights.com.

So, I wasn't really sure why we would be talking about something that is old news when we could be talking about this very-well-done report, very thoroughly researched, and it was new. I felt like the public deserved to know that something on radar did show up on the night of January 8, 2008 in Erath County. The other two witnesses that they were going to discuss on the show were not witnesses on January 8th.

If you look at the report it says an object was going 500+ mph then slowed down to around 49 mph, depending on deviation error. Officer X clocked it on police radar at 27 mph. He said that was one of the things that caught his attention because it looked like it should be falling out of the sky. I thought it was interesting that other witnesses did see it moving very, very slowly and so did Officer X. That was one of the reasons why I urged the producer to change the show line-up. I told the producer, "Look, I don't understand why we're going to talk about Zimmerman and Coran. For one thing, that's old news and, for another thing, neither one of them filed a MUFON report,"

Razpad: Is Officer X the same person as the Witness M, the last-minute appendix added to the report?

AJ: Yes, he is. I did a story on Stephenville Lights about Officer X's sighting, along with two other officers.

So, my goal was to get out what was new. I didn't want to rehash what was old. The other thing I had a problem with was that neither David Coran nor Mike Zimmerman filed MUFON reports.

Razpad: On Larry King's web site, it said, "We are revisiting the Stephenville, TX UFO case. Our guests include three of the History Channel's UFO Hunters!" It looked like UFO Hunters was getting top billing. Was that the way it was set up to start and you managed to flip it around?

AJ: Live TV shows change all the time. I'm not saying that Stephenville would have gotten less time than UFO Hunters. As far as I know, they were going to get equal time.

I had to ask about the line-up with the UFO Hunters. The producer told me we wouldn't be on with them. She told me that things could change right up to 15-20 minutes before the show started.

Razpad: Regardless of how it started, you did a tremendous job of getting your story "above the fold", as they say in newspaper jargon.

AJ: I'm not here to rub it in, though.

Razpad: Well, you did a great job.

AJ: Another thing, as soon as it started being publicized, that Larry King Live was going to revisit Stephenville, I started getting all kinds of emails. I had emails from Hong Kong and Europe asking questions. I was told some of Europe's top ufologists were gathering to watch the show, which I couldn't believe. I did forward some of those emails to the producer so she would know that a lot of people all over the world take a great interest in the Erath County sightings, even though several months have passed a lot of people are still following it.

Razpad: That was very savvy of you to do that.

AJ: It worked out how it worked out. I think we got 40 minutes and UFO Hunters got 20 minutes.

Razpad: Where was Steve Allen? He was the only one of the Mount Rushmore of Stephenville who wasn't present.

AJ: I wish I knew. His email box is full and if I try to call him or his wife it goes to voice mail. Maybe they are on vacation.

Ken Cherry was supposed to be on the show but he wasn't. I hope he isn't too upset with me. I did offer to give up my seat because I felt bad about that. I don't really have anything new to add. I kept telling the producer that but she had me on for all four segments of the show.

Razpad: You're the personality for the Erath County sightings. I thought it was very good the way you addressed the questions. You pulled everything back on point, on the message, very well done.

The Report

Razpad: You were familiar with this radar investigation for months and you had been in contact with the authors. How did you first learn about it?

AJ: I understand that Texas MUFON said they began seeing an escalation of sightings beginning in November of 2007 going through February of 2008. Glen Schulze contacted me shortly after he received the information from the FAA. He was very impressed with the data. He said something to the effect that it was the best, most complete set of radar data that he had ever received and that he has done a lot of radar report research.

Razpad: When was this?

AJ: I believe it was around the end of February. It might have been the first of March, somewhere around that time. He told me his background. He has a very impressive background that is included in the report. It seemed like everything he was telling me was above board. I called the Texas MUFON directors and asked if they would work with Glen Schulze because I knew they were going to put out a report. They declined the offer. I knew that Robert Powell was doing some serious probing for information. So when Texas MUFON said they didn't want to work with Schulze, I contacted Robert Powell. Robert checked into Schulze's background and they started working together. They work extremely well together, and Robert was grateful they could work together. Glen has a lot of expertise in radar. Robert is a very, very intelligent man and he knows a lot about statistics.

Razpad: Did Powell bring in all the ground reports, the witness reports from MUFON?

AJ: Yes. He correlated the witness reports to the radar data. It took a lot of time on both their parts, hundreds of hours. I'm surprised their families still have anything to do with them. That's all they did for months.

Razpad: Why did they zero in on just eight reports out of hundreds?

AJ: No, not hundreds. The Texas MUFON reports are from November through February. And that was the focus of the Texas report. On January 8th MUFON had 17 reports, so it's eight out of 17. That is the focus of the national report. The witness reports that didn't pan out had various reasons, something that made the report invalid such as unsure of the time or direction of the sighting. Eight valid reports is still a good amount.

It is just mind boggling to know they worked hundreds of hours on just four hours of radar data, from 4 o'clock until 8 o'clock. If they had to do it over again, they might have requested another hour or two of data for that day.

Razpad: Yes, because there are things that happened after 8 o'clock that are interesting.

AJ: Yes. There is a limited time to get FOIA requests submitted for radar data before it is erased. So that was their best guess at the time. I'm very pleased with the report. There were many people involved. They always copied emails to me that were about the report. Sometimes they would ask me a question. They really tried to look at all of the "what ifs" and tried to deduce the best answers they could. Otherwise, debunkers would try to tear it apart.

And that's really why other people were involved, to produce a good report and to get varied opinions. A lot of the material in the report is very technical, which I didn't understand. I told them, "I'm a regular person." They were very patient and explained things to me.

Razpad: On the other hand, that helps them write the final report in a clearer fashion because it's written for anyone to read, not just for radar experts to read. You provided that angle for them. Being a scientist, I know that sometimes you have to write in a clearer way because others reading a report might not have the background to understand.

AJ: My problem was trying to understand all of the acronyms.

Razpad: Which they put in the front of the report, I noticed. Schulze and Powell were very coy about author credits, they listed themselves as the primary authors. I presume that the other people involved want to remain anonymous?

AJ: Yes. Some of the other people involved have jobs so that going public could present a problem for them. There were a couple of people early on who were going to help with the interpretation of the data, but it got so in depth that they decided to bow out.

Razpad: There was an external review, right?

AJ: Yes, that's right.

Razpad: Did they say who?

AJ: I know who it is but they want to remain anonymous.

Razpad: Oh, okay. Is it a peer review?

AJ: Yes, I would call it a peer review.

Razpad: I wasn't sure if it was that or just a general review for clarity or perhaps even if it was reviewed by government or military personnel who maybe redacted some things they didn't want known.

AJ: The peer review came from radar professionals. Anyone can take that anyway they want to. That could mean they are from the military or FAA or air traffic controllers. It could mean a lot of different things. They aren't people that do it as a hobby. Professional people, either still working or retired.

Razpad: In the report, they come up with values for the size of the objects between 500 feet and about half a mile in diameter. How does that jibe with eyewitness reports and things that you've heard from talking to people?

AJ: One word that keeps coming up over and over is "huge". When I talk to people, everyone has a bit of a different perspective. I liken that to a vehicle accident scene where ten people witness the accident and I get ten stories, each a little bit different. None of those witnesses would be lying to me. It's just that from where they were, from their vantage point or their perspective, each story would be a little different even though they all saw the same accident. These witness sightings remind me of such a scene, really.

That and the speed. Most people talk about it shooting off, that it was very fast. Except for Officer X, who said it looked like it was just slowly falling out of the sky but then it did leave at a very quick speed. I can't figure out what it could be but there was definitely something here that night. I think the radar certainly proves that. Of course, the radar won't prove what it was or wasn't, but it does seem to vindicate some of the witnesses.

Beyond the Report

Razpad: At the end of the report, there is talk about the craft that is slowly moving toward Crawford late in the evening that goes outside of the four-hour window of data. Did you hear anything more about that from witnesses further south toward Crawford or about the Secret Service getting up in arms?

AJ: No. I lost a lot of data that was on my work computer when I left the newspaper. People were definitely calling and speculating if this had anything to do with Crawford and if jets scrambled because it crossed Crawford airspace. I can't remember even one person that called that lives near Crawford saying they saw something that night.

Razpad: I remember also on the UFO Hunters show they talked about the wider range of MUFON reports. They talked about the sightings in Stephenville and then sightings moving southward, over the subsequent days, towards Houston. What was happening before that? Does that mean that in December there were sightings in Oklahoma? Is that part of a larger trend?

AJ: I'm not sure we could say that because if you went to each MUFON database or even if you went to each state's UFO databases you would see sightings all over the place. I'm not sure how much we can read into that because it just seems like there are more and more sightings everywhere or they are being publicized more.

If it were really researched, there might be another pattern going toward the east. I don't know. I do remember somebody from Channel 10 in Corpus Christi came up and did a 3-day special on the sightings here. The people in town were very excited. The reporter was also very excited because three nights was a lot of airtime for him, 6 or 7 minute reports. There were some things going on in Corpus Christi, to the best of my recollection, right after January 8th. So, maybe that is what the UFO Hunters were referring to.

Razpad: I've heard reports, and you've heard them too, about a lot of air traffic over the area in the subsequent days, not just on January 8th. I know that was outside the scope of the report. Do you know if there was any discussion or new insights about that?

AJ: On the 10th, the day my first article about the Selden sighting came out, I got a lot of calls that day. People were asking me if that's the reason for all the transport helicopters and the jets. I didn't have a good answer for them. I do remember that day, January 10th, when I went to my car to go to lunch there were two big transport helicopters flying over us. So, I wondered too what was going on, if they were looking for something. We are used to those jets flying over us going to Brownwood, but it still seemed that there was more air traffic than usual.

I'm in a professional women's group. One of the members in that group emailed me. She had been coming home from Fort Worth on the 8th and took pictures. She said they were waiting to see an air collision because there was so much air traffic. She sent me the pictures and it looks like a grid pattern of contrails. Those pictures she sent me are on my web site, www.stephenvillelights.com. So, I got a lot of phone calls and emails about the increased air traffic. This was before the story picked up steam because the first stories came out on January 10th and 11th. The next Monday is when I talked to the Associated Press and they came down and interviewed Ricky Sorrells.

Razpad: Okay, so almost like a search pattern with aircraft flying in grids?

AJ: A whole lot of air traffic. You can't help but look up when those jets fly over because they are so loud. I did start making phone calls to try to find out if President Bush was at Crawford that night. He was out of the country, I believe.

Razpad: I have one last question, Angelia. Were there any reports from any of the eyewitnesses of any offensive or aggressive maneuvers by these UFOs?

AJ: No, I'm not aware of any reports like that. I haven't heard anybody say they were frightened. They said it disturbed them to think about what it could be, or something like that.

One of the things I was surprised about, I'm not now because I know more about it, but I received a lot of email from people containing bible verses. One lady wrote me and said that if I continued writing about UFOs then I was writing for the devil. You know, that caught me off guard. I wasn't really expecting those kinds of things. I got a lot of bible verses that were for and against, saying that UFOs have been around since the biblical days because there was the fiery chariot and that was a UFO and then the lady that said if I continued to write about UFOs I was writing for the devil.

Razpad: It takes all kinds! Thanks, Angelia.

AP Texas News - Radar shows large, fast, unexplained object

2008-07-15T11:07:00.000-07:00

July 14, 2008, 6:07PM
Radar shows large, fast, unexplained object

By ANGELA K. BROWN Associated Press Writer
© 2008 The Associated Press

FORT WORTH, Texas — An enormous aircraft without transponders traveling up to 2,100 mph — at one time zooming toward President Bush's Crawford ranch — is similar to the mysterious object dozens reported seeing, according to radar documents examined by a group that studies unidentified flying objects.

"This shows ample evidence of UFO activity," said Kenneth Cherry, Texas director of the Mutual UFO Network, which has been studying phenomenon earlier this year in Stephenville and Dublin, about 75 miles southwest of Fort Worth. "They were turning at angles not possible by military aircraft."

His organization, called MUFON, requested documents from the Federal Aviation Administration, nearby military bases and other agencies under the Freedom of Information Act.

FAA spokesman Roland Herwig said Monday that he had not seen the radar information provided to MUFON and could not comment on it or the group's interpretation of the data.

MUFON requested reports from the night of Jan. 8, when several dozen people in Texas dairy country — including a pilot, county constable, business owners and former air traffic controller — reported seeing a large silent object with bright lights flying low and fast.

Some folks reported seeing military jets chasing it, which also was confirmed in the FAA radar documents.

After talking to witnesses, MUFON investigators ended up looking into 300 reported UFO sightings spanning several weeks and said most were probably planets, cloud formations or stars.

But Cherry said the FAA radar data, which was examined by a radar expert and an engineer who works with MUFON, indicates that some reports do not have logical explanations.

"When you look at that, combined with the witness reports — that's as close to evidence of UFOs as I've seen," he said.

The object was between 524 feet and 1,000 feet long, according to a MUFON report released earlier this month. It's unclear if radar picked up the same object at different times or more than one object, Cherry said.

The object was within 10 miles of Bush's ranch about 8 p.m., but the president was not there that night. MUFON only requested information until 8 p.m. that night, so it's unclear where the object went after that.

At times when radar picked up a slow-moving object and fast-moving object, it was at the same time and place as witnesses' accounts, according to the report. At one time, the object accelerated to 532 mph in about 30 seconds and decelerated to 49 mph in 10 seconds, the report stated, based on radar information.

"The authors cannot comment on the source or origin of this object, but it is clear to the authors that the unknown object was real and not imaginary," they said in the MUFON report.

Radar tracked unidentified craft near Crawford, group's report says

2008-07-12T15:17:00.000-07:00

By MATT FRAZIER and MARK AGEE
mfrazier@star-telegram.com

Federal Aviation Administration radar appears to confirm the presence of unidentified aircraft on Jan. 8 over the Stephenville-Dublin area, with at least one appearing to head toward President Bush’s Crawford Ranch, the same night that dozens of people reported seeing UFOs, according to a report released Thursday by a national group that studies reports of unidentified flying objects.

According to the Mutual UFO Network report, the FAA radar indicated that several craft wer e moving in the same compass direction and time frame as those cited by Erath County residents. The craft were not military and did not have transponders that relay information about themselves to radar operators.

Radar tracked a Crawford-bound craft for more than an hour, according to the MUFON report. Witnesses said they saw two large glowing amber lights similar in size and color to the lights on the back of a school bus.

The object seemed to be stationary or moving at speeds of less than 60 mph most of the time, but at one point it accelerated to 532 mph in 30 seconds, according to the report. It did not seem to reach the property.

"The object was traveling to the southeast on a direct course towards the Crawford Ranch," the report states.

"The last time the object was seen on radar at 8 p.m., it was continuing on a direct path to Crawford Ranch and was only 10 miles away. During the entire episode of over an hour, there is no indication that any of the military jets reacted to this unknown craft."

Dozens of people around Dublin and Stephenville — about 70 miles southwest of Fort Worth — have reported seeing something in the sky on or about Jan. 8 that did not move like conventional aircraft. Some witnesses said the objects were accompanied or followed by military aircraft.

Media attention

The reports attracted international attention.

On Friday night, a producer from CNN’s Larry King Live program and a six-person production team from Dallas set up in the back yard of Ricky Sorrells, one of the UFO sighters who lives about eight miles west of Dublin.

They were there for a live interview with King, who was in his Los Angeles studio. Their segment of the show was titled "UFOs: Target Texas?"

Others interviewed were Erath County Constable Lee Roy Gaitan; Angelia Joiner, a former reporter for the Stephenville Empire-Tribune; and James Fox, a filmmaker from California.

Gaitan told a Star-Telegram reporter that he felt vindicated by the new report. "You probably think we’re just a bunch of hillbillies out here," Gaitan said. "There were people who did doubt me, but I know I saw something."

Gaitan and Joiner told King that they hadn’t given much thought to UFOs before Jan. 8. Now, it has taken over much of their lives. Joiner said she lost her reporting job because she was spending too much time on the UFO question.

She told King that all the witnesses’ stories are credible. "I used to go the other direction," she said, "But lately I think maybe we’re being visited from another place."

Gaitan said that for a while he was frustrated by all the attention. He said he has given at least 150 interviews.

"I was seeing that thing in my sleep," he said. "I was getting tired of it, but my wife reminded me that what I saw was pretty special and a lot of people would like to see it."

MUFON report

Two MUFON researchers said they got information for the report by filing 10 Freedom of Information requests to the FAA, National Weather Service, all nearby military bases, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, and the 21st and 30th Air Force Wing Commands. The researchers noted that the FAA and weather service were "very responsive," but most of the others responded that they had no information.

FAA spokesman Roland Herwig said he was not familiar with the radar data and could not comment Friday.

The report was released on the MUFON Web site late Thursday night.

It seems to back witnesses’ stories, including Gaitan’s, who said he saw an unknown object south of his home about four miles southwest of Dublin.

He described it as two amber lights that were initially stationary but changed into about 10 white lights that departed at a high rate of speed.

"Radar detects an object at 7:20 p.m. only 2.8 miles south-southwest of the constable’s home and traveling in a southeastern direction," the report states. "This matches very well with the time and direction of the constable’s sighting. At 7:36 p.m. radar shows the object suddenly veering to the north at 1,900 miles per hour and then returning a minute later to continue on its southeastern course."

Online: The report is available at www.mufon.com

MATT FRAZIER, 817-685-3854

UFO witnesses to be on TV

2008-07-11T16:51:00.001-07:00

Stephenville native Ricky Sorrells and other witnesses who claim they saw a UFO in January will be guests on Larry King Live today.

The show, which airs daily on cable news channel CNN at 8 p.m., will also feature three hunters from the History Channel show, "UFO Hunters."

Sewell and several other Stephenville natives claim they saw a large silent object with bright lights flying low and fast near Stephenville in January.

Radar spotted UFOs near Crawford in January, group says

2008-07-11T16:45:00.000-07:00

By Matt Frazier
mfrazier@star-telegram.com

A national group that studies unidentified flying objects has issued a report that says Federal Aviation Administration radar appears to confirm the presence of unidentified aircrafts over the Stephenville/Dublin area, with at least one apparently headed toward President Bush’s Crawford Ranch on the January night when dozens of witnesses reported UFOs.
The Mutual UFO Network report says radar indicates that several aircraft were found Jan. 8 in the same compass direction and time frame as cited by the witnesses, but were not military and did not have transponder, which relay information about the craft to radar operators.
The 77-page report released on the MUFON Web site (www.mufon.com) late Thursday night. The organization gathered data for its radar report by filing 10 Freedom of Information requests to the FAA, National Weather Service, all nearby military bases, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Services and the 21st and 30th Air Force Wing Commands.
FAA spokesman Roland Herwig said he was not familiar with the radar data and could not immeditely comment on the report.
According to the report, one Crawford-bound craft was tracked by radar for more than an hour. Witnesses said they saw two large glowing amber lights similar in size and color to the lights on the back of a school bus.
The object seemed to be stationary or moving speeds of less than 60 mph most of the time, but at one point it accelerated to 532 miles per hour in 30 seconds, according to the report. But it did not seem to reach the property.
“The object was traveling to the southeast on a direct course towards the Crawford Ranch, also known as President Bush’s western White House,” the report sates. “The last time the object was seen on radar at 8 p.m., it was continuing on a direct path to Crawford Ranch and was only 10 miles away. During the entire episode of over an hour, there is no indication that any of the military jets reacted to this unknown craft.”
Dozens of people around Dublin and Stephenville — about 70 miles southwest of Fort Worth — say they saw flying objects on or around Jan. 8 that they could not identify and that did not move like conventional aircraft. Some of the witnesses said the objects were being accompanied or followed by military aircraft.
Descriptions vary. Some told of objects up to a mile long and hundreds of yards high. Others reported seeing two to eight lights that flew in formation, changed color and shined with intensity greater than a welding flame.
These sightings gained national and international attention because of the number and credibility of witnesses, including a county constable and a pilot. Many of the witnesses are familiar with aircraft because the military has a flight practice zone that ends just south of the sighting area.
The radar report seems to back witnesses stories, including that of constable Lee Roy Gaitan, who said he saw an unknown object south of his home about four miles southwest of Dublin. He described it as two amber lights that were initially stationary that changed into about 10 white lights that departed at a high rate of speed.
“Radar detects an object at 7:20 p.m. only 2.8 miles south southwest of the constable’s home and traveling in a southeastern direction,” the report states. “This matches very well with the time and direction of the constable’s sighting. At 7:36 p.m. radar shows the object suddenly veering to the north at 1,900 miles per hour and then returning a minute later to continue on its southeastern course.”
The authors of the report said they reached conclusions:
nThere was definitely a real and physical object that appeared and was witnessed.
nThe military did not act overtly to the presence of these objects.
nMilitary air traffic was unusually heavy and twice veered into civilian airspace.
The Mutual UFO Network is a nationwide organization that studies unidentified flying objects. Its Texas chapter took statements from about 50 witnesses Jan. 19 and interviewed at least 70 more, gathering descriptions, sketches, pictures and videos.
The report is online at www.mufon.com.
MATT FRAZIER, 817-685-3854

Stephenville UFO report out

2008-06-15T07:01:00.000-07:00

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.

Strange lights over Texas

2008-06-14T04:40:00.000-07:00

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

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

2008-06-11T10:01:00.001-07:00

June 11, 2008 at 09:39:23

by Bill Knell Page 1 of 1 page(s)

http://www.opednews.com

Tell A Friend

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

2008-06-11T08:10:00.000-07:00

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

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.

New Alien Video Shines (Photoshopped) Light on UFO Hoaxers

2008-06-03T15:08:00.000-07:00

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

2008-06-03T06:05:00.000-07:00

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.

Stephenville, Texas UFO Sightings Timeline and Summary

2008-06-01T06:06:00.000-07:00

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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Category: Cases in UFOlogy

The Lies about the UFO Sightings in Stephenville, Texas and more

2008-05-31T09:12:00.000-07:00

Military Lies about UFOs

MUFON and the Stephenville Sightings

2008-05-28T15:17:00.000-07:00

Mixed results for MUFON

Billy Cox

Published Wednesday, May 28, 2008 at 4:20 p.m.
Last updated Wednesday, May 28, 2008 at 4:26 p.m.

There’s probably a story on human psychology to be written about January’s UFO furor over Stephenville, Tex. But Ken Cherry won’t touch it with a 10-foot cliche.

As director of the Texas Mutual UFO Network, Cherry spearheaded the investigation of the incident that lured media hordes into north Texas cow town. On May 19, the Associated Press reported how MUFON didn’t find a smoking gun. But a week later, Cherry says MUFON’s critics are slamming the results.

“There are people out there who have a vested interest in keeping this story alive,” Cherry says from his home in Keller, Tex. “But I’m not going to waste my time and energy trying to defend our report. The results speak for themselves."

Among MUFON’s most contentious findings: video footage of a nighttime UFO was simply a star being jiggled by an unsteady hand working the viewfinder. That sequence made the YouTube rounds and was being seriously analyzed as evidence of symbolic alien communication.

“We went to the exact location where the guy shot it, and since it had the date and the time on the bottom, it was pretty easy to determine it was a star,” Cherry says. “It was something a kid with a star map could do.”

Then there was the real-time manifestation of Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle, the idea that observing an event alters the event:

Cherry says the media circus that swamped Stephenville impeded MUFON’s efforts. MUFON began receiving UFO reports from the region in December, but the network coverage immediately created what Cherry charitably describes as a collective “heightened state of awareness.” Not to mention mercenary incentives.

“There are still videos and photos out there we continue to hear about, but some owners expect to be paid,” Cherry says. “This place was descended upon by production companies looking for footage. The asking price would start at $5,000 and it went up from there.”

The MUFON report’s closest approximation of a smoking gun was buried in the tenth graph of the AP piece. MUFON’s Freedom of Information Act queries produced Federal Aviation Administration documents indicating its radar tracked a large object zipping along at 700 mph at 6:35 p.m. on January 8. More ominously in this post-9/11 era, the blip had no transponder.

“Apparently, there was a phenomenon of some sort going on,” says Cherry. “There have always been significant military bases in this area, so the folks who live out there are used to seeing military aircraft. They’re not suddently going to start misidentifying military jets as UFOs.

“The timing (of the radar hit) is important because it comes within 10 minutes of when (freight company operator/pilot Steve Allen) said he first saw it,” Cherry says. Allen described an object of nearly mile long and half a mile wide.

Finally, as Cherry learned from old-timers, that rural tract of Texas has been the scene of UFO events going back decades. Meaning that theories concerning the object’s 60-mile proximity to the Bush ranch in Crawford are irrelevant.

Cherry says the real lesson behind the Stephenville Incident is for the Air Force, which initially denied it had planes in the air that night, only to reverse itself a week or so later.

“If you don’t know the answer to something,” Cherry says, “then just say you don’t know the answer.”

Last modified: May 28, 2008 4:26pm

MUFON Investagation: Stephenville

2008-05-24T15:10:00.000-07:00

"Momma's in the basement mixing up some medicine, I'm
on the pavement thinking about the govenement" Bob Dylan

MUFON’s Journal published results of the organization’s findings on the detailed reports from 70 witnesses in Texas in its April 2008 issue. Bottom line: the vast majority of witnesses who reported to MUFON were regular people just wanting to get answers about what they saw. Of the many people who reported UFOs, 2 were found to be hoaxers. Amazing! You’d think with all the screams out there on You-Tube and debunker land, it’d be closer to 70.

There were almost as many UFO reports from the two Texas counties --Stephenville and Dublin-- in January and February in 2008 as in all of 2007, according to the only ones who are doing any data collection…our own good UFO organizations.

Notably, MUFON’s investigation found there were two “official” daylight sightings reporting a “large craft gray in color”, silent and moving at a high rate of speed. Many Texas reports were similar to those logged around the world, featuring large sequential blinking lights in the sky. Also notable about the Stephenville sightings is how many witnesses came forward with old reports. I guess they felt it was finally safe to do so. This factor of multiple, belated UFO reports --indicating many pre-existing UFO sightings from the region-- is in itself important, no matter how you slice it.

MUFON was not able to get written reports from the local Police Officers, just verbal descriptions. So what did these trained observers report? Three officers who gave accounts describe a large “craft”, gray in color with red strobe lights on the top. The two officers who were outside at the time reported the craft they observed was silent.

Of this investigation, 18 reports are unknown, with five still under investigation. They still have 100 continuing UFO sighting reports around the Dublin area. So the Great Stephenville UFO Incident of 2008 is not over because the press calls it over.

Not all the UFOs were of the same type. I like this one:
“At 6:50 AM on January 11, James Beatty had a close encounter…he saw bright white lights coming over a hill, on the opposite side of the dam…hugging the shore line…it was delta shaped…black and gray in color…approached to about 30 to 50 yards away… no bigger then a 1978 Thunderbird…rear was rectangle with three large round openings in its side. No apparent thrust nor fire…extended canopy running three quarters of the way down the fuselage. It was metallic as well. The bottom looked like it had panel lines, it had three non-blinking white lights under it. It made no sound at all.”

Just a reminder to the “ well… it’s only lights in the sky” bunch, CRAFT is the term three trained observers used to describe their daylight sighting.

For all you secret government test flight fanatics: why would the government be flying a huge, top-secret craft, near paranoid George’s ranch, in daylight?

And finally for all of you “why in the world would aliens fly a trillion miles to go to Texas?” theoreticians: it’s called bases. Try to think ahead!

David Coram Video. Seen on “Alien Hunters” episode Diagrams In The Sky, this one’s still an enigma. MUFON Journal reported Dr. Bruce Maccabee and others wanted to find the light source but “time restraints” kept them from going to the original spot. So until that is done, I can’t go with Maccabee’s conclusion, that what was captured was just a camera effect combined with atmospheric conditions and an out-of-focus star. David Coram’s grandchild, who was first to point out this strange light source, was drawn to it and asked his grandfather about the “lightening” in the sky. He saw that movement with the unaided eye.

So a follow up is what they deserve. I think “Alien Hunter” should do a follow up on Texas, too. After all, Stephenville was the biggest UFO phenomenon of the year, and there are more than 100 UFO sightings still being reported there. Also, it’s important to not let it the case get too cold. While the Alien Hunter crew is there, they could also do a follow-up, confirming, if that be the case, Maccabee’s conclusion by simply filming a star from the same place David Coram’s daughter pointed out what she was seeing.

Since the US Government’s not exactly forthcoming these days, CITIZEN INITIATIVE AND CAN DO is still looking like the smartest and most civilized response. Wouldn’t it be great if some other optics and video experts would join MUFON and volunteer some time? So…what are you doing next weekend?

MUFON needs people of all expertise levels to help analyze the enormous quantities of video and photos now being submitted. I heard it from good sources that MUFON is backed up for two years on the normal processing of multimedia submitted for examination. MUFON is a great organization and doing a fine job. Those hundred Texas witness reports are still waiting to be gathered and investigated. MUFON needs more skilled volunteers. How many will step forward?

Alien Hunters complements citizen organization efforts.
I’m happy “Alien Hunters” is on the air. The show allows access to scientific equipment that is many times beyond the frugal expense accounts of many of our citizen organizations.

Of course presenting the proper evidence is crucial in getting to the answers. But actually being there in the midst of a flap and catching something with the best equipment would be highly desirable. The next best thing is sending investigators quickly to do a thorough job. “Alien Hunters” gets a B+; with some work it can be a great show and help the larger effort validating the witnesses to these phenomenon and according witnesses their much deserved…and overdue respect. I don’t like the idea of offering money to witnesses for UFO video. The practice opens up a can of worms and does nothing to help the credibility of sightings or witnesses.

I still wonder how many people never reported what they saw.

Joseph Capp
UFO Media Matters

Stephenville UFO incidents explored in detail

2008-05-21T06:03:00.000-07:00

Steve Hammons

May 20, 2008

According to a May 19 Associated Press article by Angela K. Brown, an investigation of the Stephenville and Erath County, Texas, UFO sightings has concluded that "most of the 300 reported sightings ... earlier this year were probably planets, cloud formations or stars."

The investigation the AP article referred to was that of the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON).

Kenneth Cherry, MUFON'S Texas director, told the AP that although his investigators concluded that many witnesses saw planets and cloud formations, other reports by very credible observers were more difficult to explain.

"Hard-core" evidence included nearly identical descriptions by three area peace officers.

Cherry said, "The bottom line is: We really do believe something did occur down there. That doesn't mean we know what it was, who it belongs to or where it came from."

Now that MUFON has issued a report, it may be appropriate to review some of the key timelines and events of the Stephenville and Erath County sightings.

FIRST REPORTS

In January 2008, residents in the towns of Stephenville, Dublin and other areas of Erath County reported seeing unusual lights and/or what seemed to be solid objects in the skies there.

The local newspaper, the Stephenville Empire-Tribune, carried articles about these citizen reports written by reporter Angelia Joiner.

In a Jan. 14 article, the AP's Brown wrote the first story on the incident for the national and international news media.

According to the AP article, "several dozen" local residents observed "a large silent object with bright lights flying low and fast."

These witnesses included "a pilot, county constable and business owners," the AP reported.

When I covered the initial AP report in a Jan. 15 article, the sightings seemed like another of several, including the 2006 Chicago O'Hare airport incident and others.

What was particularly interesting was the account of one local citizen: "Local resident Ricky Sorrells said he spotted a flat, metallic object hovering approximately 300 feet above a pasture near his home. Sorrells said he used the telescopic sight on his rifle to view the object."

By Jan. 17, the story of the Stephenville UFOs had spread around the country and the world. CNN and other major media had picked up the AP report and, surprisingly to some people, covered the case with objectivity and intelligence.

Soon, researchers and news media were heading for Erath County. Maybe even some government spooks were looking around too.

In a Jan. 17 article on these developments, I included additional background on the UFO phenomena, as I understood it, because many Texans and others were apparently curious about any background on the subject.

In the article, I also touched on the idea of "acclimation" of the public about the UFO situation.

BIGGER PICTURE

As CNN's Larry King, the NBC Today show's Matt Lauer and other media continued to cover the Stephenville sightings, it seemed that some deeper background and context would be helpful.

So, in a Jan. 22 article I took a look at other emerging phenomena and the way things like social psychology, religion and human consciousness might be part of a larger picture.

I touched on the issue of "remote viewing," ESP techniques developed by U.S. military and intelligence communities, because this is another unusual and somewhat unexplained situation too, like UFOs. In addition, the topic of remote viewing helps get to the heart of research about human consciousness and what it is connected to.

By late January, as the Air Force changed its story about F-16s being in the air over Stephenville the night of some of the sightings, the public was getting more curious about the case. More witness accounts and rumors were surfacing. Many people thought the Air Force reversal about military aircraft activity in the area was interesting.

My Jan. 25 article provided some updates and reminded readers that public information officers and public affairs officers are sometimes put in difficult positions.

Related to this, issues of distribution of "intelligence" have both secret and open aspects. I touched on "open source intelligence" or OSINT. Human intelligence (HUMINT) was obviously another kind of intel playing a big part in the Stephenville incidents.

As Texans and people around the U.S. and the world pondered the Stephenville case, more natural questions emerged: What if we are being "visited?" If so, who are they? And how long have they been visiting and what are they doing?

Of course, many people interested in this field have wondered about and researched these questions. So, in my Jan. 26 report I tried to give a reasonable overview of what some of the views and theories were.

From the basics such as the so-called "Roswell incident" to reports of different kinds of ETs, the article kicked around concepts and rumors to get people thinking "outside the box" a bit.

WITNESS THREATENED?

Then things got a big scary back in Erath County. One of the main witnesses who had appeared on TV news shows, Ricky Sorrells, reported he had been threatened on the phone by a person identifying himself as an Air Force colonel. Then, a menacing stranger appeared at his rural home in the middle of the night.

Sorrells' story was covered in the Stephenville Empire-Tribune newspaper by reporter Angelia Joiner, who had been swamped with calls and e-mails over past weeks from local residents, researchers and other news media representatives.

The details of Sorrells' 2:30 a.m. encounter with an intruder was frightening to many and injected a more serious factor into the UFO sightings.

My Feb. 7 piece detailed this troubling incident and pointed out that, according to some researchers, witnesses to UFO sightings have frequently been subjects of interest for apparent government operatives or others, both in the U.S. and other countries.

Then another strange development took place in Stephenville. The reporter, who had been covering the reports from residents from the beginning, Angelia Joiner, suddenly left the Empire-Tribune in an apparent falling-out with newspaper managers.

Joiner had apparently done an admirable job in covering the story and fielding inquiries and tips. Her solid reporting had caught the attention of the national media and the tone of her articles seemed to contribute to the serious and professional news coverage that followed.

Local residents who stepped forward were treated with respect by Joiner and others in the media.

Shortly after Joiner's article on the apparent threats to Sorrells, which appeared to be a law enforcement and public safety story as much as a UFO topic, Joiner left the paper.

As a former community newspaper reporter myself, this development seemed particularly interesting and I took a look at it in a Feb. 9 report.

The fact that the roles of the news media and the dissemination of information about the UFO situation are such important and apparently complex elements made Joiner's separation from the Empire-Tribune all the more interesting.

The issue of censorship and the manipulation of the news media have long been and are now very crucial topics of public discussion about everything from unusual phenomena to the invasion and occupation of Iraq.

POLICE VIDEO AND FOREIGN-OWNED MEDIA

Although it turned out that Joiner's decision to leave the newspaper was somewhat of a mutual decision or sorts, many interested people wanted to contact the owners of the Empire-Tribune, apparently a Texas-based media company.

However, as people looked deeper into this matter, it turned out that the paper, and dozens of other community papers in Texas and around the U.S. had been purchased by a huge foreign financial conglomerate in Australia called Macquarie.

Macquarie also had a road construction division that was pushing a huge toll-road project in Texas – a project that many Texans apparently opposed.

This, of course, was an element of the possible manipulation of the press not by shadowy government intelligence agents covering up UFOs, but by a foreign company with business interests and a reputation of very friendly relations with government officials, including high-paying positions with the company.

This was a slight detour from the main UFO subject, but one that was interesting to Texans and others interested in the integrity of the U.S. news media and the journalism profession.

In my Feb. 13 article I covered this angle as well as other even more shocking news emerging from sources in Stephenville: A UFO had been caught on police car videotape.

Erath County Constable Lee Roy Gaitan, who had been an original witness to unusual lights in the area and had been interviewed by media representatives, revealed that local peace officers had caught the UFO on a "dash cam" mounted on patrol cars.

It was also made clear that several local law enforcement officers had witnessed highly unusual lights and/or solid objects and had compared notes and drawn sketches. These officers were reluctant to come forward publicly, Gaitan said.

As an elected official, Gaitan indicated he did not have concerns about being fired for treating the situation honestly and as openly as possible, though other officers did have these concerns.

Around this time frame, things started breaking fairly fast on this story. In a second Feb. 13 piece I reported on more details of accounts by local public safety officers about what was on the police video.

Gaitan himself watched the video and provided a detailed description to researcher and Emmy Award-winning journalist Linda Moulton Howe.

The fact that the police dash cam had a zoom feature allowed officers to see a more detailed view of a very unusual object.

It also became clear that local officers were in a delicate position of knowing more than was reaching the public and they were coordinating among themselves about how to handle these surprising developments.

They didn't learn how to handle a situation like this in law enforcement training.

But, for those who have looked into how public safety personnel handle UFO matters, there is the well-known 1992 firefighter training manual A FIRE OFFICER'S GUIDE TO DISASTER CONTROL published by Fire Engineering Books & Videos.

Authors and experienced firefighting experts William M. Kramer and Charles W. Bahme cover many aspects of this important public safety profession. Along with conventional firefighter training, there is an interesting chapter titled "Disaster Control and UFOs."

I included that chapter verbatim in my article. This was intended to provide information and support for peace officers, firefighters and citizens about research, planning and procedures.

DEVELOPING STORY

By Feb. 24, one officer involved was identified as Erath County Sheriff's Department Sgt. Jim Clifton. Reporter Angelia Joiner, now writing for the new Web site StephenvilleLights.com, provided continuing coverage from sources in the Stephenville area, including the law enforcement community.

Clifton and 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 had reported. The object was picked up and taped by a patrol car dash cam.

In my Feb. 24 report, I provided an overview and details of this encounter as reported by Gaitan, Joiner and researcher Howe.

The account of the two officers observing the object was fascinating.

Then, on Feb. 28, Joiner reported on StephenvilleLights.com that a third respected officer had come forward.

In a March 1 article, based on Joiner's reporting, I wrote, "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."

Joiner's relationships and mutual respect and trust with local people had once again led to amazing information.

On Jan. 31, Zimmerman saw something from the window of his home that was not quite like other witnesses, but was very out of the ordinary.

He showed Joiner a sketch and notes he had made. In her article, Joiner 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 also 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."

By late March, local officers who had witnessed something created a sketch and it was released to the public via StephenvilleLights.com.

In a March 25 article I included descriptions by officers Joiner's quotes of the officers of an incident that occurred Jan. 8, 2008, between 7:30 p.m. and 7:45 p.m. The officer´s name was not released.

The diagram of the object described 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 was 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, as reported by Joiner, 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."

UFO SPEED TRACKED WITH RADAR DEVICE

When it seemed like the Stephenville UFO incidents could not get any more interesting, something even more surprising was revealed.

The officer who said the object was traveling "at 27 mph" apparently either had a good eye for measuring speed or some other information.

Sure enough, Joiner once again broke the story in a March 30 article on StephenvilleLights.com that the officer had tracked the object with his police radar gun and measured the speed precisely as the UFO departed.

This development was too good for me to not write a piece about it so I made it the focal point of a March 31 article.

Joiner did not identify this officer and referred to him as "Officer X" in her reports.

"I want people to know that the citizens are telling the truth," Officer X told Joiner.

"They're not lying," he said. "They are telling the truth. There was something there. I think it's stealthy. It has a stealth capability. I think it can change colors with the sky. It was as dark as the sky until it lit up."

He also confirmed that several other local officers also witnessed the craft.

When he first observed the craft, it was hovering in a horizontal position. It was approximately 100 to 500 feet off the ground, based on reports of other officers.

Officer X told Joiner, "My estimate is the object was about a half mile away at the most. At first, I thought it was a big aircraft, but then I realized it was hovering. I then thought, 'An aircraft that size doesn't hover.'"

Joiner quoted him as stating that, "It started out horizontal, went up to the left at 30 to 40 degrees, and stopped for about five seconds. Then it went slowly vertical. It took about another five seconds to do this; then it slowly moved away to the northwest. It was one big craft."

The object eventually slowly moved away from him, still at a low altitude. Then he could no longer observe it as it went behind trees. He was also called to respond to an unrelated official police situation.

AN ONGOING STORY

Just last week, the government of the United Kingdom released previously classified files on UFO sightings and investigations.

The chief astronomer at the Vatican Observatory said in published reports that extraterrestrial visitors are possible and tried to integrate this possibility or probability with Christian beliefs.

CNN's Larry King and NBC's Dateline shows both recently covered the ongoing topic of UFOs and the idea of extraterrestrial and/or extra-dimensional visitation.

We are sure to hear more about this topic in the coming days.

Whether we like it or not, we are becoming used to sightings, reports and theories about what these objects in the sky and close encounters might mean. We are becoming acclimated to these incidents and to a possible unusual situation.

The Stephenville incidents helped put the issue in the media spotlight and the brave and down-to-Earth people of Erath County helped all of us deal with these reports in a straightforward and responsible way.

There are sure to be more such incidents in the future and hopefully we will handle them with intelligence, safety, compassion, strength common sense and open minds.

NOTE TO READERS: Those who enjoyed this article may also want to read the piece "UFO acclimation now underway?" For more information and resources about these and other topics, please visit the Joint Recon Study Group and have a look around.

Stephenville UFO traveling at 27 mph apparently broke no speed limits

2008-05-20T07:30:00.000-07:00

... and thus was not cited by police.

By Pegasus News wire

Ken Cherry, state director of the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) for Texas, stated on Sunday (May 18) that the numerous sightings of unidentified flying objects reported over Stephenville and Dublin back in January have yielded no definite evidence as to their - um - true nature.

The MUFON members and others gathered at an Irving public library heard Mr. Cherry and investigator Steve Hudgeons state that the findings of their investigation into the sightings are inconclusive - even though one of the witnesses was able to shoot some dark video of the lights in the nighttime sky with his or her cellphone.

A police officer was actually able to clock the movements of one of the objects with his radar gun, but it was only traveling at 27 mph - presumably not enough for him to pull it over on a speeding charge, more's the pity.

Investigators: Most Texas UFO reports can be explained

2008-05-20T07:27:00.000-07:00

This year's sightings in Stephenville and Dublin likely planets or clouds, but some remain a mystery

By ANGELA K. BROWN
Associated Press

FORT WORTH — Most of the 300 reported UFO sightings in Texas dairy country earlier this year were probably planets, cloud formations or stars, according to a group that investigates unidentified flying objects.

But some cases still remain a mystery, said Kenneth Cherry, Texas director of the Mutual UFO Network, which examined the January and February phenomenon in Stephenville and Dublin, about 75 miles southwest of Fort Worth.

"The bottom line is: We really do believe something did occur down there," Cherry said Monday. "That doesn't mean we know what it was, who it belongs to or where it came from. But the large number of witnesses in a small populated area is significant in and of itself."

Still, many Erath County residents are unfazed by the group's logical explanations for many sightings.

"We all know what we saw," said Steve Allen, a pilot and freight company owner. "It had so much technology and was just so far advanced. I know I keep saying it, but I just don't think it was from around these parts."

Although some details differed, many folks reported seeing a large silent object with bright lights flying low and fast. Some said its lights changed configuration, disputing suggestions that it was an airplane or secret, experimental military aircraft. They also said it was larger, quieter, faster and lower to the ground than an airplane.

Some reported seeing something unusual in the sky as early as November, but most came forward in January after the local media covered a sighting by at least 10 people, including Allen. He and a few others said they saw fighter jets chasing it Jan. 8.

Although Air Force Reserve officials in Fort Worth initially said none of their planes were in the area Jan. 8, they later said they were mistaken and that 10 F-16 fighter jets were training that night in the Stephenville area.

The Mutual UFO Network's Texas officials then began investigating. They took statements, cell phone photographs and even drawings from witnesses including a county constable, preacher, college professor, teacher, truck driver and business owners in four counties — mostly Erath, the state's top dairy county.

The group also obtained, under the Freedom of Information Act, a Jan. 8 radar image from the Federal Aviation Administration. It showed an object — not a passenger plane but possibly a military jet or unknown object — moving at 700 mph about 6:35 p.m. with no transponder, according to a report in the copyrighted May issue of the MUFON UFO Journal to be released this week. Allen's reported sighting was about 6:15 p.m.

Other "hard-core" evidence was the nearly identical accounts by three law enforcement officers in different locations, Cherry said.

Erath County Constable Lee Roy Gaitan said he saw red glowing lights and then white flashing lights moving rapidly across the sky one night in January. But on two nights in February, he said he saw a different object: a large orb with a triangle shape inside it, with white and multicolored lights, moving across the sky.

Gaitan still isn't sure about the existence of UFOs but said the objects were not a plane, weather balloon, planet or star.

"I wasn't as surprised as the first time I saw something, even though it was different," Gaitan said Monday. "To this day I don't know what it was. I just try not to look up in the sky now."

Cherry said that although the witnesses were credible, some of their descriptions varied widely. He said his investigators were able to determine that many people saw planets, cloud formations or a piece of material from a military jet.

"They're not trained observers, and with all the media attention, they reported it — which we want them to do," Cherry said.

He also said his investigators determined that a 12-minute videotape depicted close-up footage of a star rather than a multicolored UFO zigzagging across the sky.

But Allen, who says he was among the first to see the original video while Cherry's group may have received a copy, said it clearly shows the object moving while trees and houses in the background do not. He said he will "absolutely not" change his mind.

"People continue to see things out here, so whatever it is, it must like us," Allen said.

NBC's Dateline Airs Misleading UFO Footage

2008-05-20T07:26:00.000-07:00

Posted by Tony Ortega at 12:30 PM, May 19, 2008

Here we go again.

UFOs are easy ratings, so I guess it isn’t surprising that Dateline aired something last night called “10 Close Encounters Caught on Tape.”. To its credit, the NBC program at least made an attempt to provide prosaic explanations for each of the events it presented. In most cases, those explanations were actually pretty good, and the “UFO experts” came off as yahoos.

But when I realized that they were saving for last—the #1 event!—the lame Phoenix Lights, the 1997 event that I helped debunk years ago as a reporter in Arizona, I prepared myself for yet another time that so-called journalists wouldn’t get even the most basic facts right.

And I wasn’t disappointed.

Hey, NBC, try to pay attention: there were TWO separate events on the night of March 13, 1997 over the skies of Arizona. The mysterious “vee” that so many people across the state witnessed was seen over Prescott at about 8:15 p.m. and traveled south over Phoenix at about 8:30 andpassed over Tucson at 8:45. That’s 200 miles in thirty minutes which—check with your calculator if you’d like—means the vee was moving at about 400 miles per hour. Some early eyewitnesses perceived that the vee was high in the sky, others swore it was low and moving very slowly. (And I mention “early” purposely. As the months passed, more and more elaborate—and ridiculous—claims were made by eyewitnesses who were clearly trying to one-up each other.) But as I’ve pointed out many times, the eyeball is a lousy instrument for judging the altitude of point sources of light in a night sky. Simple physics, however, suggests the vee was high in the sky and moving very fast.

As I first revealed in the Phoenix New Times in 1998 on the event’s first anniversary, a young man with a Dobsonian telescope spotted the vee from his backyard, and saw that it was a formation of airplanes. When the young man, Mitch Stanley, tried to contact a city councilwoman making noise about the event, as well as a couple of UFO flim-flam men working the local scene, he was rebuffed. I was the first reporter to talk to him, and, as a telescope builder myself, I made a thorough examination of his instrument and his knowledge of it. (For the inexperienced: a Dobsonian telescope is much easier to move than the crappy department store scope in your garage; it’s child’s play for an experienced observer, like Stanley, to get a good look at passing planes at altitude.) And he had a witness: he had told his mother, who was standing nearby, that the lights were planes. After my story, the Arizona Republic also wrote about Stanley, and also found him impressive. Didn’t you check that out, Dateline?

Back to the night of March 13. News of the 8:30 pm sighting traveled fast, so a large number of people were outside with videocameras when the second and unrelated event, at about 10 pm, happened in the sky southwest of Phoenix. A string of lights appeared in the sky, and slowly sank until they disappeared behind the nearby Estrella Mountain range. This was later shown to be a string of flares dropped by the Maryland Air National Guard over the North Tac military range. Dr. Lynne Kitei can tell NBC that these lights were magical and “intelligent” and later showed up just outside her living room window all she wants, but the videotapes taken that night by many people show without a doubt that this was a string of mundane lights that fell and disappeared behind the range, exactly as a string of flares dropped by the military planes would.

Now, the problem developed when the “flare” explanation emerged first, and took root hard, explaining away the 10 pm sighting. But for the many people who had seen the earlier vee pass directly over their heads, flares made no sense whatsoever. And news organizations never bother to differentiate between the two events or report on the Stanley identification—even the Arizona Republic (a truly pathetic example of a daily newspaper) stopped referring to its earlier solid reporting on the Lights and began promoting it as “unexplained.”

To this day, programs like Dateline invariably question people who saw the earlier “vee” event, and quote them saying that flares couldn’t possibly explain what they saw. They are right. They didn’t see flares, they saw a formation of planes.

In last night’s program, Dateline repeatedly showed people talking about their memories of the 8:30 vee while showing video of the 10 pm flares. Talk about misleading.

By the way, NBC: There was a single camerman who caught the 8:30 vee and the later event. I saw his tape myself. It clearly showed the five lights of the 8:30 vee moving in relation to each other, exactly as you’d expect in a formation of airplanes. Couldn’t get that tape for your program?

As for the people who swore they saw a black triangular shape joining the five lights of the vee, that’s a classic contrast effect of the human eye. In another very telling case, a man who swore he saw a black shape joining the lights of the vee saw it pass directly in front of the moon. At that point, he saw not a black shape but wavy lines pass over the undimmed moon. But rather than conclude that he’d seen the contrails of planes, the man, who had already been worked hard by the flim-flam artists, concluded instead that the pilot of the alien craft had turned his spaceship transparent right at that moment so the man could see the moon through it. How thoughtful!

Perhaps it’s a good thing that NBC has now declared this the number 1 UFO sighting of all time. It’s one of the very few so well checked-out by reporters, and one of the few that has been so thoroughly debunked. But you won’t hear that from the networks, who can’t get enough of the ratings that come with “the unexplained.”

UFO network cannot confirm Texas incident

2008-05-20T07:25:00.000-07:00

STEPHENVILLE, Texas, May 20 (UPI) -- The Texas chapter of the Mutual UFO Network says it has been unable to confirm sightings around the town of Stephenville, despite multiple witnesses.

Ken Cherry, director of the Texas chapter of the group that tracks unidentified flying objects, said what was thought to be the strongest piece of evidence for a UFO visitation above Stephenville in January, a 12-minute video, has been revealed as a zoomed-in video of a star, the Fort Worth (Texas) Star-Telegram reported.

"We're probably going to get a lot of flak for that," Cherry said.

Steve Hudgeons, the head Texas investigator for the network, said there were a number of credible witnesses to the Jan. 8 event, including a pilot, a county constable, city officials, business owners, clergy and teachers "and a full conglomerate of others."

However, Cherry said the group's final full report on the incident is not likely to bring any closure to interested parties.

"It will not satisfy the believers or the debunkers," Cherry said.

UFO group explains Texas sightings

2008-05-20T07:21:00.000-07:00

UFO group explains Texas sightings

Posted: Tuesday, May 20, 2008 at 9:26 a.m.

FORT WORTH, TEXAS (AP) -- A group that investigates UFO's says most of the 300 reported sightings in Texas dairy country this year -- were probably planets, cloud formations or stars.

But Kenneth Cherry with the Mutual UFO Network says some cases still remain a mystery.

His group examined the January and February phenomenon in Stephenville and Dublin.

Many Erath County residents are unfazed by the group's logical explanations for many sightings.

Pilot and freight company owner Steve Allen says, quote: "We all know what we saw."

Although some details differed, many folks reported seeing a large silent object with bright lights flying low and fast.

Air Force Reserve officials in Fort Worth initially said none of their planes were in the area.

Military authorities later said they were mistaken and that ten F-16 fighter jets were training in the Stephenville area.

The Stephenville Sightings on MSNBC

2008-05-19T09:15:00.000-07:00

The Stephenville Sightings
In the winter of 2008, hundreds of witnesses in and around Stephenville, Texas, came forward claiming to have seen strange lights in the sky. Some reported also seeing an actual craft. The Air Force says it was F-16 jets. UFO investigators say no way. After viewing the video, what do you believe?

Lack of evidence stalls investigation of UFO sightings, MUFON

2008-05-19T05:39:00.000-07:00

By TAWNELL D. HOBBS / The Dallas Morning News
tdhobbs@dallasnews.com

Whether a UFO visited two Central Texas towns will remain a mystery – at least for now.

"All the video that we've analyzed hasn't provided substantial proof," Ken Cherry, Texas state director of the Mutual UFO Network, said Sunday. "Without definite evidence, we're left with the word of our witnesses."

The Erath County towns of Stephenville and Dublin were thrust into the national spotlight in January after dozens of people – including a pilot and business owners – said they saw a large, silent object with bright lights flying low on Jan. 8. Two military jets were in hot pursuit, the witnesses said.

Mr. Cherry and the UFO network's chief investigator, Steve Hudgeons, delivered their findings at an Irving public library. Mr. Cherry said the case is at a standstill unless someone produces better evidence.

Several dozen people who attended the meeting Sunday are convinced that Texas was visited by something not from this world.

"I think that 200 people didn't make something up," said Dallas resident Jackie Schroller, a new member of the network, which has chapters all over the U.S.

The investigation looked at various pieces of evidence, including a cellphone video that was too dark to be conclusive. Mr. Hudgeons said most of what witnesses saw could be explained, such as a light display being caused by an unsteady camera focused on a bright star.

Mr. Cherry said the findings "will not satisfy the believers or the debunkers."

Some at the meeting said they believe the U.S. government wants to keep secret about what was in the sky.

The military initially denied having any planes in the area on Jan. 8. About two weeks later, it said some F-16 fighters had been flying near Stephenville that night.

The flip-flop was blamed on "an internal communications error."

Mr. Cherry said the witnesses are very credible and difficult to ignore. He said three police officers, who do not want to come forward publicly, also reported seeing light patterns in the sky.

"One was close enough to it to use his radar gun to track the thing," he said. "It moved away at 27 miles per hour and then vanished."

NBC and MSN want your UFO Footage!

2008-05-16T06:39:00.000-07:00

UFO acclimation now underway?

Steve Hammons

May 15, 2008

The NBC show "Dateline" and msnbc.com have put out a request to the public to submit photos and videos of UFOs.

According to the msnbc.com Web site, a show is planned this Sunday, May 18, using photos and videos of UFOs they receive.

On the msnbc.com site, the public is asked, "Do you think you have seen a UFO? Tell us about it and you may be featured in a future episode of Dateline NBC or on msnbc.com."

"On Sunday, May 18, Dateline plans to count down '10 Close Encounters Caught on Tape,'" according to msnbc.com.

"If you think you've had your own close encounter, submit it here with any photos or videos, and you could be featured on Dateline or on msnbc.com. Videos and stories should be authentic and not staged. Material may appear on NBC's Dateline broadcast and/or Web site. Tell us your story ..."

This Dateline and msnbc.com call for submission of photos and videos for a show is just another development that has raised national and international public awareness about the UFO situation.

The recent news that the United Kingdom's Ministry of Defense (MoD) is releasing more previously secret documents about UFOs, with some of the information apparently quite compelling, has been viewed as a positive step by those interested in further disclosure about this subject.

In an article in the Vatican newspaper, the pope's chief astronomer, Father Gabriel Funes, has written an article about intelligent extraterrestrial beings titled "Aliens Are My Brother." Funes is director of the Vatican Observatory and is respected as a scientist who works with other international astronomers, according to published reports.

These developments further acclimate the public to theories, reports, questions and perspectives about the possible visitation to Earth of intelligent extraterrestrial and/or extra-dimensional beings, as well as other possible emerging phenomena.

ACCLIMATION AND DISCLOSURE

Orienting and informing the public about possible developments in the area of extraterrestrial visitation to Earth has been a subject of much speculation and concern in the decades since the end of World War II.

Journalists and writers, TV and film project producers, government military and intelligence personnel, as well as interested people in the U.S. and around the world have been exposed to more ideas, theories and rumors about UFOs and ETs over the years.

We have been acclimated to the idea that it is possible for our planet to have been visited by intelligent beings from elsewhere in space, time and/or other dimensions.

There may even be indications that disclosure of real information about the UFO situation has been subtly released to the public to further orient, acclimate and prepare Americans and people internationally.

Recent UFO reports such as those in Stephenville, Texas, and Chicago's O'Hare airport were reported in responsible and serious ways by many in the news media.

The most recent incident in Phoenix, reported to be road flares tied to helium balloons and launched by a local resident, does little to cast doubt on the 1997 incident in Phoenix when a massive object cruised at low altitude over that city's metropolitan "Valley of the Sun" early one evening.

It was reportedly witnessed by hundreds or thousands of Phoenix residents, including the governor at the time, Fife Symington, a former Air Force officer.

All of these cases, as well as many others, help acclimate not only the general public, but also journalists and those in the media.

When some people interested in this field seek significant disclosure of information possibly held by governmental military and intelligence groups, they have had mixed success.

Interesting documents and "off the record" information can provide a partial picture of what might be going on. At the same time, it could be that significant sensitive and classified reports are "not ready for prime time" and release to the public.

Accounts of formal and even official acclimation efforts and programs indicate that a gradual and safe orientation for the public about a possibly significant UFO and ET situation may be a wise course of action.

PSYCHOLOGY, EMOTIONS, SPIRITUALITY

Adjustment to developments such as confirmation that UFOs are related to visitation to Earth by intelligent civilizations might be difficult for some people. This would disrupt their world view, possibly causing anxiety. For some people, their spiritual beliefs might be impacted in some way.

In addition, many kinds of natural concerns would arise: Are these visitors friend or foe? Are they here to help us or hurt us? What is the role of our governmental and defense organizations? Will human society and civilization change in good ways or bad ways?

This is where safe and intelligent acclimation may be a wiser approach than simply disclosure of too much information. Of course, in actuality, these two ideas work hand-in-hand. Acclimation is disclosure and disclosure is acclimation.

Yet, the subtle interactions and distinctions between these two concepts may be worth considering.

Another element rumored to be in play is the possibility that humans are facing multiple kinds of emerging developments.

Different kinds of visitors may be near, including some who are friendly, some hostile and some neutral. In cases like this, various intelligence-gathering, liaison and rapport-building, dialogue, negotiation and defensive activities could be in play.

Have humans been visited in the ancient past? Were Native American Indians and other cultures exposed to anomalous phenomena that may be of interest to us now?

Are there aspects of our genetics and DNA that may in some ways connect with other unconventional questions?

What are the concepts involved in scientific research into a "unified field" or "zero-point field" that may be an underlying layer or force of Nature and the Universe?

What are the sources of crop circles and what are the messages they seem to contain?

Additional metaphysical phenomena such as connections with other dimensions, including the afterlife or "Heaven" and even beliefs about activities of "angels" could be factors to consider.

All of these ideas and scenarios pose interesting and fundamental questions about where we have been, where we are now and where we are going.

Being prepared for various kinds of developments or contingencies is usually constructive. Reading between the lines of information we come across can also be useful.

Our roles in any acclimation or disclosure processes underway would seem to include improving our "intelligence" in the many meanings of that word – gathering information, interpreting it, sharing it and using it to enhance our personal and collective situational awareness.

NOTE TO READERS: Those who enjoyed this article may also want to read the piece "Human consciousness, intelligence may suddenly shift." For more information and resources about these and other topics, please visit the Joint Recon Study Group and have a look around.

X-Conference 2008 - Angelia Joiner on Stephenville, Texas, UFO Sightings

2008-05-11T18:51:00.000-07:00

Angelia Joiner's Interview with Robert Emenegger at the 2008 X-Conference

By ANGELIA JOINER
Special Correspondent
The Jerry Pippin Show

Angelia - I'm here with Robert Emenegger and actually we're still in the ballroom. We just finished a marathon speakers panel, didn't we Bob?

Bob - It was horrendous.

Angelia - It was at least two hours and we did get some interesting questions but we're glad that's over, right?

Bob - Yes, it's all behind us for now.

Angelia - I first met Bob at the Ozark Conference last week and we've already become great friends and we're having so much fun that we really haven't talked that much about the whole UFO phenomena, right?

Bob - That's true.

Angelia - Okay, so tell me how you got involved in this.

MORE >>>>

Sparky's Nightcam Demonstration

2008-05-02T17:31:00.000-07:00

JVC Camcorder at first with max exposure, then in the second half of the clip a nightscope is held in front of the camcorder's lens.

Stephenville UFO Sky Cam Time Lapses for May 2008

2008-05-01T18:35:00.000-07:00

X-Conference 2008: Press Conference at the National Press Club with Angelia Joiner

2008-04-24T15:39:00.000-07:00

Phoenix lights hoax concerns fire officials

2008-04-24T06:16:00.000-07:00

by Andy Harvey - Apr. 23, 2008 05:21 PM
12 News

Online reaction to Phoenix lights

Phoenix firefighters and some residents are concerned.

A north Phoenix man claims he created Monday’s Phoenix lights using road flares and balloons. The unidentified man said he used fishing line to attach the flares to helium-filled balloons. He said he then launched them from his backyard. A neighbor told 12 News he saw the balloons with the flares go up.

Now fire officials and residents said the flares could have created a fire.

Resident Mike Dowhie said, "Doing something like that, sending it off to somewhere… you have no idea where it's going to go, what the conditions were like. The last thing we need is some wide spread fire in the Valley."

Officials with the Phoenix Fire department said they looked into whether any laws were broken, but so far have not found any. They said there are laws governing fire works, but none when it comes to flares tied to balloons that are released into the sky.

Meantime, authorities with the Phoenix Police Department said they are not investigating and would not comment on whether any laws were broken.

Arizona man claims UFO hoax

2008-04-23T08:06:00.000-07:00

Arizona man claims UFO hoax
08:44 AM CDT on Wednesday, April 23, 2008
By BRIAN WEBB / KTVK-TV

Video

Brian Webb reports

April 22, 2008

VIDEO: Puzzling lights over Phoenix

PIX: Photos of mystery lights

VIDEO: 1997 Phoenix Lights

Stephenville UFO Sightings

Stephenville Lights vs Phoenix Lights

Unidentified freaky lights fill the Stephenville Sky

Mysterious objects reported in the Skies

Mysterious objects reported in the skies

Obama and the Release of the UFO files

Obama administration to clash with corporations over UFO files

Possible UFO Sighting In Stephenville

More Sightings in Stephenville

More sightings

Residents remain puzzled by lights

By WHITNEY WHITE-ASHLEYStaff WriterWhitney.ashley@empiretribune.com

Stephenville Lights - Today's News

The triumph of ostriches

The Stephenville Lights Video

Sightings continue to puzzle residents

By WHITNEY WHITE-ASHLEYStaff WriterWhitney.ashley@empiretribune.com

More UFO sightings in Erath County

New UFO sightings investigated in Erath County

Stephenville Lights, UFOs over Texas in the News again

Texas UFO Mystery Lingers

They're baaaack: Texas residents report more UFO sightings

10:02 AM CDT on Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Another UFO?

UFO group probes light mystery in Erath, Comanche

10:17 PM CDT on Monday, October 27, 2008

The Stephenville UFOs Are Back - October 2008

The Stephenville Lights are Back

They’re back

Unexplained lights spotted in Stephenville skies

By WHITNEY WHITE-ASHLEYStaff WriterWhitney.ashley@empiretribune.com

CNN Stephenville UFO Video

Channel 8 WFAA Dallas covers Stephenville Lights

More UFO sightings reported in Stephenville

04:56 PM CDT on Saturday, October 25, 2008

More lights spotted in Stephenville skies

More lights spotted in Stephenville skies

by WHITNEY WHITE-ASHLEYStaff Writerwhitney.ashley@empiretribune.com

Texas Official Demands Answers About Alleged UFO

Texas Official Demands Answers About Alleged UFO

Complaints Filed with FAA on Stephenville Case by Texas Representative

OMEFT Interview with Angelia Joiner

Larry King Live

The Report

Beyond the Report

AP Texas News - Radar shows large, fast, unexplained object

Radar tracked unidentified craft near Crawford, group's report says

By MATT FRAZIER and MARK AGEEmfrazier@star-telegram.com

UFO witnesses to be on TV

Radar spotted UFOs near Crawford in January, group says

Stephenville UFO report out

Strange lights over Texas

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

Jet hits UFO

Fighter plane struck by U.F.O in Romania

UFO Collides With Fighter Jet Over Transylvania

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

New Alien Video Shines (Photoshopped) Light on UFO Hoaxers

The Watchdogs of Photoshopped Fame

The Gadget-Built Currency of Conspiracy

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

Stephenville, Texas UFO Sightings Timeline and Summary

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)

By WHITNEY WHITE-ASHLEY
Staff Writer
Whitney.ashley@empiretribune.com

By WHITNEY WHITE-ASHLEY
Staff Writer
Whitney.ashley@empiretribune.com

By WHITNEY WHITE-ASHLEY
Staff Writer
Whitney.ashley@empiretribune.com

by WHITNEY WHITE-ASHLEY
Staff Writer
whitney.ashley@empiretribune.com

By MATT FRAZIER and MARK AGEE
mfrazier@star-telegram.com