10/25/08
Channel 8 WFAA Dallas covers Stephenville Lights
http://www.khou.com/news/state/stories/khou081025_rm_ufo-sightings.14ab206e2.html STEPHENVILLE — Over a three-month period this summer there were 1,000 UFO sightings filed with the National UFO Reporting Center. Some 75 of those UFOs were reported over the state of Texas. Stephenville is one hot spot we've shown you before. Now the small town is getting buzzed by UFOs again and we have the video. "You could see the oval shape. Got my friend, I said 'dude, you got to come look at this,'" said Andy Monrreal. Monrreal was hanging out with his Dublin High School friends when they all saw something they say looked like a UFO. "You could see a shape. It was like a complete circle," said Monrreal. He rolled off a half minute of video on his mom's digital camera. His dad saw it too. "I never seen nothing like that in my life. Big lights and everything," his father said. So did mom. "It was a round thing. You could see lights around it, flickering and changing. It was awesome. Just turning and flickering," she said. 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. Reporter Whitney Ashley said many people don't want to talk publicly, like several workers at the paper, who also saw the lights. "I've got at least 10 right now willing to go on record," Ashley said. "The sheriff's department got lots of calls in the southern part of Erath County." Down around Dublin, home of DR Pepper. 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. E-mail jdouglas@wfaa.com. More UFO sightings reported in Stephenville
04:56 PM CDT on Saturday, October 25, 2008
10/24/08
More lights spotted in Stephenville skies
More lights spotted in Stephenville skies
by WHITNEY WHITE-ASHLEY
Staff Writer
whitney.ashley@empiretribune.com
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
9/5/08
Texas Official Demands Answers About Alleged UFO
Sep 5, 2008 6:30 pm US/Central
Texas Official Demands Answers About Alleged UFO
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.
(© MMVIII, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
9/4/08
Complaints Filed with FAA on Stephenville Case by Texas Representative
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.html7/19/08
OMEFT Interview with Angelia Joiner
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.
7/15/08
AP Texas News - Radar shows large, fast, unexplained object
Radar shows large, fast, unexplained object
© 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.
7/12/08
Radar tracked unidentified craft near Crawford, group's report says
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.
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.
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
