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Texans report seeing UFO

obeygiant

obeygiant

macrumors 601
Original poster
Jan 14, 2002
4,250
4,233
totally cool
STEPHENVILLE, Texas (AP) -- In this farming community where nightfall usually brings clear, starry skies, residents are abuzz over reported sightings of what many believe is a UFO.

Ricky Sorrells says he saw a flat, metallic object hovering about 300 feet over a pasture behind his Texas home.

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

"People wonder what in the world it is because this is the Bible Belt, and everyone is afraid it's the end of times," said Steve Allen, a freight company owner and pilot who said the object he saw last week was a mile long and half a mile wide. "It was positively, absolutely nothing from these parts."

While federal officials say there's a logical explanation, locals swear that it 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. People in several towns who reported seeing it over several weeks have offered similar descriptions of the object.

"You hear about big bass or big buck in the area, but this is a different deal," Sorrells said. "It feels good to hear that other people saw something, because that means I'm not crazy."

Sorrells said he has seen the object several times. He said he watched it through his rifle's telescopic lens and described it as very large and without seams, nuts or bolts.

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

Lewis said the object may have been an illusion caused by two commercial airplanes. Lights from the aircraft would seem unusually bright and may appear orange from the setting sun.

"I'm 90 percent sure this was an airliner," Lewis said. "With the sun's angle, it can play tricks on you."

Officials at the region's two Air Force bases -- Dyess in Abilene and Sheppard in Wichita Falls -- also said none of their aircraft were in the area last week. The Air Force no longer investigates UFOs.

One man has offered a reward for a photograph or videotape of the mysterious object.

About 200 UFO sightings are reported each month, mostly in California, Colorado and Texas, according to the Mutual UFO Network, which plans to go to the 17,000-resident town of Stephenville to investigate.

Fourteen percent of Americans polled last year by The Associated Press and Ipsos say they have seen a UFO.

Erath County Constable Lee Roy Gaitan said he first saw red glowing lights and then white flashing lights moving fast, but that even with binoculars could not see the object to which the lights were attached.

"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," Gaitan said. "I think it must be some kind of military craft -- at least I hope it was."
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CNN


I don't know anyone who claims they've seen a UFO. But I wish to god I could see one, if there are any. I find these stories fascinating.

That stat about the pilots is kinda strange tho. YT link
 
I once saw an unexplainable small multi-colored light in the night sky while at work. I asked if it was an airplane, and apparently it wasn't. Probably something else, but since it was definitely 'unidentified', I suppose it was a UFO in the technical sense.
 
In this farming community where nightfall usually brings clear, starry skies, residents are abuzz over reported sightings of what many believe is a UFO.
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Of course it's an UFO. UFO is an "unidentified flying object". Since this flying object has not been identified, it's an UFO by definition. Is it aliens? Well, that's a whole different matter.

"People wonder what in the world it is because this is the Bible Belt, and everyone is afraid it's the end of times,"
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:rolleyes:
 
I saw one back in the early 90s. Luckily the story made the local paper so nobody thought I was mental when I went on about it :)
 
To be honest whenever I see people who've claimed to have seen UFOs on TV (many of them Texans?) they don't exactly seem the sharpest knives in the drawer. Nothing to get excited about I'm sure!
 
dmr727 said:
I once saw an unexplainable small multi-colored light in the night sky while at work. I asked if it was an airplane, and apparently it wasn't. Probably something else, but since it was definitely 'unidentified', I suppose it was a UFO in the technical sense.
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You know a normal star, close to the horizon, will go thru every color of the spectrum like a pinwheel. Its actually quite pretty.
 
So, many people actually saw this phenomenon, and not one of them had a cell phone with a camera (is there one now without??), or a digital camera near at hand.

Me, cynical??
 
I got some new glasses last week and was enjoying looking an airliner flying over my house for the first time in ages. I could actually see the craft. It was a very clear sky and it was late afternoon so the sun was low. Then not too far from the plane there was a huge flash of light. It actually hurt my eyes for the split second it happened. I was like 'what the feck was that?'
Turns out it was another airliner flying in the opposite direction and the sun reflected off its side as it turned and shined directly into my face. I'm a level headed guy but this plane seemed to appear from nowhere with a huge flash of light. It was quite impressive and had me thinking for a second what it was.
 
obeygiant said:
You know a normal star, close to the horizon, will go thru every color of the spectrum like a pinwheel. Its actually quite pretty.
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I had thought of that, but this was considerably larger than a star or planet. My guess is that I was seeing another airplane, perhaps one of the Citations that partol the border (I was just north of El Paso at the time). Their presence wouldn't be made known to me, and maybe they elected to fly with just their nav lights on.
 
I've seen a few of these. As another poster says whether or not they were aliens is another matter.

Oh, and my extremely down to earth father swears he saw one too. Only found out recently that the area he spotted it flying around is a hotbed for strange activity. Silly government. A few of us spotted one of them "donuts on a rope" style steamlines after hearing some strange bangs a long time ago.
 
About 10 years ago I was in Vegas for CES and a couple friends and I had rented an SUV and gone exploring in the hills outside of the city. We were driving over the crest of a hill and all of a sudden over the horizon there was a shiny cylindrical looking thing that shot up, hovered in mid-air for about 10 seconds, and then took off to the side faster than I've ever seen anything move. All 3 of us saw it, and we all just say there silent for at least a minute, then just looked at each other like WTF :confused:
 
Cloudane said:
To be honest whenever I see people who've claimed to have seen UFOs on TV (many of them Texans?) they don't exactly seem the sharpest knives in the drawer. Nothing to get excited about I'm sure!
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What do you think the aliens think when they fly over.:p I bet it is by design tho, fly over the dumb people that nobody would believe or fly over hollywood and have a bunch of movie stars see something.
 
Yeah, I believe they probably saw a UFO.

The excuse given by the government is usually, "We were testing new aircrafts that night", or "It was the Sun's light playing tricks."

Then people will complain there's no photo or video, but when there IS a photo or video, people believe it was edited in.....an obvious fake.


In other words, even if people did see an alien flying in the sky, the entire population of the world would miss the news entirely, as we'd just treat it as "weird news".
 
Abstract said:
Yeah, I believe they probably saw a UFO.

The excuse given by the government is usually, "We were testing new aircrafts that night", or "It was the Sun's light playing tricks."

Then people will complain there's no photo or video, but when there IS a photo or video, people believe it was edited in.....an obvious fake.


In other words, even if people did see an alien flying in the sky, the entire population of the world would miss the news entirely, as we'd just treat it as "weird news".
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Is that you Mulder?
 
Abstract said:
Yeah, I believe they probably saw a UFO.

The excuse given by the government is usually, "We were testing new aircrafts that night", or "It was the Sun's light playing tricks."

Then people will complain there's no photo or video, but when there IS a photo or video, people believe it was edited in.....an obvious fake.


In other words, even if people did see an alien flying in the sky, the entire population of the world would miss the news entirely, as we'd just treat it as "weird news".
Click to expand...
Shall we invoke Occam's razor? What is more probable: alien spacecraft regularly travel light years to visit our planet, only to immediately turn around, and every government in the world is covering it up, or some people have seen unusual (or sometimes not so unusual) phenomenon in the sky, and hastily attribute it to aliens?

If there were aliens visiting our planet, there wouldn't be a debate - we'd know.
 
EricNau said:
Shall we invoke Occam's razor? What is more probable: alien spacecraft regularly travel light years to visit our planet, only to immediately turn around, and every government in the world is covering it up, or some people have seen unusual (or sometimes not so unusual) phenomenon in the sky, and hastily attribute it to aliens?
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The first. :)
 
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