Reports of Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs) Reached a Record Level in 2008
Denver, CO, March 19, 2009 –(PR.com)– You may think that reports of strange craft flying around in our skies are rarities. However, according to the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON), thousands of reports are made yearly, and reports of unidentified flying objects (UFOs) in 2008 reached a record high, with over 5,000 reports. This number is more than double the reports made in 2007.
So why is their such a drastic increase? According to Robert Powell, MUFON’s Director of Research, “Last year’s record numbers were contributed in part by mass sighting reports in Erath County, Texas and Bucks County, Pennsylvania.” He goes on to emphasize that many of the witnesses making these reports are highly credible professionals, such as police officers, county constables, engineers and former air traffic control operators.
Some of the best evidence collected in 2008 was related to the Stephenville, Texas sightings. In that investigation, a comprehensive radar report confirmed an unknown object(s) in the area of Stephenville on the evening of Jan. 8, 2008, and supported claims made by eight witnesses. Powell, along with radar expert Glen Shultz, went through millions of radar hits, provided to them through a Freedom of Information Act request to the FAA, to discover this startling correlation. Although the Stephenville sightings became a large worldwide media event, Powell is shocked at the lack of attention the radar report has received.
Powell pointed out that this year also brought forth declassified materials in the case of UFO files by the governments of Denmark and the United Kingdom. He says, ”The United States remains as the only major nation whose government claims to ignore UFOs. One wonders what NORAD does when an unknown object shows up on their radar screens.”
The Mutual UFO Network was created in 1969 for the scientific study of UFOs for the benefit of humanity through investigations, research and education. It has become the largest civilian UFO investigation organization with certified investigators across the country actively researching UFO reports. Visit www.MUFON.com to find out how to become an investigator, or to look at the reports.
Mutual UFO Network
Alejandro Rojas
303-585-0955
arojas@mufon.com
www.MUFON.com
Mysterious objects reported in skies
By Angelia Joiner
The Abilene Reporter News
2-2-09
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 ]
Noted Reporter, ‘Angelia Joiner’ to Attend San Jose Symposium
By Sherry Boardman
7-19-08
Former Stephenville, Texas, Empire-Tribune newspaper reporter Angelia Joiner will attend the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) 39th International UFO Symposium in San Jose, California, July 24-27.
Her dedication and quest for answers regarding the Texas incident resulted in the Stephenville Lights: A Comprehensive Radar and Witness Report Study, compiled by Glen Schulze, radar analyst, and Robert Powell, the current Director of Research at MUFON. The report is now being picked up by major networks around the world and will be reviewed in depth at the San Jose Symposium.
Joiner garnered fame after reporting the Jan. 8, 2008, sightings of unusual lights over Erath County, Texas. Her factual and straight-forward style of reporting brought accolades from around the world. Invitations to share her experiences as the journalist who “broke the story” have been continual.
She has appeared twice on Larry King Live, was a guest on Coast to Coast AM, interviewed by Dr. Laurie Nadal, The Sixth Sense, and on numerous local and foreign radio and television broadcasts. Among those interviewed by Joiner have been Dr. Lynn Kitei, “The Phoenix Lights, We Are Not Alone,” and Robert Emenegger.
The reporter was invited to serve as a panelist at the National Press Conference following her presentation at the Washington, D.C. Paradigm’s Research Group’s Conference and was a presenter at the Ozark Conference.
Joiner will be available for interviews during the Symposium and a question and answer session following the Press Conference. She may be contacted in advance to schedule individual appointments Thursday night through Saturday morning at: www.stephenvillelights.com, ajoiner@nctv.com.
Radar study supports witnesses in Stephenville
By ANGELIA JOINER
Friday, 11 July 2008
A radar study recently released supports eight witness reports of an unidentified object in Stephenville, Texas, and the surrounding area on January 8, 2008.
Robert Powell, MUFON national research director, and Glen Schulze, retired radar analyst, have labored hundreds of hours analyzing 2.8 million bits of Freedom of Information Act requested raw radar data from five FAA towers between the hours of 4 – 8 p.m. surrounding the Dublin/Stephenville, Texas area.
Dozens of Erath County residents reported seeing an object or lights in the sky at separate locations and the story quickly made national and international news.
The study may make even the most hardnosed skeptic scratch his head.
The report is entitled, Stephenville Lights: A comprehensive radar and witness report, and can be fully downloaded at www.mufon.com.
The unknown object was on a trajectory towards and 10 miles from President Bush’s Crawford Ranch without a required beacon signal seemingly without any military interest.
About two weeks after the first story was publicized in the Stephenville local paper on January 10, Maj. Karl Lewis, spokesman for the Carswell Naval Air Base, said his unit had 10, F-16s in the skies above Erath County after first having said no jets from the base were in the area. Could this be because Lewis knew the information would come out after seeing freedom of information acts filed at his base?
Powell and Schulze tracked those 10 jets without any trouble.
Now, they are scratching their heads wondering how an object without a beacon could apparently fly into Crawford air space without raising military eyebrows.
That is not the only thing that left the two report authors with unanswered questions.
Also, seemingly out of the ‘norm’ was four jets encroaching on civilian air space after deviating from the Brownwood military operating area return path on return runs to the Carswell Naval Air Base. The jets appeared to turn on transponders late in the game, which may have left air traffic controllers and others scrambling to make last minute decisions to keep the air traffic around DFW airport safe after they realized the jets were on radar.
Additionally, two jets traveling to Carswell from an Oklahoma air base made a wide sweep around Comanche, Dublin and Stephenville before landing at the Fort Worth base.
And, what the authors claim could only be an AWACS craft studied the area for the entire four hours in what Powell calls a “race track pattern” sweeping back and forth making 180 degree turns.
To see more on this report watch Larry King Live tonight at 8 p.m. central where the authors will make guest appearances.
UFO Sightings Galvanize a Small Town
By Denise Gellene
The LA Times
6-22-08
But Air Force says jets were in area
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.
That’s a UFO, the boy said.
Gaitan, 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 Lights Over Phoenix, in which thousands of people, including then-governor Fife Symington, reported seeing a boomerang-shaped object 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.
Stephenville, the largest town in Erath County, is in the heart of Texas dairy country, which means open land and few towns to interrupt grazing.
Cows easily outnumber the 34,000 humans in the county. After football season ends in the winter, life slows.
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 themselves 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 blow torch,” 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.
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.
“He was a pilot and seemed very intelligent,” said Joiner, a 47-year-old former school teacher who had been a reporter for 18 months. Allen’s friends confirmed the account.
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.
The town was swept into a UFO maelstrom. People sported aluminum foil hats to 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.
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 Forth Worth said no aircraft were near Stephenville when the lights were first observed.
But 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 the county when the lights were initially spotted.
The town splintered into believers and skeptics.
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.
[ Source ]
OMEFT meets Sorrells
Posted 4-7-2008
By ANGELIA JOINER
[SinglePic not found]The Open Minds Expeditionary Field Team (OMEFT) came from near and far to converge on Ricky Sorrells’ property near Dublin, Texas, in hopes of encountering the object that he claims frequently visits his place and the surrounding area in Erath County.
The team formed more than a month ago after receiving an invitation from Sorrells. And, finally, the plan came to fruition and the members have been sky watching throughout the area since April 4, 2008.
Sorrells is hoping someone can get a glimpse of what he has seen several times and has never been able to identify. He’s hoping someone will go on the record with him because the one friend with him when a sighting occurred is not willing to do so.
“I just want someone else to see what I’ve seen,” Sorrells said. “That’s why I invited the people from the Open Minds Forum to come down. I hope we can get lucky and they can see it, too.”
Sorrells first made news when Angela K. Brown of the Associated Press interviewed him at his heavily wooded property on January 14, 2008. Within a few hours, Sorrells unexpectedly found himself on news channels everywhere.
Sorrells sighted a craft about 300 feet above his head in the woods on his property. He said after thinking more about the time of the sighting he has determined it was sometime the week of December 16, 2007. Feeling pressured to give a date by various news journalists he had first said the sighting was on January 1, 2008.
“I don’t even wear a watch,” Sorrells said. “I’m not very good at keeping up with dates and times.”
He said the craft was not shiny.
“It was a dull gray color,” Sorrells said. There were large cone shaped indentions on the bottom of the craft, but as he looked up he couldn’t determine exactly how large the craft was because the treetops obscured his view, he said.
“My mind was reeling as I first spotted it in my rifle scope,” Sorrells said. “I was deer hunting.”
Sorrells toured the OMEFT members attending and recounted for them personally what he witnessed.
The individuals began arriving Friday, April 4, from as far away as Massachusetts, Maryland, and North Carolina. All had in tow video and digital cameras, compasses, radiation detectors, global positioning systems and other equipment in hopes of compiling evidence of the famed “Stephenville Lights” widely covered by mainstream media including well known talk show host Larry King.
[SinglePic not found]The members were carefully positioned throughout Erath County, but so far no sightings have been reported. Most members will be heading for home on Monday, April 7.
And what Texas visit could be complete without a Texas B-B-Q? The evening of Saturday April 5, 2008, the team rolled out a spiral ham, smoked brisket, and all the trimmings. Steve Allen and this reporter made cameo appearances to answer questions and welcome OMEFT. Erath County Constable Lee Roy Gaitan had planned to attend, but was unexpectedly called for duty.
Allen, Joiner, Sherry Boardman, Brent Chambers and his son Lane were dispatched to Selden, Texas, where the first reports were made from Allen, Mike Odom, Claudette Odom, and Lance Jones that historic night of January 8, 2008.
Odom joined the group on his property to sky watch for OMEFT. The team is documenting findings daily at Open Minds Forum at www.openmindsforum.com, complete with video interviews.
Stephenville Lights Reporter, Angelia Joiner in The UFO Spotlight
Angelia Joiner
Area woman garners fame since seeing UFO
By Jane Pratt
Reporter-News
4-4-08
STEPHENVILLE — Garnering international attention was the last thing on Angelia Joiner’s mind when she interviewed Steve Allen on Jan. 8 and reported on UFO sightings in Erath County in the Stephenville Empire-Tribune.
But today, she still receives 30 to 40 e-mails daily from all over the world about the sightings, and she will be the guest speaker at two conferences on UFO’s during the month of April.
Joiner will join eight other speakers during the 20th Annual Ozark UFO Conference that meets April 11-13 in Eureka Springs, Ark. Then, the next week, she will fly to Washington, D.C., where she will make a presentation during the Paradigm Research Group’s conference from April 18-20.
The Ozark UFO Conference is an independent activity not affiliated with any local of national UFO organization that promotes information on UFO-related topics.
The Paradigm Research Group was established in 1996 by Stephen Bennett, a political activist and consultant. The group’s Web site states that the purpose of the group is to promote ways to stop the government-imposed embargo on facts “surrounding extraterrestrial presence engaging the human race.”
The title of Joiner’s presentation is “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly of UFO Reporting.”
Joiner said the “good” part of UFO reporting is the number of new people she has met and old friendships that have been renewed when people she had lost touch with contacted her after seeing her on national television or reading about her in newspapers or on the Internet.
She said an artist who has designed T-shirts and special edition art cards is going to Washington to meet with her and television producer and journalist Linda Moulton Howe. She said some of the “bad” is simply trying to answer all the e-mail she receives.
She did not elaborate on the “ugly.”
Steve Allen had started a Web site about the local UFO sightings but stepped up his efforts after Joiner left the local paper.
“He wanted me to have a place to write,” Joiner said. “The first day Stephenville Lights went on line was Feb. 10.”
The site, www.stephenvillelights.com, carries stories from Joiner and other writers who have an interest in UFO sightings. It also advertises T-shirts and special edition art cards designed by artist Mark Medford of Maine.
“This has been a real education,” Joiner said. “Before I was pretty passive about UFOs. If I saw something on TV, I would think it was interesting, but I really didn’t pay much attention. Now I have the UFO bug.”
She does not know what the future holds for her. “Who knows? I may write a book,” she said.
[ Source ]
Texas officer tracked Stephenville UFO’s speed with police radar gun
by Steve Hammons
March 31, 2008
On Jan. 8, 2008, an Erath County, Texas, area peace officer on patrol used his police radar system for tracking speeders to measure the speed of a huge object in the sky.
He stated, “I had to swivel my radar head up into the sky. And I knew I got a good hit on it. It showed 27 miles per hour and was accelerating slowly.”
This element of the observation of a UFO by several peace officers and dozens of citizens was reported March 30 on StephenvilleLights.com by journalist and radio station news director Angelia Joiner.
Joiner previously reported that more than one officer captured images of an unidentified object in the sky on the videocameras mounted on patrol car dashboards.
In this new account by an officer who requested to remain anonymous because of his professional duties and responsibilities, Joiner reports that, “He said he was unable to position his dash cam in a way that video footage could be taken, but he did manage to lock it in on radar.”
OFFICERS SEE OBJECT
Joiner refers to this public safety officer as “Officer X.” He did not initially step forward when he spotted a huge object over Stephenville Jan. 8.
However, he casually mentioned it to another officer, then read reports in the local newspaper, the Stephenville Empire-Tribune, by Joiner who was then a reporter at the paper.
Officer X told Joiner, “I want people to know that the citizens are telling the truth. 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 confirms that several other local officers also witnessed the craft.
Regarding a diagram of the craft based on observations by officers and recently made public, Officer X told Joiner, “The diagram I did shows 400 feet [from wing tip to wing tip], but looking back, I think it was larger, maybe between 500 and 600 feet.”
In the diagram the craft was described as a somewhat flat octagonal shape with raised portions on the top and bottom. Various light configurations with different colored lights were observed by the officer.
When he first observed it, the craft was hovering in a horizontal position. It was approximately 100 to 500 feet off the ground, based on reports of other officers.
The officer 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 quotes him as saying, “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 the officer’s position, remaining at a low altitude, and he was no longer able to observe it because it went behind tree tops and he was required to respond to an unrelated official police call.
MEDIA, WITNESSES, THEORIES
According to Joiner, the officer began to think more about discussing what he had seen after reading articles in the Empire-Tribune about witness reports of an unidentified object.
The first of a series of articles, written by Joiner, was published in the paper Jan. 10.
Upon learning that other officers were talking about it, he contacted them. One officer was Erath County Constable Lee Roy Gaitan, who was quoted in print articles and appeared on camera in local and national TV news reports at the time.
He told Joiner, “I thought, ‘Okay … Lee Roy (Gaitan) is talking, and he’s a good friend of mine. I’ve known him for years and he’s a credible, good person.’ The other two officers had already talked about it, so I went straight to them. The first night I talked to them was Jan. 12. They described what they saw and I did a drawing on Notepad and took it back to them, and they said it was how they saw it.”
Constable Gaitan was not the only local credible witness who had stepped forward early in the incidents. Local businessman and pilot Steve Allen came forward. So did machinist Ricky Sorrells.
Other local citizens and law officers chose a more low-key stance. Some talked only with friends, family and professional associates. Some spoke confidentially and off-the-record with Joiner.
When the Associated Press picked up the story in January, other major regional, national and international print, broadcast and TV cable news organizations reported professionally on the situation in Stephenville and Erath County.
As Joiner points out in her March 30 article, this resulted in the evaluation by many that the Stephenville case is the most significant public UFO case since the so-called “Phoenix Lights” incident March 13, 1997.
In that case, although some witnesses saw only huge lights in an apparent shape, hundreds or thousands of other Arizonans reportedly saw a huge V-shaped or boomerang-shaped object.
According to witnesses, it cruised slowly and silently at low altitude over rural Arizona and metropolitan Phoenix in the early evening, moving in a southeasterly direction.
As others concluded from the Phoenix Lights case, Officer X in Texas stated, “I think what we saw wanted to be seen.”
Another similarity: People considering the Phoenix and Stephenville cases wondered if these craft were advanced U.S. technology of some kind, maybe from classified facilities in the Southwest.
Officer X told Joiner that he and another officer initially felt that the object was military.
However, he said a third officer “was pretty adamant that it was not.” That officer’s reasons for his conclusion could not be revealed to maintain his anonymity, Joiner reported.
Officer X said, “The more I thought about it … I thought, ‘They just don’t fly secret projects in free air space.’ If it’s military, they made a big boo-boo by flying it into Stephenville, Texas. The Air Force knows better than that. It leads me away from the Air Force.”
He told Joiner he didn’t know if the craft was extraterrestrial in origin. “How does a person know? How do you know without something landing and somebody walking out of it?”
NOTE TO READERS: By clicking the link in the author background box at top right, readers can see Hammons’ many articles on conventional and unconventional areas, including several about the Stephenville UFO sightings. Readers who enjoyed this article and are interested in how public safety personnel might respond to unconventional situations may want to read Hammons’ Jan. 28 piece “Special research team targets emerging phenomena.” Please visit his Joint Recon Study Group blog.
[ Source ]
Erath County Law Enforcement Officers compile drawings
Written by Angelia Joiner
Tuesday, 25 March 2008
Note: The following composite and narrative came to this reporter through Erath County Constable Lee Roy Gaitan.
An area law enforcement officer, not wishing to be identified at this time, writes the account in his own words. The sighting date was January 8, 2008, and the time was between 7:30 and 7:45 p.m. according to Constable Gaitan.
No other information is available at this time.
“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. On the way, I could see it leaving in the distance. It was about 500 ft off the ground. The colors above are the actual color. This drawing is a compilation of all the law enforcement that saw the craft.”
Stephenville UFO is viewed by former protector of Texas Governors
Written by Angelia Joiner
Thursday, 28 February 2008
Mike Zimmerman, 62, retired from the Texas Department of Public Safety after 25 years but not before he was on Protective Detail for five Texas Governors.
Zimmerman was assigned to protect Governors Briscoe, Clements, White, Richards and Bush for a period spanning 19 years.
“Clements was governor twice,” he said.
To date, Zimmerman may be the most credible witness to come forward to report what Erath County residents have been coming forward in droves to report since January 8 — another unidentified flying object.
He said it was 6:05 a.m. on January 31 when he awoke from a peaceful slumber for a Mother Nature call. As he was returning to bed, something caught his eye through the bedroom window of his home located just past the city limits on U.S. Highway 281 South in Stephenville, Texas.
“I saw three bright lights,” Zimmerman said. “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 shared a sketch and notes he had jotted down.
But, there is more to this story…
The two white lights also 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.
“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 said.
He said he awoke his fiancée to make sure he was seeing what he thought he was seeing. The couple watched for approximately three minutes he said.
“What I saw is completely different from what Lee Roy (Gaitan) saw,” 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.”
Zimmerman said the sun was rising and he’s not sure how the lights disappeared. He said he didn’t know if they became less obvious because of the sun’s light or if they just left.
“I could have turned away for a minute and they left,” Zimmerman said. “I’m not sure what happened, but I remembered looking and they just weren’t there anymore.”
Zimmerman said his home faces the northwest and his bedroom is on the back of the structure.
“I got out my compass and it indicated 115 degrees,” Zimmerman said. “So the objects would have been more to the east.”
Zimmerman said he had talked with Gaitan on January 9 so he was aware of the object Gaitan and his son had viewed on the evening of January 8.
When asked if he was able to ascertain if the objects appeared to be under intelligent control, he said he could not say because he didn’t see them move.
“I hope it’s military,” Zimmerman said. “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 as he was watching the shooting beams he at first wondered if something could be going on at Fort Hood.
“That’s the first thought I had, but that’s a long way off and it appeared to be closer than that,” Zimmerman said.
Zimmerman estimated that with a dime held out with his arm fully extended, the objects would have been slightly larger than the dime.
He is currently employed as an officer with the Tarleton State University Police and he said he has not had another sighting, but openly confessed, “I pay more attention now and I’m watching for it.”
When asked why he waited so long to come forward, he looked thoughtful and then he said, “It was something I had to think about and it didn’t seem the same as what Lee Roy (Gaitan) saw.”
The Stephenville UFO saga continues with Zimmerman being the third officer to come forward after Erath County Constable Lee Roy Gaitan and Sheriff’s Deputy Jim Clifton.
Erath County officer witnesses UFO
By ANGELIA JOINER
Stephenville Lights – Reporter
Another law enforcement officer has come forward in the strange and mysterious UFO sightings in Erath County.
Sgt. Jim Clifton of the Erath County Sheriff’s Department was with Erath County Constable Lee Roy Gaitan in the early morning hours of Feb. 2 on U.S. Hwy. 377 when both saw something extraordinary in the black sky.
“It was a clear night, no clouds, no moon, and a dark night,” Clifton said. “I’ve never seen anything like that before in my career. I’ve never seen any aircraft like that. The lights did not appear to be military. I was very amazed at what we saw.”
Clifton said he received a call to check out an alarm at Woody’s restaurant and when he got to the eatery, Gaitan had heard the call also and was already there. The two took care of business and then Gaitan told Clifton there was something in the sky.
“He heard the alarm and got there before I did,” Clifton said. “I got in the car with him and observed this with him. It looked like it was over the Highland area to the west and it was a large object.”
Clifton said they observed the unidentified flying object through the “dash cam” in the car and could see it quite clearly with the zoom feature. He said the camera is in a permanent mount, which is stationary. So, in his eyes, the video is more than credible because shaking the camera could not be a concern.
“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,” Clifton said. “What it looked like is difficult to describe because there is nothing to compare it to.”
Clifton said the object had a transparent or perhaps translucent appearance and it had “ a fog or vapor or cloud around it.”
Clifton said he saw colors of white, blue, and red.
“I wasn’t frightened – I was just trying to think of what it might be,” Clifton said. “I don’t have a clue. I wish I had an explanation but I can’t think of any explanation. The thing that impressed me was how big it was. It stuck in my mind.”
Clifton said he is looking at the sky more now to try and see it again. He said most people he knows are doing the same.
Clifton said he has seen a video from Canada in what he thinks was the year 2007 that is most similar to what he and Gaitan saw.
Both men said the sighting was reported to the Erath County Sheriff’s office at the time.
