Joiner to speak at Tennessee MUFON meeting
The Biggest UFO Story of 2008!
with
Angelia Joiner
Texas Newspaper Reporter on the Stephenville Lights
Artist’s rendering of eyewitness testimony from three police officers who saw this 600-foot wide monstrosity of an alien craft hovering over Erath County Courthouse in Stephenville, Texas.
Where: Jason’s Deli Conference room, 3473 Poplar Ave, Suite 102, Memphis
When: Saturday, September 19, 2009 Time: 3:30 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.
Angelia Joiner will be speaking at the Night Search Speaker Series hosted by Jason’s Deli. Angelia was the Texas newspaper reporter who, in early January of 2008, first broke the story of the Stephenville Lights. This massive UFO sighting (artist’s rendering above) that occurred on January 8, 2008, in Stephenville, Texas, had an electrifying effect on the world media overnight. On the “UFO Richter Scale” — measuring its impact on public consciousness — it possibly registers even higher than the Phoenix Lights UFO event of March 7, 1997. In this presentation, we’ll see how Angelia now views what happened out in that small Texas town. What new information has come to light? What are her latest thoughts about its implications for us all? Attend this event and find out!
Admission fees: $15.00 General Admission / $12.00 MUFON Member / $8.00 Student Discount
Contact Eddie Middleton
MUFON Tennessee State Director • mufon.com
Night Search Radio Show Host • NightSearch.net
Phone: (901) 503-4994 Email: eddiemiddleton@yahoo.com
WEB: www.NightSearch.net
Mysterious Crater and Rock Baffles All
By Angelia Joiner
Most agree it is not a meteor. So, how did the large rock and impact crater make its way onto the Corky Underwood Jurassic Ranch southwest of Glen Rose?
A crater and rock recently discovered and first reported by Fox News by Richard Ray has everyone scratching their heads as to how it could have occurred.
According to the Fox report, Manfred Cuntz, astrophysicist from UT/Arlington at first said he had never seen anything like it and thought the find amazing. Closer examination by Arthur Ehlmann, Texas Christian University meteor expert determined the only thing about the rock similar to a meteor was the tear dropped shape. He stated the rock was limestone and commonly found in the area so it did not come from outer space.
Underwood said he and his daughter were checking the ranch for wind damage after a storm and found the site on April 18 of this year. Following a path of trees knocked down in a straight line led them to the crater.
Saturday several more gathered at the sight to investigate the large rock upon the invitation from Underwood. “I just want to find out what it is and take an honest approach to that,” Underwood said. The scientists that were there earlier with Fox News took samples but Underwood said he has yet to hear results.
Mark Murphy, a chemist and Stephenville resident, tested the rock with hydrochloric acid (35 percent) and onlookers were surprised at the lack of reaction and greenish tint when compared to the reaction on a declared limestone rock. Murphy said the greenish effervescence is indicative of magnesium
Dr. Billy R. Caldwell, certified professional and petroleum geologist said he thought the speciman might be dolomite (made up of calcium and magnesium), which would not be indigenous to the area. He took a sample to perform further tests.
The crater, according to Steve Hudgeons, Texas Mutual UFO Network lead investigator, said he calculated the rock came in at a 12-degree angle. The crater is about 54 feet in length. It was thought the crater at the deepest point where the rock lies is about 10 feet deep with a width of about 40 feet.
The area behind and surrounding the crater had rocks scattered in an outward pattern from the crater and there were rocks and gravel lying on the branches of the knocked down trees.
There were no machinery tracks visible nor were the trees scarred as if a bulldozer might have done the work. On Saturday, all were in agreement that this find is not some sort of elaborate hoax.
A neighboring landowner said in late October of last year or possibly early November she had heard a loud boom that shook her house and rattled the windows.
Underwood said the only thing he did was to dig around the rock to uncover more of it because it had been there a while and had dirt washed in around it. He said he then poured water on it to clean it up.
The rock looks as if it has been scorched on one side where it is blackened. Within that black area is a crack with a clean inside. Investigators thought the rock might have been heated up and the crack might have happened when it cooled down.
Further analysis may reveal exactly what the rock is but it is doubtful if anyone will be able to determine how it got there or where it is from.
“I’m calling it the mystery crater,” Caldwell said.
Photo Report of Object Photographed by MUFON Member
Here follows the the photo report concerning the latest Angelia Joiner article. The document will also be linked to for download purposes.
1 – EXIFs Study
- Photoshop tags : these tags show that the image was modified, edited, etc… with Photoshop two days after the shoot, i-e the 2009-03-06, 07:46’24”PM, Time Zone -6
- Serial number of the camera and user comments: a good indication of a genuine witness since with the serial number, it’s possible to know where and when he bought his camera. Note that the date/hour given by the witness is consistent with the original Exifs tags date/hour (see in ‘4’)
- The camera used was a Kodak Easyshare C643 digital camera:
[singlepic id=118 w=114 h=117 float=]
- Date and time of the original shoot
- Technical datas. Note that the image size is exactly the same as these of the original photo that I use here for my study; therefore it wasn’t rescaled or resized
- Photoshop tags, document datas
CONCLUSION:
Maybe asks the witness if he used Photoshop and why (since there’s no apparent traces of modifications).
The Exifs are consistent with the story.
2 – JpegSnoop Study
Nothing special here, only a confirmation that Photoshop Elements 4.0 was used.
3 – Improvements with Paint, Gimp, Photoshop
Auto-Levels:
Embossing -101°
4 – Improvements with Focus Magic, Neat Image, Noise Ninja and Photozoom
Removing Noise
Zoom using S-Spline XL Method
Sharpness Improvement
Inverted
CONCLUSION:
Interesting shape and colours appears using various improvement tools; note the fuzzing red light at the left and the fuzzing yellow light at the right.
My opinion: a real object was photographied with an oval-shape and probably moving from the right to the left.
No wings visible, so it’s not a bird.
The reddish fuzzy light make this object appears to have its own descriptive lights, therefore not a dust.
Could be a UFO!
——————————————————————————
MUFON Member Sights Object in Sky and Captures Photo
By ANGELIA JOINER
Barry Gaunt, 54, saw something in the sky from his backyard that he cannot explain. From Bowling Green, Kentucky, Gaunt is the state’s section director for Mutual UFO Network and he’s also a certified field investigator for the organization. Gaunt’s sighting was March 4, 2009, at 11:07 a.m. (CST).
“I was taking my yellow lab for a walk,” Gaunt said. “I don’t know why, but sometimes I just get the urge to take my camera with me when I take him out. Anyway, I was taking photos of chemtrails when I heard my dog growl a little. I looked where he was looking, then looked up and saw something just hanging there in the sky. I took this picture of it and then watched it just disappear; it vanished right in front of my eyes.”
Antonio Cousyn, a resident of France, verified the photo as authentic. (See report below.)
Gaunt said the object was about 65 degrees off the horizon and it didn’t move at all.
“It did not fly away,” Gaunt said. “It didn’t do anything. While I was still looking at it, it just disappeared.”
He said he estimated with an outstretched arm the object was about the size of a Bayer aspirin between his thumb and forefinger. It may have been slightly smaller, he said.
Gaunt said he has not observed that object again, but he has seen other similar things in the sky around his home and in the area before.
“Sometimes I see them two or three times a week and then I may not see anything again for two or three months,” Gaunt said. “They seem to hang out around the chemtrails.”
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
MUFON to Receive Major Funding from Billionaire Backer
Robert Bigelow gives the keynote address at the NewSpace 2006 conference in Las Vegas. (Credit: Jeff Foust/The Space Review)
Billionaire real estate investor and entrepeneur Robert Bigelow of Las Vegas is now betting his bucks on MUFON to find valuable new knowledge about alien propulsion systems.
Bigelow, who has long been known to give millions of dollars to fund serious UFO research, has just concluded a deal with MUFON whereby he will supply this organization with whatever it needs to be able to go out and bring back the hard evidence, not only to document the reality of UFOs interacting with us, but most importantly to gather the kind of information that will truly advance scientific understanding of this phenomenon.
This may well prove to be a historical occasion for MUFON and for the science of Ufology in general. MUFON since its inception has been a volunteer effort on the part of civilians who devote whatever spare time and energies they can afford in order to fulfill MUFON’s stated mission of scientifically investigating the UFO phenomenon for the benefit of humanity.
Now for the first time MUFON’s members are going to be paid to do their work. MUFON’s agreement with Bigelow is to train and qualify a special rapid response team of Field Investigators who can be deployed within 24 hours to the scene of a major UFO event, the kind designated as Category 2 or 3 in the classification system devised by legendary UFO researcher Jacques Vallee. These are the rarer cases where either physical traces are left or physiological effects are caused in the witness.
Bigelow has hired 50 top-flight scientists to assist MUFON in this endeavor who will function as consultants and do expensive lab analysis of alien materials gathered at the location of a UFO event. Bigelow, who never does anything on a small scale, a few years ago founded BAASS (Bigelow Aerospace Advanced Space Studies) with the incredibly ambitious goal of putting a commercial hotel up in orbit around the earth. He thinks that even one category 2 or 3 case if properly investigated can yield significant scientific paydirt.
Whatever high-tech equipment needed by the investigators on the scene will be drop-shipped to them overnight by BAASS. These high-profile cases will be investigated using the strictest methods of scientific protocol.
Bigelow who has been known to keep his findings on the UFO subject secret has agreed per his contract with MUFON to hold nothing back from this organization that is revealed in the BAASS lab analysis of materials supplied by MUFON. This project which just launched on March 1 is codenamed SIP (for Star Impact Project) . It is a pilot experiment and will be reviewed on June 30 to see if it has proven successful enough to warrant funding for the rest of the year.
Understandably there is a lot of excitement at MUFON Headquarters and among its membership. Now with this major infusion of funds from Bigelow, it will be better able than ever to carry out its stated mission. And Bigelow possibly will get what he wants to forward his goal.
How this will all work out is hard to guess. This is something that has never been tried before. They are moving into unchartered territory here. In any case, Bigelow’s investing so heavily in MUFON’s ability to make SIP a successful search and find operation for greater knowledge about alien technology is some extremely good PR for MUFON whose credibility can be expected to take a significant leap forward in the eyes of the general public.
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.
Stephenville MUFON report lacks detail
By ANGELIA JOINER
Thursday, 12 June 2008
The normally quiet downtown streets of Dublin were lined with vehicles and spectators came in from as far away as Dallas as a media frenzy descended on the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) meeting Saturday afternoon.
MUFON Senior Field Investigator Steve Hudgeons said he brought 50 witness report forms and seven field investigators and that wasn’t nearly enough. The forms went quickly and MUFON representatives made it clear that the publicity was not something to which they were accustomed.
“The good side of the publicity is more and more people are coming forward,” Ken Cherry, state director said. “These are not people that come forward to seek the lime light. We know there is definitely something going on. Something significant has occurred. We are approaching 100 people that have seen this.”
While several individuals claimed to have photos and videos Hudgeons said he had not viewed any that he believed were actually unidentified flying objects.
“The photos we get are almost always poor quality,” Hudgeons said. “Lots of times we see lens flares and bugs and things.” Hudgeons also said he had not a chance to view everything that was brought to the meeting.
Witnesses to the strange lights viewed on Jan. 8 as well as in years past came forward in droves but some left without reporting when cameras were turned their way. One woman told this reporter she had viewed the phenomenon 40 years before.
Hudgeons said MUFON will come back to the Rotary Building in about a month, and media would not be allowed, in order for individuals to have a chance to report in a more private setting.
Cherry took questions from the reporters and the crowd but first said he wanted to explain something about the term UFO.
“UFO doesn’t mean a spaceship from outer space,” Cherry said. “It only means something not identified.” He also said there would be no quick answers and he believes a full report will not be available for at least a year due to the large number of witnesses involved.
“We usually have about 100 sightings a year in Texas,” Cherry said. “There are so many now it’s about to shut down our reporting system.
“This is amazing,” Cherry said. “It’s unheard of. We’ve had more than 50 credible reports within the last few days.”
Normally, Cherry said a report would involve one person or a family seeing something.
“This is the most significant mass sighting since 1997 and the Phoenix lights,” Cherry said.
Cherry said he has talked to professionals from all walks of life including ranch owners and business owners and others. Some reports he said go back for years.
Cherry said his organization will approach the investigation in a scientific manner by proving first what it is not and then narrowing down to identify exactly what was seen.
As far as future sighting go he encourages anyone that is able to get a photo because that is what is most helpful in proving what was seen.
“A number of folks just stood there awe struck and had a camera available,” Cherry said. “And they’re kicking themselves for not thinking to take a picture.”
Are UFOs invading Texas? Ken Cherry’s looking into it
Written by Skip Hollandsworth
Saturday, 22 March 2008
Letter from Stephenville
The Searcher
On the afternoon of January 9, Ken Cherry, the 61-year-old owner of a prosperous Tarrant County securities firm, was sitting in his home office, studying various stock market reports flitting across his computer screen, when line two rang. Line one is devoted to customers and brokers. Line two is the UFO phone.
Cherry is the Texas state director of the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON), the country’s oldest and largest UFO investigation group. He supervises a staff of 41 certified MUFON investigators in the state. These men and women spend their free time interviewing people who have written in to the MUFON Web site or called one of its numbers claiming to have seen a UFO. In an average month, the Texas chapter of MUFON receives between fifteen and twenty such reports. Most of them sound like what Cherry heard on January 9: A woman outside Stephenville, seventy miles southwest of Fort Worth, said she and her teenage son had seen some flashing lights in the sky the previous evening. Cherry asked a few questions and hung up. Since the woman had described seeing the lights for only a few seconds, he didn’t figure this would be anything other than a typical sighting.
Then line two rang again. A Stephenville man was calling to say that he had seen something strange the night before: a single bright light hovering over the treetops near his home. Curious, Cherry logged in to the MUFON Web site, where he saw several reports waiting for him, all from residents of the Stephenville area who had seen strange lights on the night of January 8. The next day, Cherry read a front-page story in the Stephenville Empire-Tribune about four more area residents who had seen something in the sky on January 8. One of them was Steve Allen, the president and owner of a trucking company in the nearby town of Glen Rose. Allen also happens to be a licensed pilot, comfortable with judging aircraft and flight patterns from the ground, and what he described nearly took Cherry’s breath away: flashing lights covering a distance of a mile in length and half a mile in width at an altitude of about 3,500 feet. The lights, Allen said, were “totally silent” and had been racing around the sky at about 3,000 miles per hour until they suddenly turned into “burning flames . . . white in color.” Within seconds, the flames had disappeared and there was nothing left to see. But approximately ten minutes later, the lights reappeared, this time traveling to the east. Allen added, “Two military jets, possibly F-16′s, were in pursuit.”
Cherry walked out of his office and down the hall to find his wife, who’s the operations manager for his securities business and answers line two when he’s not there. “Dear,” he said, “we might be on to something big.”
The Stephenville Event, as some have called it, has quickly become one of the most publicized UFO sightings in a decade. The story showed up in newspapers as far away as China. CNN’s Larry King devoted two shows to what it all meant. “Do you believe alien beings are out there?” King teased, staring intently at the camera, forehead glistening. “Do you believe they’ve come to Earth?”
……
For the entire story, go here.
www.texasmonthly.com/2008-04-01/letterfromstephenville.php
MUFON Investigates more Erath County UFO Sighting reports
Written by Angelia Joiner
Sunday, 24 February 2008
Investigators with Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) collected seventeen new UFO sighting reports in Dublin, Texas, on Saturday, Feb. 23.
Not knowing what to expect in the way of numbers of witnesses, eight field investigators attended from the organization from Austin, Waco, Dallas/ Fort Worth, and said they were pleased with results.
Chief Investigator Steve Hudgeons was asked if he believed the new reports were credible and said investigators are often faced with reports from individuals only wanting to get in on the action.
“Of the reports I have reviewed, I didn’t get an impression that witnesses were not honest in their accounts,” Hudgeons said. “As I have said before, this is a very, very, significant sighting.”
Hudgeons conducted an interview with star witness Ricky Sorrells, who was first interviewed by Angela K. Brown of the Associated Press, on Jan. 14. After that interview was released, his story of the daytime UFO sighting at his property just outside of Dublin, quickly traveled around the world and major news outlets converged on Stephenville, Texas, the next day.
“I knew most of his (Sorrells’) report because we had talked on the phone days earlier, but you never know a person until you have met them face to face,” Hudgeons said. “I found him to be a man of his word because he told me he was going to see me for an interview, and he did come in, even though he was sick and not feeling well. We talked alone for almost an hour. I learned a good deal about his sighting that I hadn’t known prior to our visit. He was very direct with his questions and answers. I admire and respect that quality in a person.”
Hudgeons said, according to MUFON records, the total number of sighting reports in Texas, beginning in 1977 and continuing through late 2007, is slightly more than 400.
“From November 2007 to date, the number of sightings are in the neighborhood of about 150,” Hudgeons said. “We are still investigating nearly 100 reports across Texas.”
Media had been warned off the Saturday gathering due to several witnesses leaving when cameras turned in their direction at the Jan. 19 meeting with an estimated crowd of about 400, and more than a dozen media outlets. But a few local reporters attended, as well as one from the Los Angeles Times, although no cameras were allowed inside the building.
Frank Wachowe, 32, with Mamone Productions, traveled from St. Louis, Missouri, spending about 17 hours on the road, and plans on producing a documentary film on the UFO phenomenon occurring around the area.
His plans include investigating the “personal and emotional side of witnessing a UFO.”
Wachowe said he is interested in documenting the impact of the sighting on the various communities involved in Erath County.
“How does something this extraordinary impact the culture of a community?” Wachowe said is one area he will explore.
Wachowe said he holds a Bachelor’s in media productions from Webster University in St. Louis and another in anthropology from the University of Missouri in St. Louis.
Autumn Humphreys with The History Channel’s UFO Hunters was also in attendance, and said a crew from her company will arrive on Sunday, Feb. 24. In an earlier interview, she said the episode, which will include interviews with area witnesses, will probably be aired in late April or early May. Humphreys said the company has set up a temporary office in downtown Stephenville on Graham Street.
Meanwhile, Hudgeons said he and others are working nights and weekends in an effort to expedite a final report, which will be made public.
“I am a project manager for a commercial construction company and I have my own company as a side job drawing blue prints for other construction companies,” Hudgeons said. “I am basically working seven days a week. Now, having said that, the events in the Dublin area have been occurring and are continuing with no foreseeable let up. All of the members on the investigation team work for a living and we cannot continue (the investigation) forever.”
“I woke up this morning (Sunday after the meeting) with three new sighting reports in Texas,” Hudgeons said. “I haven’t looked them up as yet to see where they are so I can make assignments.”
Hudgeons said a full report in a timeline format will be issued by MUFON soon. The report will include the final analysis of Stephenville resident David Coran’s video, of Jan. 19 and 20, which was seen on many news broadcasts and Web sites. Some have referred to the lights in the video as being similar to hieroglyphic symbols.
“It (final report) will be posted in the April issue of the MUFON Journal, and I plan to hold a news conference at the Dublin Rotary Club in April,” Hudgeons said. “Once again I wish to thank the Rotary Club for hosting our two meetings. MUFON was greeted warmly, and we are very appreciative.”
Hudgeons said he and other members always enjoy visiting Dublin Dr Pepper, as well as meeting the friendly folks in Dublin.
Hudgeons said investigators for the organization are not paid and cover all of their own expenses.
Pilots dispute military statement
By ANGELIA JOINER
Sunday, January 27, 2008
At least three pilots in Stephenville disagree with the military press release issued Wednesday.
Steve Allen, Don “Doc” Stewart and Todd Downs all say if Stephenville and the Selden area in the Brownwood Military Operating Area it’s news to them.
In a press release, issued recently by Maj. Karl Lewis of the 301st Fighter Wing Public Affairs at the NAS Fort Worth Joint Reserve Base, stated, “Ten F-16s from the 457th Fighter Squadron were performing training operations from 6 to 8 p.m., Tuesday January 8, 2008 in the Brownwood Military Operating Area (MOA), which includes the air space above Erath County.”
All three pilots say that space does not include all of Erath County. It only includes a small portion of Dublin and does not include Stephenville or the Selden area at all.
“Stephenville is eleven miles from the MOA,” Stewart said as he pointed out the area on an aeronautical sectional map.
Downs, who is an employee at Clark Field in Stephenville, said there is a GPS fixed point located on the airport grounds that the military uses and while it’s not unusual for the jets to be in the area he believes the press release leads people to believe that all of Erath County air space is included in the MOA and that’s incorrect. He said jets fly through on the way to the MOA.
Downs said he does not understand why the Major would come out with such a release two weeks after repeatedly denying his base had any planes in the area.
“I don’t understand why they would do that at all,” Downs said. “They’re not hard to know that they are there. It doesn’t make sense. I’ve seen them come by me before. They are real loud and it’s not hard to know that they are there.”
Ken Cherry, state director of Mutual UFO Network, said he thinks the military “came clean for several reasons.”
Allen and friends reported early on that F-16s were “chasing” the mysterious lights when they saw them for the second time at Selden on the evening of Jan. 8.
“We have filed freedom of information acts and that may have prompted them to make the statement,” Cherry said. “This only proves our witnesses are more reliable than the Air Force.”
Another witness, Leroy Gaitan said what he saw that night could not have been jets.
“There’s no way F-16s can maneuver like that,” Gaitan said. “I really think it’s some kind of military project or experiment. Too many people have seen things.
“I have spoken to at least one person (witness) the military has contacted,” Gaitan said.
On Thursday evening’s Larry King Live episode James Fox, documentary filmmaker, seemed to confirm Gaitan’s information with his statement on a Stephenville man.
Fox said when visiting Stephenville he spoke to one man “who, unfortunately, was not willing to go on the record,” who claimed he was being harassed by the military.
Allen has said that videos and photos are starting to come in from everywhere and Cherry said his organization is analyzing many that have been forwarded to them.
“We’ve seen a lot of pictures but they have been lens flares or odd cloud formations,” Cherry said.
When asked about the recent footage in Allen’s possession aired by Channel 11 News he said, “The video is interesting and merits further analysis. All others have been eliminated that have come to us so far.”
Steve Hudgeons, senior field investigator with MUFON was meeting with Allen on Saturday to view the entire fourteen-minute video captured by a person not wishing to be identified.
Allen said a Japanese source is interested in purchasing the video.
[ Source: Stephenville Empire-Tribune ]
UFO Witnessed in Cleburne by Expert
By ANGELIA JOINER
1-14-08
Jason Greywolf Leigh, an expert on UFOs and a resident of Cleburne, will go on the air tonight at 10 p.m. CDT, for the Canadian station http://xzone-radio.com hosted by Rob McConnell to discuss the sighting so many in the area witnessed the evening of Jan. 8.
But the best part is Leigh witnessed the same event from Cleburne in the east-northeast sky and had already started documenting his account before he saw the Empire-Tribune article on Jan. 10.
“I sent him (McConnell) an email Tuesday night after my sighting, or two days before I was contacted by Councilman Murphy about the sightings there,” Leigh said. “It adds more credence to not only that of your people’s sighting, but to mine as well!”
Leigh is well known for having filmed the June 11, 1995, daytime footage of a UFO over Cleburne. He said it is rated as one of the top 5 films of UFOs in the world and is extremely rare because it occurred in the light of day.
“My broad daylight footage could not be disputed, as I had first gone in person to the small Cleburne airport and ‘looked’ at the flight log and times: no planes in the area at the time, then I called the FAA in Fort Worth, tape recording the call, as I spoke to the operations manager who admitted they had booked a ‘bogey’ in the Cleburne area that ‘disappeared’ off the screen after ‘x’ minutes,” Leigh said. “He even asked me what it was! After we had talked, I told him that not only was I a freelance journalist, but that I saw/videotaped the UFO and recorded our call.”
Leigh has appeared on several television shows with the dramatic footage and his eyewitness account including “Unsolved Mysteries,” and gives lectures on the subject. He has authored a book on UFO sightings and his uncanny ESP ability titled Power Glide.
Leigh said before you can prove a UFO – you must first prove what it is not – so after the Jan. 8 sighting of what appeared to be a “large blue star that zipped off as quick as that,” he got busy. And busier still, when he glanced at the north-northeast sky and saw a jet aircraft at above 20,000 feet, “zooming in the direction that the blue star took.” Then he noticed another jet as he was peering into the west-southwest sky and it, too, was at least 20,000 feet, as it was leaving a trail, he said.
He said the first thing skeptics will say is that what you saw was a star, in particular, Venus.
“The moon is the size of a quarter with your arm fully extended,” Leigh said. “This object would be the size of a dime with arm fully extended which is 60 times larger than any star.”
But to quiet naysayers, he logged on to starpathways.com and researched Venus. Leigh found on Jan. 8 there was a new moon so that would mean a black sky.
“Venus would be due west and as evening progresses it sinks below the horizon,” Leigh said. “Sunset was at 5:38 p.m. It was after six in the evening so it was dark. It was cloudless, although a brisk wind out of the south. You’ve got to do your homework with this sort of thing.”
Many area residents have questioned what appeared to be an increase in military air traffic in the skies and Leigh documented that as well.
The next day Jan. 9 at 10:30 a.m. he documented four jets, “leaving ‘chem trails’ and making zigzagging patterns in the cloudless bright blue sky” and took photos.
“Until you see something as dramatic as a UFO; you will never be the same again – ever,” Leigh said. “I always suggest to those who have seen them for the first time to read a few of my articles, which gives some idea of how to prepare a report and how to go about ‘proving’ what they saw as opposed to what else ‘it’ or ‘them’ could have been.”
Leigh’s web site is http://jasonleigh.org.
The Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) has scheduled a meeting for 1 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 19, at Erath County Dairy Sales & Livestock Commission located on U.S. Highway 377/67 South. The public is invited and field representatives will conduct interviews and complete sighting forms. Leigh said he would be in attendance.
[ Source - Stephenville Empire Tribune ]
All Eyes On The Skies
By ANGELIA JOINER
1-13-08
Mysterious lights in the sky and what some believe was an increased military air traffic in the past week has prompted the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) to schedule a meeting for 1 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 19, at Erath County Dairy Sales & Livestock Commission located on U.S. Highway 377/67 South.
MUFON Texas Senior Field Investigator and Assistant State Director Steve Hudgeons said field investigators from Waco, Fort Worth, and Dallas will be on hand to interview witnesses and complete sighting reports. He said MUFON is interested in Steve Allen’s first hand account of intensely bright lights and military jets over the Selden community last Tuesday night as well as other accounts.
“I have read the papers and have been sent several e-mails from people that have heard of this sighting and it looks as if there are a good many people that have either seen this or have heard about it,” Hudgeons said. “I will bring down a team of investigators and we will do a mass interview and then do a later follow-up with a selected group.”
Hudgeons said it is the unusually high number of people that claim to have witnessed the event as well as the credibility of those involved that has prompted his organization to become involved.
Founded in 1969, the Mutual UFO Network, Inc., is a nonprofit corporation dedicated, through its volunteers, to resolving the scientific enigma known collectively as unidentified flying objects (UFOs), according to its Web site, www.mufon.com.
The world wide organization headquartered in Denver, Colorado has two publications; the monthly MUFON UFO Journal addresses all aspects of the subject, and The International UFO Symposium Proceedings offers a yearly in-depth analysis of the UFO subject by world-renowned researchers, according to their Web site. Each is available to MUFON members and the public.
Allen said he has received a barrage of phone calls from others witnessing the Tuesday night event as well as reports of military air traffic but also received calls from individuals describing similar accounts. The accounts include a woman that said she saw the same thing in 1967 and worked to solve the mystery with former Sheriff David Hale. But, she said no conclusions were ever drawn.
Allen said he has been speaking with a Hillsboro resident who wishes to remain anonymous but is offering a substantial reward for authentic local pictures or videos to assist with validation of the claim. Allen is the owner of L & S Enterprises and Texas Freight in Glen Rose and can be reached at 254-898-1117.
Hudgeons said he encourages anyone with photos or film footage to wait until he can view the material at the meeting before turning it over to anyone else.
“Even if someone says they are from MUFON, don’t turn it over,” Hudgeons said. “I feel that someone from a government entity will pose as MUFON and try to take them.”
Major Karl Lewis of Naval Air Joint Reserve Base Fort Worth (Carswell Field) reported Friday that no military aircraft from his establishment were in the area Tuesday night. When questioned about military air traffic in the Stephenville area he said there could be a number of reasons for that and most likely it’s because of training missions related to the Brady area.
“There were no F16s from this unit operating and no other pilots from our unit reported a UFO,” Lewis said.
He also said the jets could have been in the area but from a different base or they could have been F18s, which are similar in appearance.
Lewis said after reading newspaper accounts of what area residents saw he has a plausible explanation — something that he has witnessed himself in his 32 years as a pilot.
“I think it was a consortium of lights. It sounds like sun reflection of an aircraft traveling at high altitude,” Lewis said. “That can cause an intensely bright light like that. Sometimes you can’t look at it because it is so bright. As the angle of the sun changes, the color dulls because the sun is setting on the horizon and it’s hitting the aircraft at a different angle.”
Lewis said intense orange, red or white lights as well as other colors may be seen when this occurs. He also said it could have been natural light phenomenon or a visual illusion caused by natural atmospheric conditions.
Hypothetically, Lewis said, an object of the reported size traveling through the atmosphere would leave a catastrophic “sound signature or footprint.”
“An aircraft traveling that fast and at that low altitude would leave an approximate path of four miles wide of damage,” Lewis said. “Low and fast like what was described, would leave a path similar to that of a tornado – it’s a pressure differentiation.”
Another point, he said, was something that fast and low to the ground would create thermal heat, which would create a vapor trail and none was reported.
Lewis said he knows of a plane traveling at mach one speed at an altitude of 5,000 feet, which caused a cinderblock house to collapse, so he doesn’t believe what witnesses spotted was actually a craft of any kind.
(See Monday’s edition of the E-T for an eyewitness account of the Tuesday evening event in Cleburne. The witness first saw what he claims is a UFO in the Cleburne area in 1995 and will be interviewed on the X-Zone radio show in Canada Monday evening Jan. 14. He has lectured on UFOs and paranormal issues in Roswell, New Mexico and New York City.)
[ Source - Stephenville Empire-Tribune ]
