LUBBOCK — The truth is now out there.
…Or is it?
130,000 pages of formerly classified UFO reports are now available to the public, which include several reports of strange lights in the skies above west texas.These files were once part of a secret government endeavor run by the Air Force called “Project Blue Book.” During the 1950s and ’60s, the US military investigated more than 12,000 alleged UFO sightings. According to the declassified Project Blue Book files, more than 700 of those cases still remain fully unexplained.
“All of a sudden, six really bright lights came and they were moving,” she recalled to KAMC News in an interview prior to her death. “”What they were, who knows. There are a lot of things you see that you don’t know what they are.”
Saucedo says the evening of November 2nd 1957, he and a friend were driving down Highway 114, between Smyer and Levelland. Then, out of nowhere, came a bright flash of blue light. He says their truck engine sputtered, then died, as they felt something passing overhead.
Saucedo wasn’t alone. He was just one of about a dozen witnesses who said they experienced the inexplicable that night. Those witnesses included the Hockley County sheriff at the time. All recalled a blinding light, that somehow caused their vehicles to stall.
But the Air Force investigators claimed that had an explanation — a rare phenomenon called “ball lightning.”
Greenewald’s database has since been taken down, without explanation. However, KAMC News has scanned and uploaded all the pages from the Lubbock Lights and Levelland case files. You can access the PDFs by clicking below.
Lubbock Lights Case Files*
Levelland UFO Case Files*
*Individual pages within the documents may not appear in order. Also, due to a fault with the database while it was still online, occasional random pages may have been mixed in with the case files.
…Or is it?
130,000 pages of formerly classified UFO reports are now available to the public, which include several reports of strange lights in the skies above west texas.These files were once part of a secret government endeavor run by the Air Force called “Project Blue Book.” During the 1950s and ’60s, the US military investigated more than 12,000 alleged UFO sightings. According to the declassified Project Blue Book files, more than 700 of those cases still remain fully unexplained.
KAMC News obtained hundreds of these documents. Search Lubbock, and you’ll find hundreds of pages, starting with an incident known as the “The Lubbock Lights.” On August 25th, 1951, a formation of twenty to thirty bright lights were spotted in the skies above the Hub City.
Pat Allgood, who passed away back in 2013, maintained until the day she died that she saw the lights in the sky that night. She was watching a movie at the local drive-in theater, sitting in the back of a top-down convertible.
Pat Allgood, who passed away back in 2013, maintained until the day she died that she saw the lights in the sky that night. She was watching a movie at the local drive-in theater, sitting in the back of a top-down convertible.
“All of a sudden, six really bright lights came and they were moving,” she recalled to KAMC News in an interview prior to her death. “”What they were, who knows. There are a lot of things you see that you don’t know what they are.”
If you grew up here, the Lubbock Lights are a tale most have heard of at least once before. But you’ll find a slightly different story comes to the surface, once you read the first hand accounts.
While the government tried to say the bizarre sight was merely light reflecting off birds flying overhead, these files show that experienced photographers consistent tried, and failed, to replicate the evidence. The original photos were heavily vetted for any proof of doctoring, but all passed the test of authenticity.
The air force later went on to admit the Lubbock Lights weren’t birds, or spaceships from outer space. However, they said they could not reveal what those objects were in the night sky. Also, any conclusive explanation still remains absent from the declassified case files.
Six years later there was another strange sighting, this time just outside Levelland. It’s an incident still discussed to this day, and possibly served as inspiration for Steven Spielberg’sClose Encounters of the Third Kind.
“The way the light was there…I know there was something there,” recalled alleged witness Pedro Saucedo, back in 2005. “There was something behind that light.”
“The truck starting shaking, you know, and a hard rumbling,” Saucedo said. “When I hit the ground, and that thing had gone over the truck, I felt heat. I felt the heat!
But the Air Force investigators claimed that had an explanation — a rare phenomenon called “ball lightning.”
KAMC News asked Dr. Eric Bruning, an atmospheric scientist at Texas Tech, to take a look at the Levelland case files. He says the science in the report checks out, and that what’s in the documents doesn’t give him any reason to doubt the Air Force’s interpretation of the incident as ball lightning.
“Ball lightning is characterized as a luminous ball of some sort. The size of a baseball, basketball, lasting a few seconds to maybe a minute in reports,” Dr. Bruning explained. “The science that the Air Force used to understand this event back in 1957 is sound and consistent with everyone we did know and have since learned about ball lightning.”
However, some witness accounts said the light spanned hundreds of feet and floated in the air for nearly five minutes.
Bruning shrugged the accounts off.
“People’s memories in strange situations are often not to be trusted,” he said.
“People’s memories in strange situations are often not to be trusted,” he said.
While both of these mysterious sightings seemed to be debunked — even if the government won’t exactly divulge what the Lubbock lights were — upon close examination you’ll find that the military couldn’t explain every alleged UFO sighting reported in the South Plains.
For example, in Matador, August 31st, 1951, reports surfaced of a strange oval object briefly appearing in the air. Air Force investigators dismissed the possibility of it being a weather balloon, but then were never able to identity what it was. To this day, the file remains marked “unidentified.” Then there are other reports, like ones in Lamesa, or near Reese Air Force base, where the military ruled the data and evidence was “insufficient for evaluation.”
“The military and the government want you to believe there’s nothing to this topic,” according to John Greenewald. He’s the man behind bringing these declassified documents to light. For 20 years, he requested, collected, and studied these UFO files. Then last week, he published all 130,000 to an online database, as part of his website, The Black Vault.
“i believe the documentation proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that there is a coverup going on,” he said in an interview with ABC News.
Lubbock Lights Case Files*
Levelland UFO Case Files*
*Individual pages within the documents may not appear in order. Also, due to a fault with the database while it was still online, occasional random pages may have been mixed in with the case files.
