The Stephenville UFO Wave: 10 Years On
by Nick Redfern January 3, 2018 (mysteriousuniverse.org)
• On January 7, 2007 in the skies above Stephenville, Texas (pop. 17,000, about 75 miles SW of Ft Worth), several dozen eye witnesses including a pilot, a county constable and business owners, saw an object about one mile in length and a half mile in width, with bright lights coming from it, flying low over the town. Witnesses said they also saw Navy F-16 fighter jets chasing the UFO.
• Major Karl Lewis with the Joint Reserve Base Naval Air Station in Fort Worth denied that any Navy aircraft flew over Stephenville that evening, and the military were very sure that it was just a commercial airliner with the sun reflecting off of it at a strange angle.
• A couple of weeks later, the Dallas Morning News reported that military officials had admitted to having F-16 fighters in the air near Stephenville on the night. The Air Force Reserve Command Public Affairs official responded that there were, in fact, ten F-16s from the 457th Fighter Squadron performing training operations that early evening.
• [Editor’s Note] The government/military must be under standing orders to lie about every UFO incident. They make up the lies as they go. This began with the Army at Roswell, 1947, and became standard military protocol. Consequently, we citizens cannot trust anything that the U.S. government or the military has told us, or not told us.
Just a few days from now we will be marking the 10th anniversary of the Stephenville, Texas wave of UFO activity and encounters. It was a wave which caught the attention of not just UFO researchers, but also much of the world’s media – and the U.S. military, too. There is no doubt that the case was – and still is – steeped in intrigue and mystery. And, as the tenth anniversary looms large on the horizon, there’s also no doubt that there are still enough weird leads and strange aspects to the story to allow for a new investigation of the case. Let’s take a look at the timeline and how things went down.
It was on January 7 that matters really kicked off in Stephenville – and in big-time fashion, too. Consider the following, from Associated Press, on January 14: “…In this farming community where nightfall usually brings clear, starry skies, residents are abuzz over reported sightings of what many believe is a UFO. Several dozen people – including a pilot, county constable and business owners – insist they have seen a large silent object with bright lights flying low and fast. Some reported seeing fighter jets chasing it.”
Steve Allen, the owner of a freight company was quoted as saying: “People wonder what in the world it is because this is the Bible Belt, and everyone is afraid it’s the end of times.” No wonder Allen was so vocal: he said he saw a massive craft in the skies above, somewhere in the region of one-mile in length and half-a-mile in width. He said that the object was “positively, absolutely nothing from these parts.”
Intriguingly, witnesses claimed to have seen military F-16 aircraft pursuing the gigantic aerial vehicle. This, however, was denied by staff at the 301st Fighter Wing at the Joint Reserve Base Naval Air Station in Fort Worth, Texas. Major Karl Lewis stated with respect to this issue, on January 15, that no F-16 aircraft were in the skies of Stephenville on the night of the 7th. The military suggested that they were “90 percent sure this was an airliner. With the sun’s angle, it can play tricks on you.”
Needless to say, the local media were quick to report on the matter. The Fort Worth-based Star Telegram newspaper told its readers the following, also on January 15: “Stephenville’s latest close encounter is weirder than any light in the sky. Stephenville is under assault – not by Martians, but by people hunting them. The phones haven’t stopped ringing at Steve Allen’s trucking company in nearby Glen Rose. He’s the guy who was out Jan. 7 watching the sunset at a friend’s house near Selden when they all saw some weird flashing lights. Now he can’t work for all the calls from London and around the world. Some of the callers are scarier than space aliens.’I’ll be OK,’ he joked Tuesday, ‘as long as I don’t get abducted.’”
Also on the 15th, The Raw Story had its say on the mysterious matter: “Dozens of eyewitnesses have reported seeing a mile-long UFO being pursued by fighter jets last week in the small town of Stephenville, Texas. ‘It was very intense bright lights…and they spanned a wide area,’ said one woman. NBC News spoke with County Constable Lee Roy Gaitan, who offered a somewhat different description. ‘I saw two red glows,’ he said. ‘I never seen anything like that, never.’”
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Naval Air Station Fort Worth, Stephenville Texas 2007
