The Report on Unidentified Flying ObjectsRuppelt, Edward J.
History
The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects
Ruppelt, Edward J.
Unidentified flying objects
Armed with a list of names of other observers of the mysterious
lights, the intelligence officer and I started out to try to get a
cross-section account of the other UFO sightings in the Lubbock area.
All the stories about the UFO's were the same; various types of
formations of dull bluish-green lights, generally moving north to
south. A few people had variations. One lady saw a flying Venetian
blind and another a flying double boiler. One point of interest was
that very few claimed to have seen the lights before reading the
professors' story in the paper, but this could get back to the old
question, "Do people look up if they have no reason to do so?"
We talked to observers in nearby towns. Their stories were the same.
Two of them, tower operators at an airport, reported that they had
seen the lights on several occasions.
It was in one of these outlying towns, Lamesa, that we talked to an
old gentleman, about eighty years old, who gave us a good lead. He
had seen the lights and he had identified them. Ever since he had
read the story in the papers he had been looking. One evening he and
his wife were in their yard looking for the lights. All of a sudden
two or three appeared. They were in view for several seconds, then
they were gone. In a few minutes the lights did a repeat performance.
The man admitted he had been scared. He broke off his story of the
lights and launched into his background as a native Texan, with range
wars, Indians, and stagecoaches under his belt. What he was trying to
point out was that despite the range wars, Indians, and stagecoaches,
he had been scared. His wife had been scared too. We had some
difficulty getting back to the lights but we finally made it. The
third time they came around, he said, one of the lights emitted a
sound. It said, "Plover." The old gentleman had immediately
identified it as a plover, a water bird about the size of a quail.
Later that night, and on several other occasions, they had seen the
same thing. After a few more hair-raising but interesting stories of
the old west Texas, we left.
Our next stop was the federal game warden's office in Lubbock. We
got the low-down on plovers. We explained our interest and the warden
was very helpful. He had been around west Texas all of his life so he
was familiar with wildlife. The oily white breast of a plover could
easily reflect light, but plovers usually didn't travel in more than
pairs, or three at the most. He had never seen or heard of them
traveling in a flock of fifteen to thirty but, of course, this wasn't
impossible. Ducks, yes, but probably not plovers. He did say that for
some unknown reason there were more than the usual number of plovers
in the area that fall.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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