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The Unsolved Mystery of the Lubbock Lights UFO Sightings
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Hundreds of people, including several university scientists, witnessed the flying blue-green lights in August 1951. One person even took photos.
USAF FILES
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Now to the real-life case of the Lubbock Lights. The Lubbock Lights sightings took place mostly in August and September of 1951. The case was so baffling that USAF Chief Edward Ruppelt personally investigated them. Ruppelt also included an entire chapter to this investigation in his book The Report on Flying Saucers. It can be read in its entirety online.
Simply put, there were three major components: objects caught on radar, strange lights/objects observed by hundreds – often several times in one day, and one outlier report by a woman and her daughter who claim to have seen a pear-shaped metallic object flying around.
The radar report came from Larson Air Force Base on August 26th of an object observed on the radar for six minutes traveling at 900 miles per hour.
“Object was on a course of 340 deg with only slight deviations enroute (sic),[Altitude] 13,000 ft but accuracy of measurement questionable due to brief length time the object was detected. F-86 scrambled but radar contact with the object was lost before a/c were airborne (sic).”
Ruppelt says the submitter was curt and wanted him to know they absolutely ruled out weather interference. As Ruppelt covers in his book, at this point was known for explaining away cases. Sure enough, the Advanced Technical Intelligence Center (ATIC) still claimed the readings were likely weather interference. Ugh.
However, USAF closed the report of the pear-shaped object by the two women as “unidentified.” This was the designation for cases in which they really had no explanation and generally indicates the Air Force found the witnesses credible. In this case, the two women say they were driving in Matador, Texas, about 80 miles northwest of Lubbock, when they spotted a pear-shaped metal object “drifting” about 150 feet off the ground. It was August 31, just before 1 pm. They estimated the object to be 40 feet long and 16 feet in diameter. They watched it for a short period. Then it accelerated up into the sky to the east. It was out of view in a few seconds.
The latter incident was much different than the bulk of the sightings. Most sightings were of groups of bright lights zipping through the night sky. They were not always in a v-formation, most often they were grouped randomly. On the evening of August 25th, a young Lubbock resident waiting up to see the lights everyone was talking about was kept an eye on the night sky. He saw the lights and rushed outside with his camera, but the lights were gone.Fortunately, they returned, and he snapped a couple of pictures. The objects then came back again, and he got a few more shots. The photos made it into the local newspaper, and it is one of these images, or a reproduction of it, . The lights in the show also looked just like the v-formation in the images.
There was one particular group of witnesses Ruppelt especially appreciated, a group of professors from Texas Technical College. One evening four professor of various disciplines were sitting around outside drinking tea when they saw the lights several times. Their sightings triggered an investigation by them and other colleagues who were interested in the mystery or were witnesses themselves.
They were able to discover the lights flew north to south, and they appeared at about 45 degrees off the northern horizon and disappeared at about 45 degrees off the southern horizon.
This calculation could give them an estimate of the speed of the objects, but they could not determine how far the objects were or how large. The group never did figure out the secret of the mystery.Now in a field, the two chit chat and admire the stars sans UFOs. Hynek chooses to take one last look while Quinn starts the car. Suddenly, the lights and the radio in the car start going in and out. Then Quinn appears to be captured by an electrical field. They had seen this happen to a witness to the lights in the hospital. Hynek runs to help Quinn, who mutters for Hynek not to touch the car.
As Hynek tries to open the door, he receives an electrical shock that throws him to the ground. Hynek gets up again and then sees the V-shaped lights in the sky. He watches them, and as they get further away, the car returns to normal. Quinn gets out of the car in time to see the lights in the distance.
Another witness claimed to have more luck. He said he discovered they were Plovers. He said he saw the lights and admittedly got excited but then was able to determine they were indeed just Plovers reflecting light from the town. However, Ruppelt did not believe Plovers could explain the entire phenomenon. One reason being Plovers only fly in pairs or small groups, not large groups like in the photos or the large groups of lights witnesses reported. Another was that two of the Lubbock Lights encounters were during the day, and in both cases, the witnesses reported seeing a silent flying wing craft fly above them with rows of lights along the wings, which would appear as V-shaped lights viewed at night. Ruppelt’s investigation showed it was highly unlikely these were human-made craft.
In his book, Ruppelt said the case was baffling, and he could not come up with an answer. However, he says an anonymous scientist did. Ruppelt says he promised not to divulge the identity of this scientist, and in sharing how the scientist made the discovery and what the revelation was he would be exposing the scientist’s identity, so he can not say. Talk about a letdown.
Further, just like in the show, the Air Force decided to close the case with the Plover explanation. However, UFO witnesses have reported this sort of thing before. One of the most baffling was a case in November 2009 in which a witness’ car stopped during a sighting of a cigar-shaped object above his head. After the encounter, investigators discovered the car was emitting an unusually strong magnetic field. They guy was so freaked out by it he sold the car
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Ruppelt’s book leaves one with the impression that the Air Force was as baffled by these cases as everyone else.
as in UFO mythology, the Air Force knows much more than it is sharing. The later makes for a more exciting program, but alas, the prior seems more plausible. Unfortunately, we may never know what the Air Force really knows about UFOs
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