22:56
Unknown
By ANGELIA JOINER
Stephenville Lights Reporter3-30-2008
Note: Recently, a computer composite by a law enforcement officer in Erath County was posted on this site. The sighting was on January 8, 2008, between 7:30 and 8 p.m. The officer does not wish to be identified for reasons you will find further down in the story. For writing purposes the officer will be identified as Officer X.
Officer X is one more witness in an intriguing story now known around the world as 'The Stephenville Lights.' Some are saying the Stephenville event is the most significant UFO sighting since 'The Phoenix Lights' more than a decade ago.
The difference?
These officers didn't see just lights - they saw a craft. A craft they cannot explain or identify-something that looked like it was under intelligent control - something that maneuvered in a way that they had never seen.
"I want people to know that the citizens are telling the truth," Officer X said. "They're not lying. They are telling the truth. There was something there. I think it's stealthy. It has a stealth capability. I think it can change colors with the sky. It was as dark as the sky until it lit up."
None of these officers were together at the time of the sighting and collectively they believe the object was visible for about thirty minutes. Officer X was on duty in a patrol car, while another officer had just finished his shift and was on his way home, and still another was off duty at his residence.
Officer X was traveling on the Stephenville South Loop, at the intersection of Lillian Street, when something in the sky caught his attention as he was looking north in the direction of the Erath County Courthouse. He said the night was clear and there was hardly any wind.
"My estimate is the object was about a half mile away at the most," Officer X said. "At first, I thought it was a big aircraft, but then I realized it was hovering. I then thought, 'An aircraft that size doesn't hover.' It was so big it would have fallen from the sky just hovering like that. It stretched from the courthouse almost to Jake and Dorothy's Caf'e, or about two blocks. The diagram I did shows 400 feet, but looking back, I think it was larger, maybe between 500 and 600 feet."
Officer X said the craft turned.
"It started out horizontal, went up to the left at 30 to 40 degrees, and stopped for about five seconds," he said. "Then it went slowly vertical. It took about another five seconds to do this; then it slowly moved away to the northwest. It was one big craft."
He said the only reason he could make out the shape was because of its lights.
"The lights would strobe on the top and bottom towers and light up the object for less than a second," he said. "The top strobe lights were red, while the bottom lights were white. The wingtip lights, or outer lights, were red and constant. The large headlights were whitish to light blue and constant."
Officer X said the larger lights reminded him of two headlights on a vehicle, but they were very bright like the blue xenon headlights seen on newer automobiles. He estimated that with his arm outstretched, the lights would have been slightly larger than a nickel held between his thumb and forefinger.
Stranger yet, when the craft moved into a vertical position, a third light appeared between the other two.
He said he was unable to position his dash cam in a way that video footage could be taken, but he did manage to lock it in on radar.
"I had to swivel my radar head up into the sky," Officer X said. "And I knew I got a good hit on it. It showed 27 miles per hour and was accelerating slowly."
Then he said when the object turned at 90 degrees, he lost sight of it because of the treetops.
"It looked like it was moving northwest," he said. "It must have stayed down low because I wasn't able to see it after that. I couldn't follow it. I wish I could've, but I had to go on a call."
The only person he mentioned the experience to that night was another officer employed by a different entity, and the episode was only mentioned in passing.
"I asked him if he saw the huge aircraft downtown earlier," Officer X said. "He said he hadn't seen anything and I didn't mention it to anyone else."
This officer said when the stories became public in the local paper (the first story was printed in the January 10, 2008, edition of the Stephenville Empire-Tribune), he decided to discuss what he had seen after he heard other officers talking about the sighting of an unusual object.
"I didn't say a word and then it hit the newspapers and I thought, 'Okay...Lee Roy (Gaitan) is talking, and he's a good friend of mine. I've known him for years and he's a credible, good person,'" he said. "The other two officers had already talked about it, so I went straight to them. The first night I talked to them was January 12. They described what they saw and I did a drawing on Notepad and took it back to them, and they said it was how they saw it."
Officer X said at first he and one officer felt the craft must be something military, but the third officer "was pretty adamant that it was not," for reasons that cannot be disclosed for the sake of anonymity.
"The more I thought about it... I thought, 'They just don't fly secret projects in free air space,' " he said. "If it's military, they made a big boo-boo by flying it into Stephenville, Texas. The Air Force knows better than that. It leads me away from the Air Force."
The officer said because he was in his patrol car with the windows up and the scanner on, he didn't know if the object was making a noise. He said one of the officers told him upon arriving home after his duty he did not hear anything, but none of them could say for sure if the craft had any noise or was absolutely silent.
From speaking with the other officers who observed the bizarre craft, it was concluded the object hovered 100 to 500 feet above the ground, depending on which way the object was turned at the time, he said.
Officer X said he knows of others who witnessed the incident, but are not coming forward with their accounts.
When asked if he thought the craft was extraterrestrial, he said he didn't know.
"How does a person know?" he said. "How do you know without something landing and somebody walking out of it?"
Earlier that day around 3:30 or 4 p.m., Officer X said he noticed contrails in the sky in a grid pattern, "kind of like tic-tac-toe."
"It was a checkered pattern," he said. "I'm wondering if it was a search pattern."
(Photos taken nearby on January 8 by a private citizen and sent to this reporter weeks ago provide a visual confirmation of what the witness is describing. The location and photos are included below this report.)
Officer X said he and the other two officers could not allow their names to be publicized. He said none of them has been warned not to talk, but using their names could cause problems in their line of work.
"We have to go to court to testify all the time," Officer X said. "Lawyers could question us and make us appear to be less credible to a jury. Also, it can be a big issue when we go to a call and show up on a scene. If we were recognized, it could take away from us doing our jobs."
When asked why he waited an extended period of time to come forward with the account, he said there were a lot of things to consider. He wasn't sure what his supervisor would say about it, plus working long hours doesn't leave a great deal of time for a matter such as this. Also, he said he had trouble with computer compatibility issues involving printing the diagrams.
"I think what we saw wanted to be seen," Officer X said. "I believe it was under intelligent control. It was unusual because of the way it turned up and on its side. I even thought, 'Could it be remotely controlled?' "
These photos (see at www.stephenvillelights.com) were taken by a private citizen traveling home to Stephenville from Fort Worth on January 8, 2008. They are amazingly similar to Officer X's account of a "tic-tac-toe pattern" in the sky.
The citizen's email to Angelia Joiner is included with the son's name represented by Xs.
"Given all the focus on the skies on January 8, I thought you would be interested in these pictures I snapped between 4:30 and 5:30 on Tuesday, January 8 of an incredible amount of air traffic in the skies as my son, XXXX, and I drove home from seeing a great exhibit at the Kimball Art Museum. I took the first photo in Ft Worth just as we left Central Market and noticed all the vapor trails. The pictures progress down Interstate 20 (traveling west from Fort Worth), the last one being taken west of Weatherford around 5:30 or so. I have more pictures of the incredible patterns in the skies left by all the aircraft zipping through the air. XXXX and I were surprised we didn't see a mid-air collision with all those planes heading all directions. Perhaps those maneuvers have some connection to the phenomena in the skies that have caused such a stir."
More...
See Also:
Erath County Law Enforcement Officers Compile Drawings
Stephenville UFO is Viewed by Former Protector of Texas Governors
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