Hello and welcome to the program UFO Warning.
In this episode, we're talking about the Stephenville UFO
messengers. That's correct, the Stephenville
UFO Messengers. Now, in 2008 and 2009, there
were series of UFO sightings in Stephenville, TX.
The sightings were widely reported in the media and
attracted the attention of UFO investigators and the public
alike. Witnesses described the UF O's
as being various shapes and colors, including triangles,
rectangles, circles, and even saucers.
Some witnesses said that the UF O's were silent.
What others said they made a humming noise.
The UF O's were seen in a variety of locations, including
over the town of Stephenville, in the surrounding countryside
and near the local airport. The US Air Force investigated
the sightings and concluded they were likely caused by military
aircraft or other conventional objects.
As you can imagine, however, many of the witnesses and the
UFO investigators disagree with this conclusion and they had
evidence to show why. Now we're going to get into some
of the articles that were written at the time this
happened and then some articles written.
Looking back, it turns out that this events being featured in an
upcoming Netflix documentary. And so that's cool that people
at least are going to be reminded what happened to me.
This is just one of the most fascinating cases out there.
So let's go ahead and get into this first article from NPR.
So just to give us a little more perspective on what was going on
there at that time, I want to look at this article from
npr.org. This is dated January 16th,
2008. So this would have been right
when these things were first starting.
It says dozens claim they spotted UFO in Texas.
It says faster than a speeding bullet and bigger than a
Walmart. That's how residents near the
West, TX town of Stephenville described an object that they
spotted in the Sky One night last week.
Dozens of people, including a pilot and a police officer, said
a UFO hovered over the farming community for about 5 minutes
last Tuesday before streaking away into the night sky.
Pilot Steve Allen saw the object when he was out clearing brush
off a hilltop near the town of Selden.
Alan described the unidentified object as being an enormous
aircraft with flashing strobe lights and it was totally
silent. He said The UFO speed away.
It's more than 3000 mph, followed by two fighter jets
that were hopelessly outmaneuvered.
Alan said it took the aircraft just a few seconds to cross the
section of the sky, that it takes him 20 minutes to fly in
his Cessna. The veteran pilot said the UFO,
an estimated half mile wide and and a mile long, was bigger than
a Walmart. The Stephenville Empire Tribune,
which was which has written about the mysterious object,
said about 40 people saw the thing, though some were too
sheepish to admit the sightings until others came forward.
Law enforcement officer Lee Ray Gaten said he was walking to his
car when he saw a red glow that reminded him of pictures he's
seen of an erupting volcano. He said he saw the object was
suspended 3000 feet in the air. Gaten said he was so awestruck
that he called his son to come and see, but he didn't talk much
about the sightings until he saw a story about a UFO in the local
paper. Military officials, however,
were skeptical. They said the residents were
letting their imagination run while and passed it off as an
optical illusion. They said it was likely nothing
more than a reflection of sunlight on 2 airliners.
Officials at a nearby Air Force Base also said the fighter
pilots didn't chase down anything that night.
The incident was really similar to a UFO sighting a little more
than a year ago at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport.
As many as 12 United Airline employees spotted the object and
filed reports with United. So you can see here at the time
people were reporting this saying, and at least NPR was
taking it seriously. Now let's go on to this next
article to look at some more of these sightings. vice.com The
title says 15 years ago UFO sightings rocked a small Texas
town. The mystery remains In 2008,
sightings in Stevensville, Texas are explored in the first
episode of Vice Studios new Netflix show Encounters, written
by Nathaniel Gianowitz. It starts off here, says
Stevensville is often referred to by locals as the Milk Capital
of the World. But after the events of January
2008, the Texas town of Stephenville became known for
something otherworldly and Messenger is the first episode
of Vice Studios and Netflix's new series Encounters.
Residents of Stephenville and the surrounding area recount
seeing something strange in the sky.
One witness called it an orb, another referred to it as a
flying Dorito, yes, as in Three Sided Tortilla ship.
I think what they meant was that was kind of a like a delta
shaped craft, but even with such wild descriptions, the socalled
Stephenville Lights and is considered one of the most
credible UFO sightings in modern times.
They began when Steve Allen and a couple friends were enjoying a
few beers by campfire one night and something caught their eye.
All of a sudden I see some real bright high intensity light off
to the east, headed our way at a high velocity of speed.
The lights were so bright it was unlike anything I'd ever seen.
It was almost blinding to look at them, said Allen.
Then what amazed me is there was no wind noise, no engine noise.
There was silence when it came past us.
I developed the most peaceful, easy feeling I think I've ever
had in my life. It was almost like a religious
experience, like I was at one with whatever.
It was something I've never heard, something I've never had
before since it was unreal. Now that's a little concerning
to me. I think these things are almost
affecting people physically in their brain.
We talked about Gary Nolan's work where they did, they read a
test on these people that had had encounters with UFOs, some
of the ones that have been injured.
And the commonality they found was that there was this middle
range of the brain in the center of the brain, right where kind
of like where your pineal glands located.
And this is an area of the brain that generates these feelings of
euphoria, that of this connectedness with God,
whatever. And so it seems like these
entities, whatever they are, are using that part of our brain,
this part of our brain that was designed to allow us to have
these feelings of love and euphoria and being in love and
communicating with God, all these things that really seem to
make us human, that part of the brain that we don't even fully
understand how it works. But it's almost like they're
invading this area of that part of the brain and manipulating
it. That's what I think, because how
would you have this real feeling about this thing if you'd ever
met it, if you had no idea what it was?
Anyway, it goes on and says Then just as quickly as it arrived,
it disappeared. A few seconds later, Allen
claimed that 2F16 jets came in hot pursuit.
And in my head I'm wondering, is it or the world's what was going
on? Alan said.
A few miles West, local police constable Lee Ray Gayton was on
his way to rent a movie for his wife's birthday when something
caught my attention, he said. I saw what happened.
I call it a bubble or an orb. It was a reddish orange, fiery
looking thing, really big, said Gaiden.
It was three. It was these bright lights
flashing like a pulsating thing like that.
They had spread out. There was 11 or 12 lights that I
was able to count. All of a sudden these things
just shoot off at blazing speed. Shortly after he saw two fighter
jets, he said they were flying in the same direction, the same
path as these lights. The sightings of Stevensville
quickly became the talk of the town, and MUFON, a US based
nonprofit dedicated to research of UFOs around the world, came
to investigate the sighting. The group invited people who had
seen something to come and tell their stories, expecting a
handful of people. Instead, dozens of other
witnesses appeared, claiming to have seen odd things in the sky
around Stephenville. Soon, TV crews from Japan to
Brazil were descending on the town.
At first, the Naval Air Station in the region denied that any of
its planes were in the area at the time of the sightings. the
US military would later change their tune and claim there were
actually fighter jet training exercises in the area, blaming
the initial denial on a communications error that led to
the dissemination of false information.
Imagine that. Some witnesses also alleged that
members of the government attempted to intimidate them
into keeping quiet about what they saw.
What's unique about the Stevensville sightings, said
Robert Powell at Nanotechnology Engineer and UFO Investigator,
is the accompanying radar information that appears to
cooperate the sighting of Allen and Gayton.
I don't think there's any appearing about it.
I mean, it's there. I mean, this sentence should
read information that cooperates the sighting of Allen Gayton
because it does. Via Freedom of Information Act
request. Powell received primary radar
data from 5 different antennas in the region from the FAA.
With that information, Powell explained that he first tracked
down the routes of the two F sixteens, which had transponders
because they were government aircrafts.
I wonder what happened to that F35 that crashed last week.
So once I identified where the F sixteens wore, I went to start
looking for objects that did not have transponders, he said.
What I find is radar data that confirms that Steve Allen and
Lee and Leroy Gaton have told me there are two radar points that
showed an object moving without a transponder.
The two data points match the time and the geographical
location of Steve Allen's siding, he said.
This is outside of the military operating area, so it should
have a transponder if it is a military aircraft, but it
doesn't in the case of Leroy. I had about five data points on
the radar indicating there is this object, he said.
It's not very often that you get radar data that just cooperates
exactly what a witness said in terms of geographic location and
time. These stories check out with the
radar data. So there's absolutely no doubt
that there's an object in the sky and that the object that's
in the sky does not have a transponder code that tells you
that you're dealing with something real, whatever it is.
Wow, that's amazing. So they've got the white witness
accounts. They've got the actual radar
from FAA. They've caught the government
lying and still we're told nothing to see here.
Move along. Now let's go ahead and look at
this next article. So I want to look at another
article that was written back when all this stuff happened.
This one comes from a BC news.go.com.
The title says UFO investigators flock to Stephenville, TX.
Investigators head to Stephenville, TX after residents
confirmed sightings by a BC News Good Morning America.
And that's dated February 9th, 2009.
Then below that we have a subheading which dated January
18th, 2008 and it has the same title.
So this must have been an updated article.
I'm assuming a team of 6 investigators from the Mutual
UFO Network will be interviewing citizens of Stephenville, TX who
say they spotted the UFO at sunset on January 8th.
The Mutual UFO Network is a non governmental group interested in
documenting UF O's. State Director Ken Cherry says
that the network has received calls from fifty citizens who
say they witnessed the UFO and that the number and credibility
of the people is exceptional. The rural Texas town has
attracted worldwide attention after the sightings.
The Stephenville Empire Tribune, the local newspaper, has
received calls from as far away as Finland and Japan as people
remain fascinated about the reports of a bright object in
the sky that witnesses say was a mile long.
It remains the talk of the town in Stevensville High School
Science Club is now selling tshirts to cash in on the craze.
Stephenville prides itself on being the dairy capital, Texas,
and the shirts that sell for $10 have a picture of a Holstein cow
being beamed up to a flying saucer.
More than 30 residents of Stephenville, TX claimed to have
seen a UFO, described as a mile wide silent object with bright
lights flying low and fast. It was very intense bright
lights, said local newspaper Angela Joyner.
The lights were like going like this, said Constable Leroy
Gateman, making his hand gestures to describe what he saw
when he spotted the UFO. Rick Sorells says he saw it
while he was hunting deer in the woods.
You look at the trees and it was right there, Sorells told ABC
News correspondent Mike von Fremd as he showed him the
location in the woods where he spotted the UFO.
Steve Allen, a 50 year old pilot, was at a campfire with
friends and says the object was a mile long and a half mile
wide. I don't know if it was a
biblical experience or somebody from a different universe or
whatever, but it was definitely not from around these parts,
Allen said. Allen drew a sketch of the
object, which he said traveled at amazing speed without making
a sound. While drawing, Allen told Ron
Frim that he saw an arch shape, converted into a vertical shape,
and then split and made two of them.
And then these two turned turned into fire and it was gone.
That sounds like a shapeshifter to me.
A spokesman for the 301st Fighter Wing in Fort Worth says
no aircraft from his base was in the area, and says the objects
may have been an illusion caused by two commercial airplanes.
But those who saw the lights don't buy that explanation.
It's an unidentified flying object, assisted a former Air
Force technician. Some of Stephenville are a bit
embarrassed about all the attention and it's crazy, said
one teenage girl in town. I like how they go to the one
teenage girl in town as a source of authority.
That is awesome. Now this article here is from
wfaa.com talking about some of the sightings down there.
It says more UFO sightings in Erith County.
There are more fresh reports pouring in about UF O's flying
over Erith County rancher Ricky Sorrells has been seeing the
mysterious lights in the sky since January.
We all want to know what it is. There are more reports pouring
in about UF O's and Erith County.
In fact, there are so many reported sightings on Tuesday
that an aircraft coordinated with spotters on the ground
Wednesday, hoping to get the fresh video.
I never watched Star Wars growing up.
I was too busy hauling hay, said Ricky Sorelles.
But the rancher and welder was among the first in January to
take the heat for publicly admitting he saw mysterious
lights over Erith County. Sorell said he has occasionally
seen them since, including Tuesday night.
They were huge, he said. But this time is different.
Over the last few nights, many people have reported sightings.
A stun family in Dublin shot a video.
An organization called the Mutual UFO Network has an
investigator in viewing interview witnesses.
Ricky Sorel wants to know what those lights are.
I'm tickled to death about it. I've got people calling me
crazy. I saw them too.
You're not crazy, said Sorels. Angela Joyner started writing
about the phenomena as reporter for the Stephenville Empire
Tribune. No longer with the paper, she
now travels the country as a UFO researcher.
Joyner said a small plane will start assisting spotters on the
ground with cameras. Back in January, folks around
Stephenville had a lot of fun with UF O's.
This time, with so many sightings, it seems to be a
little more serious. It tells you they're not a
conspiracy, Joyner said. They've seen, they've seen them
in Heiko, Stephenville, Dublin. Lots of talents.
For the record, Joyner and Sorrells are not saying they
believe the lights are from spaceships.
All we want to know is what is it?
Sorrell said. That's really interesting that
they've had so many sightings of these things.
Now I want to go ahead and take a look at one more article here,
and this is from discogs.com. It says looks like it's been
online for about 16 years. It says Stephenville, TX.
In this farming community where nightfall usually brings clear
starry skies, residents are abuzz over reported sightings of
what many people believe is a UFO.
Ricky Shirell says that he saw a flat, metallic object hovering
about 300 feet over a pasture behind his Texas home.
Several dozen people, including a pilot, county constable and
businesswoman, say they have seen a large, silent object with
bright lights flying low and fast.
Some reported seeing fighter jets chasing it.
People wonder what in the world it is because this is the Bible
bill and everyone is afraid it's the end of time, said Steve
Allen, a freight company owner and pilot who said the object he
saw last week was a mile long and a half mile wide.
It was positively, absolutely nothing from these parts.
Well, federal officials say there's a logical explanations.
Locals swear that it was larger, quieter, faster and lower to the
ground than an airplane. They also said the object's
lights change configuration, unlike those of a plane.
People in several towns who reported seeing it over several
weeks have offered similar descriptions of the object.
Machinist Ricky Sorrell said friends made fun of him when he
told them he saw a flat metallic object hovering 300 feet over a
Patchester behind his Dublin, TX home.
But he decided to come forward after reading summer accounts
and the Stephenville Empire Tribune.
You hear about a big bass or a big bucking area, but this is
different, but this is a different deal, Cerrell said.
It feels good to hear that other people saw something because
that means I'm not crazy. Cerrell says he has seen the
object several times. He said he watched it through
his rifles telescope lens and described it.
It's very large and without seams, nuts or bolts.
I'm going to include a video there link at Buy Me a Coffee
where Ricky Cerrell goes into a short description during an AP
interview about how he was out hunting.
And he saw this thing and how this thing just went from, you
know, zero to, I don't know, 500 or something at a right angle.
And describes how this large flying saucer just maintained
its perpendicular configuration to the ground as it just shot up
into the sky. Very much like what happened in
Chicago as its writer had said it named the article.
Searle said he has seen the object several times.
He said he watched it through his rifle telescope lens.
Major Carl Lewis, a spokesman for the 301st Fighter Wing and
the Joint Reserve Base Naval Station Fort Worth, said no F16S
or other aircraft from his base were in the area the night of
January 8th, when most people were reporting.
Well, the fact is this thing went on for more than a night.
These sightings went on, it looks like for over a year now.
It goes the article finishes up there and talks a little bit
about you know what the constable saw people putting on
different rewards. The thing is, these encounters
over Stephenville, TX, they ran the gamut like they said,
everything from these giant delta shaped aircrafts, those
were the ones I think that were first seen and they got a lot of
press. But then after that you had
multiple sightings of what looked like red orbs.
You had the sighting that Ricky Sorrell talks about, this large
flying saucer. So whatever it was, it was an
intense wave of UFO activity over this little town of
Stephenville, TX and around there Okay.
And it must have been impressive because it looks like one of the
local reporters for that paper there, her life was redirected
to she left her job as this newspaper reporter and went to
work for MUFON. So whatever happened had an
impact on people. As the one guy said, he felt
like he had this religious experience and that's why some
people consider these things to be some type of UFO messengers.
But the question is if they were messengers, then what was the
message? Until next time, this is UFO
Warning Over now.