Sunday, November 22, 2015

The Temple, Oklahoma UFO Occupant Sighting

It has been claimed that the only case involving occupants, creatures associated with a landed UFO that was labeled as “Unidentified” was that from Socorro, New Mexico told by Lonnie Zamora in 1964. Although somewhat hidden in the Project Blue Book files, there is another that took place almost two years later. Hynek mentioned it in his book, The Hynek UFO Report, but he doesn’t give a location and he dates it with a newspaper clipping from the Dallas Times Herald.
Although Hynek suggests the case is from the Wichita Falls, Texas area and the witness, W. E. Laxson was a civilian employee at Sheppard Air Force Base in Wichita Falls, the Project Blue Book files list the case as Temple, Oklahoma. The newspaper clipping cited by Hynek is dated March 27, 1966, but the sighting occurred on March 23, 1966. With the misdirection from Hynek, probably a result of the classified nature of the case when he wrote his book, it took a while to deduce the facts.*
Hynek, using the newspaper account said there was nothing in it that varied from what was in the Blue Book file. That file said:
Observer [W. E. Eddie Laxson] was driving his car along the highway at approximately 0505 [a.m.], 23 March 1966, when he noticed an object parked on the road in front of him. He stopped the car and got out so as to get a better view of the object. The object was so parked that it blocked out a portion of the road curve sign. There were no sharp edges noted by the observer. The object had the appearance of a conventional aircraft (C-124) without wings or motors. There was a plexiglas [sic] bubble on top, similar to a B-26 canopy. As observer approached, he noticed a man wearing a baseball cap enter the object by steps from the bottom. After the man entered the object, it began to rise from the pavement and headed on a southeasterly direction at approximately 720 mph. The object had forward and aft lights that were very bright. As the object rose from the ground, a high speed drill type of sound was heard, plus a sound like that of welding rod when an arc is struck. Object was 75’ long, nearly 8’ from top to bottom and about 12’ wide. There were some type of supports up the bottom of the object.
After the object disappeared the witness got back into his car and drove approximately fifteen miles down the highway. At this time the original witness stopped and talked with another individual who had also stopped along the roadway to watch some lights over Red River which is approximately five or six miles to the southeast.
COMMENTS
Various organizations were contacted around the Temple [Oklahoma] area for a possible experimental or conventional aircraft. The observer stated that he thought the object was some type of Army or Air Force research aircraft. All attempts at such an explanation proved fruitless, since there were no aircraft in the area at the time of the sighting. Although there are numerous helicopters and other experimental in the area, none could be put in the area of Temple at approximately 0500, 23 March 1966. Because of this factor the case is listed as unidentified by the Air Force.

The second witness, who was not interviewed by the Air Force and who, according to the Blue Book files did not file out their long and involved form, was C. W. Anderson. Anderson confirmed for the newspaper that he had seen the craft as well. He told the reporter, “I know that people will say that Laxson is durned crazy. But that’s what I saw.”
Anderson said that he thought the object had been following him down the road. He had watched it in his rearview mirror for several miles. The problem for the Air Force was that Anderson did not complete their form. He didn’t see the pilot or crewman either.
Laxson's drawing from the Project Blue Book files.
The drawing of the object made by Laxson, resembled, grossly, that Lonnie Zamora had made of the craft he saw, which means it was sort of egg-shaped. It was certainly longer and was lying on its side. Like Zamora, Laxson said that he saw symbols on the object, but unlike Zamora, he recognized them. He told the report that, “On the side I made out… ‘TLA’ with the last two figures ’38.’”
In what might be described as a fit of honesty, the Air Force admitted they had no solution for the case. The description of the “alien” was more human than humanoid and he seemed to be dressed in conventional clothes right to the “mechanics” hat. Investigation revealed a second witness and that might have influenced the Air Force, especially since the men had never met prior to the sighting. In the end, they labeled the case as “Unidentified.”

*It should be noted that Hynek used the information that was available in non-classified sources to write The Hynek Report. When Hynek wrote his book, the Blue Book files were still classified, but by the publication date, they would be declassified and housed at the Air Force Archives at Maxwell Air Force Base in Alabama. Here’s what all this means. At the time, the mid-1970s, a book would be handed in to a publisher and it would be between a year and 18 months before that book would be available, which means, when Hynek actually wrote it, the files would have still be classified… and upon publication it wasn’t common knowledge that the files were declassified. Hynek cannot be faulted for using the publicly available information rather than the classified sources to which he might no longer been granted access.

11 comments:

Wind Swords said...

Kevin,

One of the reasons I like your blog (besides your integrity) is the listing of cases like this that were previously unknown to me. Another example is the Rhodes sighting.

If the witnesses descriptions are accurate this appears to be a terrestrial craft of either private or military origin.

Brian B said...

@ Wind Swords

They're aren't many here who believe UFO's are private or military contraptions.

So while it remains unexplained to this day, I surmise most ET proponents consider it just one more example of human-like aliens visiting the Earth.

After all, for some here if a case remains "unexplained" it means ALIEN.

KRandle said...

All -

It would seem to me that if this had been some sort of experimental craft, the Air Force officers investigating would have found this out. Given that Air Force Regulations required that all unidentified cases be classified, and given that many of the cases, reports and documentation in Blue Book were classified as secret, it would seem that if this was some sort of experiment, that would have been learned but there would have been no need to classify it as unidentified. While it seems, given the descriptions, that this was terrestrially based, the point is that it is a case in which entities, whatever those entities were, was classified as unidentified.

Wind Swords said...

Brian I will have to disagree. If the others here really thought unexplained meant ET then you would have comments here to that effect, including the obligatory 3 part response from Dr. Rudiak. But there are no comments to that effect. But it does give support to the idea that some UFO sightings may be secret government projects.

Brian B said...

"It would seem to me that if this had been some sort of experimental craft, the Air Force officers investigating would have found this out."

Maybe, but as you know not everything is shared with everyone on purpose. If it was a terrestrial craft of military origin those overseeing its use wouldn't necessarily be obligated to help out some officers from Blue Book looking into the case.

On the contrary, if they wanted to keep it compartmentalized and locked up behind even tighter internal security they may have chosen to let the investigators come up with nothing, hence having then the need for them to classify it as secret according to Blue Book protocol.

That would burry evidence pretty well and get investigators off your back.

And why presume it was experimental? Eventually if it works it becomes operational.

KRandle said...

Brian -

Would you care to speculate about what technology that is now nearly a half century out of date would not be obvious to us... Why we have seen nothing like this appear in the news media at some point and why those involved in the R&D of this gadget couldn't have just let the Blue Book guys know it was theirs so that they could bury the report, rather than label it as "unidentified" which would call attention to it?

Brian B said...

Sure, if you want it. Here's more speculation and some truthful conjecture:

First - Why suggest that hidden technology made by humans couldn't possibly exist or be kept secret from the public, but in the same breath claim the government is able to hide alien existence and technology from us for nearly 70 years or more? What, they can't hide human inventions and are only skilled at hiding aliens? That makes no sense at all. If you believe they can suppress the truth about aliens then you have to also admit they can hide other human technology as well.

Second - One of the major reasons advanced technology might be kept from public eyes is because it's only intended for covert military application, not commercial or consumer-driven purposes. So yes, that would mean someone in the military, including contractors, knows something about it.

Third - The only reason we know about certain technological developments is because the majority are intended to be sold in the free market. If electrogravitic devises do exist, including over-unity drives, they would be mighty expensive for the majority of people to own. How many people have $1 Billion to spend on some devise? Not many. Who does? Governments funded through taxes. Why? National defense.

Fourth - We already know the US spends about $612 billion annually on defense spending which is publicly acknowledged "on the books", and yet we field almost half the number of active duty personnel than does China. If our military is smaller why do we top all other nations in spending? Because we spend our money on defense technology.

Fifth - Black budget spending is currently not known, but we do know the CIA and and NSA alone garnered $52.6 billion in funding in 2013 while the Department of Defense black ops budget for secret military projects exceeded this number. It's estimated to be $58.7 billion for the fiscal year 2015 and the White House won't reveal the 2016 budget. So where is this money going and for what? Secret defense projects of course.

Sixth - People in ufology claim that the U.S. had developed advanced electrogravitic propulsion by the mid 1950's following intense efforts at developing the technology from captured German plans and what they already knew from Tesla and Brown. If you pour that kind of money into something you're bound to crack the code and figure out how something previously thought impossible might work. From there you test and eventually deploy it for some use - most likely surveillance.

Seventh - If you did want to release your radical new technology to the public, and the world, you probably wouldn't announce that fossil fuels are absolete now that you've developed over-unity drives and free energy travel that's clean, free, and fast. Why? Because the world's economic situation would collapse in a heart beat.

This isn't hard to figure out unless you're stuck on the notion that humans are dumb and it takes flesh and blood aliens to help them engineer their technology.

KRandle said...

All -

Sorry. My fault. Thought Brian would understand the sarcasm in response to his inane comment. That just set him up to clutter up more of the space. I won't let it happen again.

James said...

I came across this thing quite recently by a sort of accident; I cant believe I had not heard about before but it is a long enough time ago I could have easily forgotten.

Richard Dolan has a channel on You Tube and I was listening to one of his interviews re forgotten UFO reports and the other guy on the show - the one he was interviewing - whose name I cannot think of right now - mentioned the Temple sighting & the serial number.

I came across a huge amount of information - a lot of newspaper clippings from the time - I noticed not everybody got Laxson's name right - but the most striking things to my mind were what to me seemed the obviously 'human' origin - whether it was or not - and the serial number. Come on... a serial number?

Here is the link to the NICAP stuff... http://www.nicap.org/660323temple_dir.htm... its obvious you know these documents I just thought I would throw in here..

Yet i know the field well enough to know the absurd quality of this report is repeated - with many variations - many times over. Still the serial number thing is stuck in my head.. and was this guy one of us ... or not?

Could I go visit him - well maybe not now - but knock on his door and say ..."Okay... look. Who made this craft we saw you in... is it in your garage? Must be a big garage... And why would you land in the middle of the road??!!?? Surely you wanted someone to see what you were doing... that was way too obvious...!?!"

Well the report is totally absurd. That is the over-riding characteristic. Who would believe this without seeing it. We can speculate about technology and over-unity drives but the completely ridiculous nature of this occupant sighting is what really stands out... yet... there is so much detail it is difficult to believe not only that it didn't happen- sure seems like it did - and Laxson - well he went way overboard if he was lying.

We are left with what seems to me to be something quite cryptic. And with no key or way to decipher. Did he drop in from some... other dimension? Was he part of our military? Forget about the technology... other factors seem to displace that question. Not that it isnt important... Why was he so obvious? Landing in the middle of our road... did he even know about our culture ... or not. Really it is like a Surrealist painting... more than anything else to my mind... and of course remains undeciphered.

Unknown said...

YES, THIS CASE HAS FASCINATED ME FOR YEARS.... I FEEL THAT IT MUST BE A MAN MADE CRAFT, ALTHOUGH THERE IS THE SOMEWHAT ODD FEATURE TO THE CASE OF THE CRAFT LANDING IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ROAD WHEN IT COULD EASILY HAVE LANDED WELL AWAY FROM THE ROAD ON THE DESERT.... ITS LIKE THEY WANTED THE CRAFT TO BE SEEN...ANOTHER INTRIGUING FACET TO THE UFO MYSTERY..... STEVE.

Bud Ekins said...

Jacques Vallee reckoned these UFO "repair jobs" were staged incidents to condition us to the belief that we are being visited by flesh and blood creatures in nuts and bolts craft.