One of the Best Cases - Levelland, Texas

In the last few weeks I have been asked a couple of times about which UFO cases I believe have credibility. I have avoided these sorts of questions in the past because I know the pitfalls of providing a list like that. Debunkers (as opposed to skeptics) will then attempt to explain those cases in the mundane with little regard to the facts. A good example of that was Philip Klass’ explanation of the Coyne helicopter case as a meteor and ignoring the testimony of the pilots and crewmen. Rather than learn the procedures used by Army helicopter pilots, he talked to some unidentified guy who had flight time in helicopters never telling us if that flight time was at the controls or riding in the back.

Ignoring that, and my own trepidation, I will note that the best of the cases will have multiple chains of evidence, including multiple witnesses, interaction with the environment, measurements by instrumentality such as radar, landing traces, and photographs. You would think that after seventy years or so we’d have just such a case. Although we don’t there are a few that meet some of these requirements and one of the best is that from Levelland, Texas, in November 1957.

I have reported on this series of sightings in the past, including featuring it in several books, and in postings here that can be seen at:

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2014/06/levelland-texas-revisited.html

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2010/08/levelland-ufo-sightings.html

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2014/04/levelland-and-electro-magnetic-effects.html

Here’s the thing about the Levelland sightings. There is some evidence that investigations of that case from all points of view was less than stellar. According to the records I have reviewed and the documentation available from various

Levelland, Texas
Photo copyright by Kevin Randle

sources, there were witnesses at thirteen separate locations who reported engines that stalled, lights that dimmed and radios that filled with static. The Air Force claimed in press releases that only three people had seen the object, though they would eventually claim six observers, and to them, if they hadn’t interviewed the witnesses, they didn’t exist. Donald Keyhoe claimed nine but his estimate, as we now know, was low.

The number of witnesses around Levelland would fulfill one part of that chains of evidence argument. We can say that we have multiple, independent witnesses. Given the circumstances, most of them were unaware that others have made reports. They called the Levelland Sheriff’s Office to report what they had just seen. A few, after hearing the news reports the next day, called to say they had seen the same thing.

These witnesses also reported an interaction with the environment which, of course, is their stalled engines, dimmed lights and static filled radios. The witnesses at each of those thirteen locations reported the same things, though not necessarily all of them. Although this information is based on witness testimony it is fairly consistent among them and it suggests an interaction with the environment.

The Condon Committee study a decade later didn’t bother to research this case other than talk to a businessman who claimed his car had been stalled by a UFO in 1967 under somewhat similar circumstances. Although they did make an investigation of that report, they concluded that there were discrepancies in the witness’s statements, no evidence, according to them, of a strong magnetic field near the car based on their mapping of the magnetic points on the car, and because there were no other witnesses, there was no need to continue to investigate. Given what they said, I would be inclined to agree with their assessment of that particular case. However, they also suggested that because the Levelland case was ten years old and the cars involved were no longer available, they couldn’t conduct their magnetic mapping of those vehicles. They decided they weren’t going to follow up on it. Had anyone tried the magnetic mapping in 1957, that might have resulted in some interesting information that hadn’t been found at the time. It seemed that they used the results of their single investigation to reject the Levelland case and this is only place in their study (page 108 of the Bantam paperback) where it is mentioned… Or, in other words, a chance to gather some interesting scientific evidence in 1957 was lost because no one thought to attempt it and nothing new was learned by the Condon Committee because they thought the case too old so they didn’t bother.

Had the magnetic mapping as suggested by those at the Condon Committee been done in 1957 that would have also, to a lesser extent, fulfilled the requirement for instrumentality. This would have provided some additional indirect evidence that something had happened at Levelland or maybe shown that there was no good evidence of a strong magnetic field which might also be important information.

As I have mentioned in the past, there is a hint of a landing trace as well. Before the skeptics point it out, let me note that it comes not from Levelland sheriff Weir Clem, but members of his family and is a claim made nearly half a century after the fact. Family members said that a rancher north of Levelland had found a large burned area on his land. The sheriff had seen it, but then there are no reports from the time, no pictures of it, and no first-hand witnesses to it. If that indirect evidence had existed, it could have formed another chain of evidence if properly investigated, but then that just didn’t happen.

And, of course, no photographs of the object have ever been found. In today’s world everyone who had experienced a sighting like this probably would have had a cell phone to take a picture. In 1957 most people, on routine business, didn’t carry a camera. Pictures, especially if taken from multiple locations, would be powerful evidence.

In what is a somewhat hilarious conclusion, the Air Force wrote off the Levelland sightings as “ball lightning,” a phenomenon that in 1957 was still a subject of scientific debate. Today ball lightning is described as appearing almost simultaneously with cloud-to-ground lightning, have diameters that can reach about three feet and that lasts from a second to about a minute. This, of course, suggests that what was seen in Levelland was not ball lightning. This doesn’t mean it was an alien spacecraft, only that the Air Force explanation for the sightings was bogus and because of that should be listed as “unidentified.”

The point here, however, is that I see Levelland as a very good case given the evidence that was collected. I also see it as a missed opportunity. If Keyhoe and the Air Force hadn’t been so busy arguing about the number of witnesses and what the effects of the close approach of the UFO might be, or that some of it was caused by a cracked rotor in a car, we might have learned something very important. It was certainly a missed opportunity and while there are hints of what else might have been collected, we simply can’t verify it as proof of alien visitation in today’s world.

Coast to Coast - The Levelland UFO Landings

 

I have talked about the Levelland UFO landings and their importance here and on radio shows. Not only were there witnesses at least at thirteen separate locations, but the UFO interacted with the environment by stalling car engines and dimming headlights. In most of the cases, the witnesses had minutes to study the UFO. Many of those witnesses mentioned attempting to restart their cars or trucks. That failed until the UFO left the area. Then the vehicles began working properly again.

You can read about this case, which I have explored on this blog, here:

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2016/03/one-of-best-cases-levelland-texas.html

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2020/06/levelland-and-four-witnesses.html

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2020/07/frank-williams-and-levelland.html

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2020/06/levelland-and-four-witnesses-part-two.html

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2010/08/levelland-ufo-sightings.html

 

The Air Force investigation of the Levelland sightings is badly flawed. Staff Sergeant Norman Barth spent about seven hours in Levelland and interviewed only six witnesses. One of the most interesting of those interviews was with Hockley County

Sheriff Weir Clem

Sheriff, Weir Clem. His office received many of the phone calls that came in over a two-hour period about the strange events. According to the Air Force report, Clem, along with a couple of other law enforcement officers, left the office to search for the UFO. Clem was quoted in the Air Force report as saying that he had only a streak of light in the distance for about two seconds.

However, according to newspaper reports published the day before Barth arrived in Levelland, Clem said he was much closer to the UFO and that it was oval shaped. Don Burleson, of Roswell, investigating the case two decades ago, said that Clem’s car was checked by a mechanic the next day.

Burleson also interviewed the wife and daughter of the Sheriff and was told that he had gotten closer, much closer, to the UFO, which I verified through newspaper reports from the era. The daughter also talked about a burned area that the Sheriff had seen. It means that there was other evidence of something landing that night in November, 1957.

To be fair, according to the newspapers of the time, there was a mention that the Sheriff and the Provost Marshal from Reese AFB did go out in search of the landing traces. They reported negative results, but you have to wonder what they might have seen and what the Provost Marshal might have said. You have to wonder why the Air Force Provost Marshal was involved. You have to wonder about the influence that Barth brought with him so that the truth could be buried and mention of Air Force involvement disappeared from the narrative.

Additional questions are: Why the changes in the Air Force report about how close the Sheriff got and only the mention of a steak of light, and, why have a mechanic check the car if he hadn’t gotten close enough for the UFO to affect its operation?

There is another interesting aspect to this that no one seems to have noticed. When the Sheriff headed out to search for the UFO, he was accompanied by other law enforcement officers, some of whom were not interviewed by Barth. But, more importantly, the Sheriff, according to newspaper reports, was also accompanied by Air Force officers. They would have come from Reese Air Force Base in Lubbock, only fifteen or twenty minutes away from Levelland. There is no mention of those Air Force officers in the Project Blue Book files. I have yet to identify who they were, but I can document that they were involved.

It is clear from all this that the Air Force investigation was inadequate and that it was designed to answer questions but to avoid the truth. The reality of the case is that it was much more important than many realized at the time. Too many UFO researchers missed the significance and the Air Force got away with the misdirection. It only proves that we can learn something by prowling the archives. There are gems hidden there.

The Levelland Sightings and the Condon Committee

I had always wondered why the Condon Committee, that University of Colorado study of UFOs financed by the Air Force, which is to say us, never bothered looking into the Levelland UFO sightings of November 1957. In their final report there is a single mention of Levelland in which they report, “Magnetic mapping of automobiles involved in particularly puzzling UFO reports of past years, such as the November 1957 incidents in Levelland, Texas, would have been

The Levelland sign. Photo copyright by
Kevin Randle.

most desirable, but the cars were no longer available.”

An interesting idea and the scientists working with Condon had pointed out that the manufacture of the cars’ steel components such as hoods and doors would have created a magnetic signature. Even if the cars involved in the incidents had not been mapped prior to the sighting, those manufactured at the same time, at the same place, would have a magnetic signature that matched those from the UFO event. It meant that the magnetic signature of all the cars were similar and any major deviation would have been significant.

They did follow up on this, after a fashion. They reported that two of their investigators, Fred Hooven and David Moyer (actually part of the Ford Motor Company) investigated a case (Case No. 12 in the official report) from the winter of 1967, in which a woman said that a lighted UFO hovered over her car for several miles and that it interfered with the electrical functions of her car. Hooven and Moyer said that an examination of the car some two months later found all the electrical systems working as they should and that they discovered no magnetic anomalies when the magnetically mapped the automobile.

I will note here that it seemed a real effort was made to investigate the case including extensive examination of the car by Ford engineers. What they found was a car in poor repair with a radio antenna that was broken so that it only picked up the local stations, a fan belt that was loose so that it was not charging properly, that the speedometer had been broken, repaired and apparently broken again so that there were speed functions on the dashboard display and that oil gauge was malfunctioning because of leakage in the electrical system. In other words, it seemed that everything the witness had reported about car trouble was related to the car itself and not some sort of outside influence such as the hovering UFO.

They, that is Hooven and Moyer, reported that she seemed to be a nice woman who was not prone to hysteria and who was competent, meaning I suppose, that she was intelligent and wasn’t mentally ill in some way. However, they noted that her memories of the UFO incident were not without problems including that she remembered a bright, full moon when it was actually in its last quarter and that though she claimed to have seen the UFO in her rearview mirror, the configuration of the car and the placement of the mirror meant that the UFO couldn’t have been seen in the way she described.

There was a second case (No. 39) from the fall of 1967 and in a location noted as the South Pacific, that had somewhat similar results. Again, the Condon Committee doesn’t supply the name of the witness, only that he was a businessman who said that his car had been stopped by a UFO sometime between 3:30 and 4:00 a.m. The lights failed and the radio went dead. He also reported that he felt something pressing down on his head and shoulders. Through a break in the fog, he saw a UFO that passed over his car and stopped, hovering over the highway. He thought it was about thirty feet in diameter, red-orange, saucer shaped but with a fuzzy outline. It had rotating lights and wobbled as it moved and hovered about 160 feet above the ground. He watched it for about a minute and a half, before it took off into the fog. When it was gone the radio came back on, the lights brightened and he was able to start his car. (Note here that he had to take an action. The car did not spontaneously restart.)

Once he had started the car, he drove to the nearest town in search of someone to talk to. He didn’t find any additional witnesses. Eventually the case made its way to NICAP. That investigation showed that the car’s clock had stopped at 3:46 a.m. and, according to the unnamed witness, the clock had been working perfectly prior to the sighting. Interestingly, they found that stereo tapes that had been in the car at the time of the sighting had lost some of their fidelity, especially in the lower ranges and that the rear window had some sort of distortion in the glass.

The Condon Committee investigation was carried out by Roy Craig, who recorded the interviews with the witness and gathered additional details. In this case they found a car of similar manufacture and engaged in a magnetic mapping of the hoods of both. There were a couple of points where the magnetic signature differed significantly but for the most part, the magnetic signatures of the two cars were similar.

What I found interesting is that Craig reported that the radio’s FM band no longer worked, though, according to the witness, it had been fine until the sighting. Five days after the sighting all that could be heard was a loud hum across the whole FM spectrum.

And, now, according to the witness, he was no long certain that the clock had been working in the days prior to the sighting. The clock stoppage might not have been relevant.

Craig was bothered by the witness’ vague description of the object and with the inconsistencies in his estimates of the size and distance as they were determined later by measurement. He was also worried that no one else had seen the object and that the car didn’t seem to show an exposure to a strong magnetic field. Craig wrote, “…car body did not show evidence of exposure to strong magnetic fields, a more detailed investigation of this event as a source related to electro-magnetic effect on automobiles did not seem warranted.”

These were the only cases of reported electromagnetic effects stalling cars but they did look into other aspects such as power outages caused by UFOs. In their research of several of these blackouts, they could not establish a causal relationship. In other words, the evidence didn’t support the idea that a UFO had been

Location of the first Levelland sighting.
Photo copyright by Kevin Randle.

responsible for a blackout and I have to agree with that assessment.

The purpose here, however, was to try to understand why the Condon Committee seemed to ignore the Levelland case. It differed from those they did investigate because it had multiple, independent witnesses, and included law enforcement officers among those who had seen the object or the light.

The papers, documents, research, rough drafts and other material collected during the project were eventually sent to the American Philosophical Society Library. It turns out that they did make a study of the Levelland case though it seemed to have been based solely on the Project Blue Book files, what NICAP reported, and what was found in Dallas Times Herald newspaper.

Although there seemed to have been no original research, meaning they didn’t interview any of the witnesses and noted that the vehicles involved couldn’t be located (I have to wonder if this was just an excuse, though 10 years had passed and the effort to locate those vehicles would have been extremely difficult) they didn’t take their investigation any further. It amounted to a synopsis of the sources quoted, a short discussion on areas of further investigation that was only about related weather phenomena, especially ball lightning, which was the Air Force final conclusion, none of which made it into the final report.

At the end of the Condon Levelland report, there was a series of hypotheses suggesting solutions. This seems to have been taken almost directly from an Air Force document about the case. They simply did not bother to follow up on this case, though they noted its importance. There were multiple witnesses to the suppression of the electrical system made independently and there were multiple witnesses who reported an actual, physical object either close to the ground or sitting on the ground.

In the end, I’m unsure of the motives here. We know that Condon was instructed about the conclusions of his study prior the beginning of the work, and we know that he adhered to those instructions. We see evidence in other aspects of this research where solid leads were virtually ignored (Shag Harbour, though it could be argued that the Canadian case fell outside the scope of their project), and we see that sometimes they gave little more than lip service to the investigation. I had thought we’d find some more evidence of the committee ignored a solid case, but given the circumstances, it might just have been impossible for them to do more than they did with Levelland.

However, the Levelland case provided some interesting dynamics such as the craft interacting with the environment, multiple independent witnesses, and an opportunity for some scientific investigation. It suggested that they look a little deeper into this idea of electromagnetic interference, which they did, sort of. Instead, they found a way to ignore Levelland and move onto other aspects of their research. This was at best, a missed opportunity and at worst just another example of how not to actually conduct research.

AARO Pilot's Sighting Report

In the last few weeks, I seem to have been stuck with reading about what is happening with the various investigations in Washington, and with reports from those agencies telling us, basically, there is nothing alien in what they found. Sean Kirkpatrick later explained that. He also said, as have others, that there are cases that are unresolved, meaning there is no terrestrial explanation for the report, but nothing in those unresolved cases that takes us off-world.

Now, we have something new from AARO, which, given the nature of that investigation, again explained by Kirkpatrick, is not surprising. In the report, released publicly at the end of April, in a case from January 26 of last year, a military pilot reported that while on the Eglin Air Force Base training range, his* on-board radar displayed four unidentified objects flying between 16,000 and 18,000 feet. The pilot only saw one object which he described as rounded and somewhat cone shaped. Not only was there a radar display but what was described as Electro-optical and infrared sensor data suggesting something real outside the cockpit of the jet.

The pilot said the object was gray with a paneled surface and orange-red coloring in the center. It was about 12 feet in diameter and might have been hovering or moving relatively slowly. He said there was a rounded bottom and that there was a cone top, like that on the Apollo Spacecraft. He said there was blurry air underneath that seemed to be some kind of a heat signature.

Pilot's illustration of UFO courtesy of AARO.

As the pilot closed to within 4,000 feet, his radar malfunctioned. Examination by technicians found that a circuit breaker had tripped. I found that interesting, but maintenance records showed that same circuit breaker had tripped three other times. That suggests the problem was not the close approach of the UFO. Other, contradictory information, apparently left out of the report suggested that was not the only electronic failure on the aircraft during the close approach of the UFO.

AARO’s investigation suggested the object was lighter-than-air, possibly a weather balloon (where have we heard that before), a large mylar balloon or a commercial, outdoor helium lighting balloon.

They also concluded that blurry air that suggested a propulsion system could have been, and I stress that, could have been, a visual misperception due to environmental conditions. Or, in other words, it was something in the atmosphere causing the trouble, but nothing emitted by the object.

Both the intelligence assessment and the science and technology assessment in the AARO report reached the same conclusion. They independently identified object being like some form of balloon. Of course, since these were high-level investigations by highly trained and respected experts, we can accept that as being accurate.

Florida Republican Congressional representative, Matt Gaetz, said that he had attempted for months to gather more information about the sighting once he learned about it officially. He pointed out that the radar data showed four objects flying a diamond formation with equidistant separation. He also noted that the sighting took place over the Eglin ranges which are relatively free of airborne clutter. These facts suggest something other than a balloon. I suppose you could say that a cluster of balloons, tethered to one another could hold a relatively stable formation, but I find that difficult to believe.

Gaetz said that not only had the radar failed, but the infrared camera also failed. The pilot took still photographs of the UFO. This was one of those facts left out of the report that took us away from balloons and faulty radar circuits and into a new arena. It also suggests that AARO is engaged in identification even if that identification is somewhat shaky.

As I noted earlier, the object was said to be virtually stationary, but the winds at the altitude of the UFO were blowing at 80 knots. This and other facts suggest the Pentagon has resorted to the decades old policy of offering explanations for mysterious sightings without worrying about the contradictory evidence. I think here of the Levelland sightings of November 1957, which were resolved as ball lightning ignoring the facts that ball lightning is very short-lived and was much smaller than the UFO reported by dozens of witnesses in that case.  These reports including testimony that car engines had stalled, the headlights dimmed and the radios were filled with static. There was also a report of a large, circular burned area on a ranch near Levelland.  The UFO was described as huge and was glowing bright red. For those interested in more information about Levelland, the book is called Levelland in a comprehensive examination of the case.. Or you can take a look at some of the related articles published here:

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2016/03/one-of-best-cases-levelland-texas.html

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2020/10/coast-to-coast-levelland-ufo-landings.html

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2018/06/the-levelland-sightings-and-condon.html

This provides a good look at Levelland and each of the articles does contain references to other reports about the case if you wish to dive deeper (which is now how we say, “Examine it further.”

One other point that is relevant. Kirkpatrick has said that the mission of AARO  was to determine the nature of UAP and not hunt for aliens. He also said that the craft reported were secret military vehicles, which has been a way to dodge questions by invoking national security. Independent research has not borne this out. In reality, it is just another way to conceal the evidence.

While I approve of seeing one of the AARO reports, and John Greenewald for publishing it on his Black Vault website, I, and many others reject the conclusion that is based on several assumptions, an overlooking of contradictory evidence, and then suggesting a “moderate” rating. While this suggests a solution, the meaning of “moderate” suggests they don’t have much confidence in it. I suppose they hope that no one will make careful examination of the facts.

*I have used the generic pronoun of he, assuming, based on statistics, that the pilot in question was male, realizing there is a chance the pilot was female. The report used the group pronoun “they” which is confusing in a report where there was a single pilot. I wondered, if at some future date, someone interested in UFOs would come across the AARO report and lose time trying to learn the identifies of the other witnesses because common sense has taken hold then and we eventually stopped using group pronouns for single individuals. 

Levelland and the Four Witnesses

During the interview with Robert Sheaffer on A Different Perspective, I mentioned the Levelland UFO case as one that seemed to have quite a bit of evidence. Here was a case with multiple, independent witnesses who reported the close approach of the UFO that stalled their car engines, dimmed their headlights and filled the radios with static. It is a case that fascinates me and seems to suggest that there is no plausible, terrestrial explanation for it. Robert suggested that four of those

independent witnesses had been discredited and it might have been just one or two guys calling the Levelland police or sheriff’s office and making multiple reports. Frankly, I had not heard about that, and given the nature of the show, just didn’t have the time or ability to explore the claim then. For those who haven’t listened to the show, you can find it here:

https://www.spreaker.com/episode/29233178

Actually, during the show, Robert sent me a link to a website that provided the information. I just couldn’t get to it then, in the middle of the show, but have, of course, looked at it since. (I will note here that we take short 30 second breaks between segments so that the commercials can be inserted later.) You can find that link on Levelland here:

http://www.theironskeptic.com/articles/levelland/levelland.htm

The relevant comments, from the site provide four names and a little about their importance to the case. It says:

Their names were James Long, Jim Wheeler, Jose Alvarez and Frank Williams. For some reason, they are considered witnesses of the highest caliber; any analysis of the Levelland case is likely to refer to them with words such as honest, sincere, truthful, sober or reliable. The fact that prisons are filled with honest, sincere, truthful men notwithstanding, the UFO enthusiast neglects to mention that all we know about what happened to these men comes from a phone call each of them placed to a UFO investigator.

They were never interviewed by the police, the Air Force or other reputable sources; we have but their claims, telephoned to a single UFO investigator, on which to hang their veracity. Let me call forth all of my powers of understatement and say that I feel this is insufficient justification to take their word for it.

These men aren’t the only ones who reported an encounter with the object that night but it was these four who had been singled out. Although it appears, as mentioned, that those four were not interviewed by the Air Force, they were interviewed by law enforcement. It is not true that UFO researchers have referred to them as “witnesses of the highest caliber.” Please note here the use of the word, “likely” when mentioning that any analyst “is likely to refer to them with words such as honest, sincere, truthful men…” In my survey of various sources including those that I have written, I did not find any such praise. Just the raw facts of their sightings.

I’m not sure of the relevance of suggesting the “fact that prisons are filled with honest, sincere, truthful men.” I’m actually not sure how you can claim that prisons are filled with honest, truthful men. This seems an inappropriate comment and wonder if a better analogy might have been used rather than this somewhat oblique smear.

The “official” investigation of the sightings lasted for most of a day (seven hours) and was conducted by Staff Sergeant Norman P. Barth, a mid-level NCO with the 1006^th Air Intelligence Service Squadron stationed at Ent Air Force Base in Colorado Springs. Barth did interview a couple of the witnesses including Pedro Saucedo, the first man to report the UFO stalling the engine of his truck.

Barth was unimpressed with Saucedo and the passenger in his truck, Joe Salaz (though his last name is spelled several different ways in the various reports). Barth reported that the “source,” that is Saucedo, had no concept of direction and gave conflicting answers. He also reported that Saucedo’s truck had been recently repaired and a piece of the distributor rotor in the ignition system had broken off, possibly causing the truck to stall.

There were those interviewed by Barth that did corroborate Saucedo’s claims. According to Newel Wright’s statement found in the Project Blue Book files:

I was driving home from Lubbock… at approximately 12:00 p.m. [I’m sure he meant midnight] when the ammeter on my car jumped to complete discharge, then it returned to normal and my motor started cutting out like it was out of gas. After it quit running my lights went out. I got out of my car and tried in vain to find the trouble. When I found nothing I closed the hood… It was at this time I saw the object. I got back in my car and tried to start it but to no avail. After that I did nothing but stare at the object until it disappeared about five minutes later. I then resumed trying to start my car and succeeded with no more trouble than under normal circumstances.

Although it seems that Ronald Martin was not interviewed by the Air Force, he did report some of the same things as did the other witnesses. He said he saw an orange ball of fire hovering in the sky. At about a quarter mile, the lights and motor of Martin’s truck failed. Once it was gone, he was able to start his truck. Martin then, is another witness to the object and it’s EM effects.

Ray Jones, the local fire marshal was one of those out chasing the object. He said that he saw a “streak of light” and his headlights dimmed and his engine sputtered. This is not the most dramatic report, but it does, to a point, help corroborate Saucedo’s earlier claim. And there might be more to that story than is first seen.

Sheriff Weir Clem

The Levelland Sheriff, Weir Clem, told his family, contrary to what the Air Force reported, he had been closer to the object than it was claimed and had his engine stalled and his headlights dim. Don Burleson collected that information in 2002, nearly fifty years after the fact, and given that it is second hand, could be rejected outright, if there wasn’t additional information.

In 1975, Don Berliner interviewed the sheriff. Clem said the object was shaped like a football and had bright white lights. This suggests that Clem was closer to the object than the Air Force had reported and that he saw something more than a streak of light in the distance.

On November 4, 1957, the Indianapolis Star provided some additional information. Clem is quoted in the article saying, “It lit up the whole pavement in front of us for about two seconds.” He said it was oval shaped and looked like a brilliant red sunset.

To be fair, there is other documentation about what the sheriff had to say. In a radio interview conducted shortly after the sighting, Clem told the reporter, “I did not see the object. I seen (sic) the lights, I will say the beams from the object.”

Although Clem did not fill out the official Air Form, a sergeant at Reese Air Force Base, took his telephone call early on November 3 and filled out the form based on what the sheriff said. There was nothing particularly illuminating on the form, other than the names of two of the witnesses and a reference to Saucedo.

While this all provides information from others who were involved and who were interviewed by the Air Force, this doesn’t validate the information provided by Long, Wheeler, Alvarez and Williams. The Lubbock Morning Avalanche reported on what each of these men said, which removes it from the idea that they can be dismissed because a UFO investigator also found them. The article, written by Bill Wilkerson, said, “Others who reported sighting the object were Jim Wheeler of Levelland, Jose Alvarez of Levelland, Frank Williams of Kermit and James D. Long of Waco.”

Wilkerson also wrote, “Wheeler, Alvarez, Williams and Long, all traveling in separate cars, each said their car engines died and their lights went out when they drove near the object. They all described it as being ‘egg-shaped, and about 200 feet long.’”

It is also clear, from interviews conducted with Sheriff Clem, that he had spoken to several of the witnesses. In a radio interview conducted on November 3, 1957, Clem said this:

Clem: James D. Long, a colored [I left the reference intact, though I fear it might offend some… I thought the original flavor of the sheriff’s statements required accurate reporting] male from Waco, Texas, working here in the cotton harvest, he drove up on it settling in the highway, on the farm to marker road, we call the Oklahoma (word missing) [Flat] Road. Runs north and a little west of Levelland. And he said, just as he drove up to this object, turned his car lights and drove up. It was sitting in the road, (word missing) his car lights shined on it, just as plain as could be, and he had made his stop, and presumably to get out, and this thing lit up, and when it did, to take off, why his lights went out and his motor died.

Clem: … And he said it was egg shaped (words missing) the best he could figure it looked like a big egg. 

Interviewer: Was it spherical – I mean by that, was it a solid object or did it appear to have windows, or openings in it?

Clem: That he did not give us at all. He said it just looked like an egg shape, big oval egg-shaped object.

Clem was also asked about other witnesses and he did mention Frank Williams. Although not as detailed as the information about Long, Clem said this, “Mr. Frank D. Williams, from Kermit, Texas. He said he done him the same way on highway 51, about 9 miles north of Levelland.” He added, “He didn’t report the noise. By this time, I was out there trying to find it and he called in to the dispatcher and they did not report any noise to me. I am trying to locate Mr. Williams on the phone at this time.”

There was another man who reported the object and was interviewed by the Air Force. J. B. Cogburn is important because he was the fourth person whose name appeared in the Blue Book files to say he had seen an object. The Air Force, in their press statements said that only three people had seen an object. The others reported lights or streaks of lights, according to the Blue Book files.

There is one other factor to mention here. At the end of the Air Intelligence Report, it was noted, “Prime sources could not be located for interview or interrogation by USAF investigator.” That means, of course, that Barth didn’t talk to some of the witnesses, but given that he only spent seven hours in his investigation, and given that the witnesses were scattered all over west Texas, it’s not surprising that he failed to interview some of them.

In another report, the Air Force officer writing it suggested, “Other witnesses reported in newspaper accounts as having observed an object had either disappeared or returned to their homes leaving no forwarding addresses.”

At least two of those witnesses lived in Levelland and another in small Kermit, Texas, not all that far away. Long lived in Waco, Texas, but given the Air Force mission, all these witnesses should have been simple to find had any one wanted to do so. This suggests that the Air Force investigator didn’t try very hard to gather additional information and no one in his chain of command did anything to reverse that decision.

Also found in the Air Force files are a number of notes about the cost of conducting the investigations. An Associated Press story mentioned a figure of ten thousand dollars (which is in 1957) for these investigations, using the cost as a reason that not all witnesses were interviewed.

What we know is that of the four men mentioned on the skeptic’s site I found information suggesting at least two of them were interviewed by members of law enforcement. It is clear from the documentation in the Air Force files and in the newspaper articles that all four acted independently and were reporting, as best they could, what they had seen. There is no evidence that they were reacting to the news media reports with the exception of Long from Waco.

It seems that this was a series of sightings of something strange seen around Levelland, Texas, for a couple of hours during the night of November 2 and the early morning of November 3. It seems, based on the documentation, that those calling into the police department or the sheriff’s office, or who walked into those facilities, had no knowledge of what the others had seen. The skeptical posting that began this has been shown to be in serious error. And the Air Force attitude to this series of sightings as well as the whole of the UFO phenomenon has been less than candid. Although, by regulation, they were required to investigate the sightings of UFOs, it is clear that they rarely followed those regulations other than to do as little as necessary so they could claim compliance.

Frank Williams and Levelland

Some time ago I interviewed Robert Sheaffer about UFOs and I brought up the Levelland landing and EM effects case. Robert said that four of the witnesses had been discredited. I asked for the source and he provided it. You can read about all that here:

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2020/06/levelland-and-four-witnesses.html

and here:

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2020/06/levelland-and-four-witnesses-part-two.html

and you can listen to the interview with Robert here:

https://www.spreaker.com/episode/29233178

As you can see there is some question about the original source of the material. It seems, based on what I have found, that all four of the mentioned witnesses were

not discredited. However, there is a problem with one of them. Here’s what I know about Frank Williams, or more accurately, what Williams was reported to have said or done:

At about 12:05 a.m. or maybe a few minutes later, Frank B. Williams, of Kermit, Texas, reported that he had seen a large, egg-shaped object sitting on the ground. Williams said that his engine quit and his lights faded immediately. The object was pulsating as it glowed and it seemed that the lights might have been synced to the pulsation of the craft. He said that every time the object came on, his car lights would go off.

Williams got out of his car and the object rose to about 200 or 300 feet with a roar like that of thunder. It stopped glowing and disappeared. When the object was gone the headlights came on and Williams was able to start his car.

Although it was reported that Williams had actually gone to the police station to make his report of his sighting, other sources suggested he had telephoned the police instead. Don Berliner, writing in Official UFO nearly twenty years later seemed to confirm that Williams had only called the sheriff rather than visiting him.

Williams, it seems, then fell off the face of the planet. According to newspaper sources, Sheriff Weir Clem, the Hockley County sheriff, which included Levelland, wanted to interview Williams the next day, November 3. Clem asked his counterpart, Winkler County Sheriff L. B. Eddins, which includes Kermit, to search for Williams. “Eddins said he ‘turned Kermit upside down’ today, even to having an appeal broadcast on the Kermit radio station but he was unable to find Williams or any trace of the man having lived in Kermit.”

What can we deduce from this?

First, it could be suggested that Williams lied about who he was because he didn’t want people to think he was crazy, but felt the need to report what he had experienced.

Second, it could be that he lied about where he was located for the same reason given above.

Third, he might have lied about both his name and his location for the same reason given above.

Finally, he could have made the whole thing up for reasons of his own.

Given the timing, that is, Williams had called the Sheriff just after midnight, there is no way that he could have heard about the other sightings. They hadn’t made the news at that point. Unless there had been some discussion over the police radios and Williams was able to monitor those radios, then his report is independent of the others.

However, that is just not a good argument for Williams. The sheriff, either Clem or Eddins, couldn’t find the man, and they had resources that should have allowed them to do it. Although it seems that Clem did speak with Williams, by the time they were ready to gather additional information, Williams was gone. We have nothing more on which to judge his tale or his credibility.

That, of course, does not negate the other three witnesses that were named with Williams, nor those who interviewed by the Air Force, law enforcement officers or by various newspapers. Those other three specifically, Long, Wheeler and Alvarez, hadn’t disappeared as had Williams.

What might have happened is that the information about Williams, which was published and which suggested he might not have existed or had been involved in some sort of a prank, suggested that others might not have been real as well. Long, for example, was from Waco, Texas, several hundred miles from Levelland, though he was attending college in Lubbock. Given that he didn’t tell his story until the next day, suggested the possibility of contamination. The Sheriff accepted Long’s report as real.

Anyway, we can, if we wish, eliminate Williams from the mix or assign a lower importance to it, but that in no way negates all the other stories that have been told about the Levelland case. Yes, this has taken us deep into the weeds, but in the effort to be fair, I thought I would point out that Williams is sort of a non-witness. It means that Robert was not completely off base, only that he extended his net a little farther than the data warranted… And I have discovered a little more about this aspect of the whole Levelland event.

Levelland and the Four Witnesses, Part Two

For those of you who have been keeping score at home (which I probably say more often than I should), you know that I looked into the idea that four of the witnesses quoted in the Levelland UFO vehicle interference cases had been discredited. Robert Sheaffer mentioned it on my radio show and did send a link to the site run by the Iron Skeptic. After the show I asked for the contact information for the site host, Aaron Sakulich. When I posted the article about Levelland, I had not heard back from him. In case you missed all this, you can read that article here:

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2020/06/levelland-and-four-witnesses.html

and listen to the show here:

https://www.spreaker.com/episode/29233178

The point is that I received a very cordial response from Aaron. I was looking for the source of his information because I had never heard anything like that, and I have been studying the case for, shall we say, decades. I had looked at both skeptical and believer sites, have the complete Project Blue Book file on the case (with a copy with all the names in it), have been to Levelland, twice, and talked with a few of those who have done some original research on the case. In other, more precise words, I had done my due diligence in the research of the case so that

Levelland, Texas, Obviously.

I could say that I hadn’t seen this particular issue raised…

And yes, I know what you’re thinking. If that information was out there on a website and I didn’t find it, then how can I say I had performed my due diligence? Because there becomes a point where you have all the information necessary to properly analyze the case and what you might have missed probably isn’t all that relevant. Or, I suppose, that when the issue was raised, I was able to refute it without having to make any further study. To properly refute it, I did additional research, which, BTW, was out there for others to find. Again, if you look at my original post about this, you’ll understand what I mean. The question shouldn’t have been raised…

The real point, however, is that the information wasn’t published on the website until after I had completed my research. When I looked, on the web, for new information, this particular site did not appear in my search engine.

But I digress…

As I say, I received a very nice response from Aaron that should put this aspect of the case to rest. He wrote, “At any rate, I had to go back and re-read my article about Levelland to remember which case it was about. I must admit that even it was not my finest work. I am sure that at the time I only had access to whatever came up on google or whatever books I may have had around the house. So, I am afraid that I cannot provide a great deal of new information - and since I didn't cite my sources at the time, I don't even know what books those might have been.”

And that’s where this ends. We don’t know the sources so we can’t see what those sources might have said. We don’t know how the information was developed. We can say that it might have been someone who was writing about the case in the pre-Internet days so that he or she extrapolated from the lack of additional information about those four witnesses. Without access to the body of data I have, the writer might have thought that those witnesses had not been interviewed, or that those witnesses might have only called in reports. It might just boil down to a guess based on the lack of information and nothing particularly nefarious.

What we can do is eliminate this criticism of the case because we don’t have good information on the way it was gathered. And since I was able to find evidence that two of the witnesses had, in fact, been questioned by the police, if not by the Air Force, then we know that the criticism is inaccurate. We can leave it there. 

Levelland and the Dust Theory

 

A new theory about the cause of the Levelland car stalling incidents has been offered and it was noted in one of the comments to a posting here. The theory is that there was electrically charged dust, in the atmosphere, which had not been reported. This dust, sucked into the engines of the cars, caused the spark plugs to fire continuously, causing the engine to stall. Since many (half) of the cars in 1957 had six-volt batteries, this caused the headlights to dim. Once the discharge ended, then the car could be restarted. It was noted that the idea that the cars restarted spontaneously had been disproved by the original testimony. (Actually, one of the witnesses insisted that his car had restarted on its own). You can read the whole theory here:

https://midimagic.sgc-hosting.com/ufoclass.htm

A cursory reading of the information in the Project Blue Book files would tend to refute this theory. According to that documentation, there was light mist. A light mist would suggest there was no trouble with dust in the atmosphere.

In a report on November 7, 1957, and from the commander of the 1006^th AISS, the idea of bad weather was reinforced. It was noted, on a single page that seemed to be

Location of one of the UFO sightings.
Photo copyright by Kevin Randle

detached from the rest of the report, that “In the opinion of [the] investigator [Barth] following possibilities exist… 1. With amount of rain in area…”

Another message, sent about the same time, provided additional weather information about the conditions in Levelland. It reported that it was cloudy with a light drizzle. There was a handwritten comment that said, “Note!”

In a teletype document that seemed to have been separated from page one, page two of it said:

…conditions might have developed to bring St. Elmo Fire or the like pd [period]. 2. Possibility of excess burning gas from oil operations reflecting off 400 foot cloud cover pd [period]. 3. Possibility of downed power line sparking off wet ground. pd [Period] Southwest public service co. is checking with REA Coops (sic) on any other concern with power lines into area for failure pd. … Dr. Ralph S. [Underwood] cmm [comma] Texas Tech astronomy expert cmm [comma] stated that the following oossipilities (sic) existed as he understood the sighting cln [colon] natural phenomena not fully understood cmm possibly caused by rain cmm and he stated that the possibility existed they came from outer space but he personally did not believe this… Dr. Underwood also concured (sic) with numbers one and two above.

On page three of another report written by the commander of ATIC on the Joint Messageform – Continuation Sheet, and addressed to AFCIN (Air Force Chief of Intelligence) and to the attention of Major Byrne, there is more information about the Air Force belief in wet weather. The document said:

The following possibilities, repeat, possibilities, being checked, which could result in unusual phenomena observed particularly under darkness, mist and rain…

The Air Force was pushing the idea that weather, rainy weather, with low hanging clouds had something to do with the sightings. Each of the reports returns to the idea that rain, drizzle and clouds were responsible for the sightings.

In keeping with the Air Force explanation for the Levelland sightings, or rather using the information supplied by the Air Force and assuming that it was accurate, Dr. J Allen Hynek wrote a half page, single-spaced report that repeated much of what the Air Force had said. According to Hynek:

The phenomena reported seen causally interlocked with the meteorological conditions prevailing at that time; viz, low ceiling (400 feet), fog, mist, light rain and periodic lightning flashes. Our knowledge of such well-attested phenomena as ball lightning and related electrical discharges is not sufficient to pinpoint the exact cause of the present sighting. But there is no need to hypothesize “space craft” etc. in this matter since lightning flashes, alone, in a foggy, low-ceiling nocturnal meteorological setting is sufficient to produce weird effects, especially to imaginative minds…

Coming now to the phenomena of motor stoppage, etc. This was reported in three (3) cases [this is inaccurate]. One case momentary – loud noise of radio and momentary flutter of car light (typical of electrical storms). The other two cases indicated definite stoppage. Might not be possible, if indeed these occurrences were causally connected with the phenomena reported (rather than ascribable to coincidence -- after all, two car engines stopping one hour apart, in a lightning storm with high humidity [emphasis added], does not strain coincidence) to ascribe stopping to sudden deposition of moisture on distribution parts [emphasis added], especially if moisture condensation nuclei were enhanced by increased atmospheric ionization.

At some point, the low ceiling and the fog cited by those analyzing the sighting appeared, but, ironically, other documentation in the Blue Book files simply does not bear this out.

In fact, according to the local newspaper, Levelland Sun-News (found in the Blue Book file) on November 5 reported, “Weathermen said they could not explain away the sightings. There were no thunderstorms in the area and they scoffed at St. Elmo’s light.”

Don Berliner, who interviewed the Levelland Sheriff, Weir Clem, wrote, “Sheriff Clem remembers the night very well: ‘The moon was very bright. There were a few, thin, wispy clouds in the sky but not enough to obscure the moon.’” A bright, clear sky does not suggest that there was any dust in the atmosphere.

Some of the weather data found in the Levelland file, seems to bear out Clem’s memory. The sky was reported to have only four-tenths coverage, which means that the majority of the sky was clear. There is no information about the height of the clouds, only that they covered part of the sky. Various altitudes would suggest that the sky was not obscured by clouds and that there was no ceiling at 400 feet. Four-tenths coverage does not constitute a ceiling.

There is more trouble with the idea that the night was drizzly, misty or had a low overcast. * Dr. James McDonald, wrote, “[Troy] Morris was emphatic that the early hours of Nov. 3 were clear or nearly clear. He, himself, when he heard the reports, went out to have a look on the roads. He said he couldn’t understand why the Air Force would say that there were storms since there were Air Force investigators the following day.”

McDonald, to check out the weather aspect of the case said, “I dug out the weather maps and rainfall data. A large, high-pressure area was moving southward over the Texas Panhandle, completely antithetical to convective activity and lightning of any sort, and a check of half a dozen stations in the vicinity revealed that there was not even any rain falling during this period, nor had more than a small amount fallen hours earlier that day when a cold front went through.”

What this means is that even if there was no drizzle or mist at the time of the sightings, there had been rain earlier in the day. That, too, would have, dare I say it, dampened the dust. The weather data, available from various sources says that the surface winds were light and variable. This would suggest that there simply wasn’t the dust in the atmosphere to cause the engine problems suggested by the theory.

There is one other thing that I’m hesitant to mention and it’s simply that the stalling car engines and the dimming headlights were not regularly reported in the Levelland area. It would seem that it happened only on this one night and that would seem to negate the dust theory, especially when it affected only a few cars.

But the real point is that the weather conditions on that night, as documented, do not support the theory. Too many cars in too many locations in and around Levelland with drivers reporting trouble. Too many people independently reporting an object to law enforcement. And no replication of these conditions at other times. The evidence argues against the solution.

*Although I don’t accept all the Air Force reports on the weather, I mention them to underscore that I have examined the entire record. If you believe the Air Force, then the dust explanation fails. If you believe the information from the newspapers and the witnesses, and the data uncovered by Dr. McDonald, then the dust explanation fails. I wanted it understood that I looked at the entire weather record.