UFO Stories

The recent reported sighting of a UFO over Stephenville, Texas, has led to a familiar pattern of behavior by the U. S. Air Force. At first, the USAF denied it had any planes in the area at the time the UFO was seen.

The USAF similarly denied, for example, it had planes up during the Phoenix Lights sighting in March, 1997. Months later, it turned out the Maryland National Guard was training above Phoenix that night-- and dropping flairs, which could be what people saw.

This pattern started with Roswell. First. the Army Air Corps put out a press release saying it had recovered a flying disk. The next day, another press release said it had done no such thing. Decades later, responding to public pressure, the USAF said a weather balloon had crashed at Roswell. Later still, it said what actually crashed was a high altitude balloon that was part of a top secret project to monitor possible nuclear bomb tests in the Soviet Unon-- and speculated that the reports of small alien bodies associated with the 1947 Roswell Incident may have been inspired by six-foot-tall crash dummies used in tests in the area in the 1950s.

Two weeks after the Stephenville sightings-- and after the matter had gained national attention-- the USAF admitted it had had planes in the air around Stephenville that night, suggesting their planes were what people had seen. Of course, some witnesses reported seeing fighter jets chasing the UFO.

The Air Force is not necessarily set up to deal with the public, but its handling of UFO cases through the years has tended to fan UFOlogists' mistrust. Though the USAF may get to the truth in the end, history suggests what actually happened over Stephenville might be up in the air for a while longer.