The ‘Tex’-Files : Engine Stopping UFO - Levelland, Texas 1957

a reply to: Bedlam

Well satellites do have to get their microwave transmissions through the ionoshere. It would be a shame if that patch of ionosphere suddenly mangled the signal or made it "blurry" and was a crappy medium to transmit through.

As for the supercooled non linear medium BE photon thing. I can think of a few good reasons....which we wont go into. At kirtland?

a reply to: BASSPLYR

I used to work for a GPS company Navstar 1, we had amazing things happen BASSPLYR. I love the bass guitar. Where do you play?

originally posted by: mirageman

I might be wrong but my impression of Bluebook was that Ed Ruppelt tried his best with a meagre budget to investigate the UFO phenomenon properly. Once the summer of 1952 and the Washington DC Flap occurred then it became less investigative and more a PR exercise in explaining away sightings.Five years later we see that in the cursory report Bluebook filed to explain the Levelland case.

Not surprised you've never been Venusburnt though Karl. Too much cloud cover in Blighty.

Yes mate don't think the claims made by the USAF to its employers (the American public) that Project Bluebook was 'a systematic study of unidentified flying objects' with a view to 'scientifically analyze UFO-related data' is a very fair one, especially after the Ruppelt era.

Apparently many of the truly interesting UFO cases were 'swept under the rug in a most disturbing way' and during the Quintanilla era 'the flag of utter nonsense school was flying highest on the mast.

Haven't been to blighty (or Venusburnt) for a while but when it comes to the November 1957 flying egg wave then the USAF explanations (like so many other official debunks) are complete bollocks.

Cheers!

a reply to: Jdennis10

Hey buddy. Mostly around Los Angeles. Did tours in my 20s for various people. Played every place on the sunset strip. Now i do occasional session work. Main bass is a custom MTD 635 hand build by michael tobias himself. Grew up playing cello suites, rock, metal. Berklee got me doing jazz until i was sick of it. Now mostly R&B and funk. Rock also. Some latin.

a reply to: BASSPLYR

Wow, you're quite the music man. I am a woman not a bud.

originally posted by: BASSPLYR
a reply to: Jdennis10

Hey buddy. Mostly around Los Angeles. Did tours in my 20s for various people. Played every place on the sunset strip. Now i do occasional session work. Main bass is a custom MTD 635 hand build by michael tobias himself. Grew up playing cello suites, rock, metal. Berklee got me doing jazz until i was sick of it. Now mostly R&B and funk. Rock also. Some latin.

All well and good mate but what the dickens has it got to do with flying eggs stalling car engines in November,1957?

a reply to: karl 12

Good to see you hanging around Karl, where would you put this case if you were ranking them, top 5?

I think MM is to the point he doesnt think it is human tech if you read back on page 7, what do you think is the most likely cause here?

a reply to: 111DPKING111

I think MM is to the point he doesnt think it is human tech....

I will expand on that by saying whatever it was at Levelland that caused the engines and headlights to die does not seem to have been possible in 1957 with the level of technology known at the time. Nor, if at was top secret tech, does it ever seem to have been developed and used by the military. Imagine having the power to stop mobilized armies in their tracks with such technology. But the US Air Force didn't seem that bothered about what happened. Why not?

a reply to: mirageman

Great leading question.

Great work done here OP and thread contributors, very complete and compelling. Best collective look ever saw regarding this most spectacular incident.

originally posted by: 111DPKING111
a reply to: karl 12

Good to see you hanging around Karl, where would you put this case if you were ranking them, top 5?

I think MM is to the point he doesnt think it is human tech if you read back on page 7, what do you think is the most likely cause here?

Always hanging around mate and when it comes to truly mysterious UFO incidents then to my mind there's so bloody many of them its difficult to put in a top ten (or top five) - in answer to your question then I think the whole flap involved the same object(s) and it wasn't us (whatever that means) - it really does look like the more you dig the more reports you find on this one.

a reply to: mirageman

I will expand on that by saying whatever it was at Levelland that caused the engines and headlights to die does not seem to have been possible in 1957 with the level of technology known at the time. Nor, if at was top secret tech, does it ever seem to have been developed and used by the military. Imagine having the power to stop mobilized armies in their tracks with such technology. But the US Air Force didn't seem that bothered about what happened. Why not?

Can you expand on it some more?

I have a hunch you have a hunch why the US Air Force didn't seem that bothered about it... ',-)

BT

a reply to: beetee

No I have no hunch why the USAF seemed uninterested in the case. Other than they wanted it concluded and explained quickly.

It seems they were unimpressed by Pedro Saucedo as a witness. He seemed a little too excitable and prone to exaggeration. Newell Wright was seen as a more reliable witness (although his story was similar to Saucedo's). The other witnesses interviewed for Bluebook were all police officers who had seen nothing more than a streak of light and a person involved in a separate sighting two days later. The investigating officer SSgt. Norman P. Barth did not even check the weather conditions. The explanation of ball lightning or St. Elmo's fire being something unlikely to have occurred and even more unlikely to stop the vehicle lights and engines on the night concerned.

UFO reports peaked in late 1957 across the USA.



Source : NICAP

Vehicle interference cases were never so concentrated in one area in as short a time frame again. Unfortunately J.Allen Hynek was pre-occupied studying the Soviet Sputnik satellite that had been launched and later said.

What was needed at the time was swift reaction by Blue Book and a serious, thorough investigation. Captain Gregory, then head of Blue Book, did call me by phone, but at that time, as the person directly responsible for the tracking of the new Russian satellite, I was on a virtual around-the-clock duty and was unable to give it any attention whatever.

I am not proud today that I hastily concurred in Captain Gregory’s evaluation as “ball lightning” on the basis of information that an electrical storm had been in progress in the Levelland area at the time. That was shown not to be the case. Observers reported overcast and mist but no lightning. Besides, had I given it any thought whatever, I would soon have recognized the absence of any evidence that ball lightning can stop cars and put out headlights.

Of course there could be a reason the USAF played down the explanation and was hiding something. But it may well be the Air Force thought the whole story was exaggerated, a waste of their time and dismissed it for that reason alone. Looking back now, with hindsight, it seems a missed opportunity to investigate thoroughly.

a reply to: mirageman

Ok, thank you.

I feel Project Bluebook, no matter what the intentions might have been originally, devolved into a "debunking factory", which was understaffed, underfunded and disinterested in the phenomenon they were supposedly investigation.

BT

a reply to: beetee

I feel Project Bluebook, no matter what the intentions might have been originally, devolved into a "debunking factory", which was understaffed, underfunded and disinterested in the phenomenon.....

Pretty much so. Resources were always tight and after the 1952 flap Air Force policy changed. There was the very real concern about nuclear war with the Soviets. UFOs were an unwanted distraction when you had spy planes and then satellites buzzing the skies. By then many in the military had concluded that the majority of UFO reports were usually nothing more than mundane mis-identifications and the tiny minority that weren't posed no real threats.

Wasting resources chasing UFOs could put the whole US and Western powers at risk. Especially if the Soviets were up to something at the same time. So by 1957, even with Hynek still on board, the whole project had become little more than a PR exercise in managing the public's perceptions.

a reply to: karl 12

to my mind there's so bloody many of them its difficult to put in a top ten (or top five)

I know what you mean, but there hasnt been much debunking here in this thread, Randles blog, or skeptical sources on the interwebs. I havent seen Randle recommend any other case other than this one. And you can find skeptics like John Shelley use this an example of a good ufo case. It does seem to be one of the more air tight cases.


Expanding on the EM/military side of things, Joel Cook from the Randle Blog had a link to this page offering a detailed look into the physics. Below are summary comments he had on the KR blog.

The ultimate point of his analysis is that the EM field interruptions caused by UFOs is something like a remote switch that turns off the ability of a vehicle or a battery to actually conduct electricity.

No military weapon we currently possess is capable of suppressing current flow of electronic devices at a distance the way UFOs apparently can. We can fry the electronics with high powered microwaves or atomic generated electromagnetic pulses but but we cannot suppress the ability to use the electronics and then allow them to operate again.

While the term Electromagnetics [EM] is thrown around left and right because UFOs interfere with electrical and electronic systems what UFOs do is not "Electromagnetic" as the term is commonly used.

a reply to: 111DPKING111

I know what you mean, but there hasnt been much debunking here in this thread, Randles blog, or skeptical sources on the interweb

You were right about this case. It is a genuine unexplained case with enough information to suggest the UFO was under some type of control with technology we still don't possess now (or if we do it's never became common knowledge).
Only an outright de-bunker would deny this.

Can we say it as 'alien' or at least 'not designed by humans'?

It has to remain a possibility. But there is not enough evidence to say it was anything more than 'unexplained'.

a reply to: mirageman

Can we say it as 'alien' or at least 'not designed by humans'?

It has to remain a possibility. But there is not enough evidence to say it was anything more than 'unexplained'.

I realize there are more cards in the deck(time travel, other dimensional beings, or fairies if someone prefers), I just rather default to what I believe is the most reasonable alternative if it isnt us.

Could it be us? Like I said, we did split the atom a few years earlier so imo there is a chance.

However if you were given a $1000 to bet one way or another, I think the human explanation would be a long shot.

No absolute conclusion can be drawn, but given the nature of the phenomena, what more can you really ask short of a white house lawn landing with aliens coming out? All cases will remain unexplained.

It would be interesting to see what kind of traction this case would get if it occurred today, obviously we have more technology, but would the public demand an explanation or would the story eventually lose legs and fade into the the 24 hour news cycle? People were so much more trusting in govt back in 57, almost any explanation the govt chose would work.

a reply to: 111DPKING111

It would be interesting to see what kind of traction this case would get if it occurred today..........

The witnesses would have had camera phones, the police vehicles equipped with mounted cameras and surely a police chopper would have been dispatched to investigate. Possibly even news teams.

All of them would have been stopped in their tracks as their lights went out and their engines died. The news story next day would be all about a police helicopter crash and fatality due to the pilot mistaking Venus and giving chase.



The problem is cases like this no longer seem to happen. (And if we are honest Levelland was pretty exceptional). It seems that cases like this are actually very rare?

a reply to: mirageman

Not so fast my friend...

Not so sure a small town is going to have a local chopper and I doubt the cell phones would work - I think it would be nearly an identical result. Would be cool if it happened in a larger municipality though, maybe the chopper could have kept a safe distance and tailed it, only to be lead to the mothership and incinerated by its death ray!

It is exceptional, no doubt the engines and lights failing puts it over the top. Without that, its just another strange sighting that could be chalked up to almost anything, it probably would have gone unreported.

Im a fan of a few others like the Westall, Ravenna, Colares, and the Belgium wave as far as having similar evidence. But imo, most sightings occur exactly as you would expect, a strange craft is seen for a few moments and is gone, they just arent interested in hanging around for a photo op.