BREAKING NEWS: Military Offers Explanation For Stephenville UFO Reports

If you saw the CNN report on this, they closed by joking about the figure on Mars. How convenient that story bubbled up in the MSM just a day or two before this "case closed, we forgot about the ten F-16s" story came out...Just sayin'

Hey, these guys are good, they've had lots of practice...

Originally posted by Grey Basket
One thing that has been problematic about this case all along has been the inconsistencies in the sightings. Many reported mile long cigar or flat shape, others saw saucers, etc.

Depends on your viewing distance and position.

Most said it was silent, but being followed by fighter jets. Then it wouldn't be silent, would it.

They would know the difference in a silent flying object and a 2 fighter jets coming behind it... Living in that part of Texas means you have exposure to all types of KNOWN military and civilian aircraft, all your life.. Please don't paint these witnesses as being ignorant and/or unable to identify a conventional aircraft in the DAYTIME, even...

Still, if 10 fighter jets were flying around a small country area, EVERYONE would have heard it in the area!

Not as "small a country area" as you make it sound, and if they had heard ande seen 10 fighter jets, it would probably have only made the local barber shop news, not CNN, as a no big deal.....

Perhaps 10 fighters were there...chasing the UFO.

Again, no one I heard said 10 jet aircraft, only two.

Just in case the news failed to reach you guys in the States, there was a sighting of an enorous craft over the English Channel a few weeks ago,
at least two airline captains reported seeing a craft that was a mile long and half a mile wide. One captain reported feeling very 'uncomfortable' sharing the same airspace. Could be the same craft, or there could be more than one!
Regards,
Horsegiver.

Seems possible the USAF did the usual denial of activity at the time of the reports then with continued public world interest and the captured video of an unknown, then decided to say it was there aircraft sighted. This is similar to USAF statements made during the 1997 Phoenix lights.

My guess is the AF, by saying it was their aircraft, effectively closed any chance of a Military investigation based on local public pressure wanting answers.

Dallas

Originally posted by horsegiver
Just in case the news failed to reach you guys in the States, there was a sighting of an enorous craft over the English Channel a few weeks ago,
at least two airline captains reported seeing a craft that was a mile long and half a mile wide. One captain reported feeling very 'uncomfortable' sharing the same airspace. Could be the same craft, or there could be more than one!
Regards,
Horsegiver.

Nonsense... Give me names, links, audio/video interview, pics of said craft or it didn't happen...

Funny, hundreds or so witnesses but not one, NOT A SINGLE CREDIBLE PHOTOGRAPH have surfaced. It is obvious that this Stephenville UFO sighting was a hoax confabulated by a few witnesses. The rest of the 'witnesses' was piggy backing on these few hoaxers. Before you know it HUNDREDS of people had came up with stories of witnessing UFOS of some sort but with different varying accounts. A classic trait of UFO fakery.

I'm sorry, but with the sheer number of people involved in witnessing this so called "UFO" with no photo to back it up, coupled with varying conflicting accounts, this 'UFO sighting' was simply a HOAX, nothing more.

It was a slow week for the news agency so they had to fill it with something interesting, a filler of some sort, the kind of news that people wouldn't take too seriously. But by doing this they had also blown this non-event out of proportion.

But the believers and conspiracy theorists just can't have enough of it. They treat this non-event like the second coming of Christ or something.




[edit on 24-1-2008 by omnicron]

reply to post by omnicron


It seems you have spaced yourself apart from the rest of the ATS community. Not surprising especially the way you've composed your beliefs just now.

So, why are you here?

Originally posted by omnicron

Nonsense... Give me names, links, audio/video interview, pics of said craft or it didn't happen...

Horsegiver is referring to the Channel Islands UFO discussed here

Channel Islands UFO

It is obvious that this Stephenville UFO sighting was a hoax confabulated by a few witnesses.

Is it?

Then why did the military feel the need to respond to it two weeks after denying they had anything flying at the time?

Its very easy to scream "hoax", but lets be frank here - you really have no idea at all whether it is one or not. A lack of photographic evidence does not mean "proof" of a hoax.

The subsequent "we actually did have planes in the air despite the fact we initially told you we didn't" suggests that someone is either being very very slack with their training records (which in a post 9/11 world should be a news story in itself) OR that something unusual was in the sky that night.

Now it might not have been an alien spaceship. It may have been some kind of black project. It may even have been a black project aircraft chasing an alien spaceship.

Quite simply though, you don't know what it was any more than I do.

Typical how the witnesses get attacked from beginning. Insult their intelligence in knowing the difference between silent low flying craft and high flying noisy F-16's. Not 1, but almost a dozen F-16's?? Yeah right! Since when is it OK for fighters to drop flares and practice flying at night over peoples homes and cities?

Don't know if this has been linked yet in this thread, but here is the response from the witnesses to the military's explanation. Please be sure and view the video on the right side.

cbs11tv.com...

There's a couple of things of importance in this news video.

1. Video was taken by one anonymous witness, but other witnesses state that is what they saw.
2. Please note what this guy is pointing out on the map. Dublin residents saw the object(s) over STEPHENVILLE, which is probably about 8 miles to the north of the fly zone for the military. So not only is the military asking us to believe they didn't know they had 10 F-16's up (and didn't realize it for 2 weeks), but they are now asking us to believe these 10 F-16's were training outside their designated flight zone.

and then the concerning part of this is the statement that MUFON has remarked about this video calling it "unremarkable". If the video agrees with the eye witness accounts it necessarily and inherently CANNOT be unremarkable. Even if the video proves the witnesses didn't see a UFO it STILL is remarkable because it would be the determining factor for identifying what they were seeing. So I'm a bit concerned about MUFON so quickly deeming this "unremarkable"...makes no sense from an investigative standpoint.

[edit on 1-24-2008 by Valhall]

Yes, and of course we believe their lame explanation.

Heads up, USAF. We aren't buying your BS anymore.

LOL either they (militairy) think we are all incredibly stupid or blind and deaf.. i mean who isn't able to identify a F16? People saw F16 or jets that day.. not ten but 2 atmost.. so people DO know what a F16 is. If the reaction from the army isn't a clue somethings going on i don't know what is. Even Bush WMD lie was better then this crap.

This is strange, the video doesnt match up with either the eye witnesses accounts or of course the military account that it was jets. Id probably say that the video is disinfo designed to confuse the whole case.

I still dont know why not one person has a picture of it, nearly everyone has a camera phone now and if the object was a mile long, they had no problem capturing this in either video or picture mode.

Wow.That video is unremarkable.

Until I see, or at least hear, jets zooming around a ufo all "anonymous" videos go into the same bucket as all the other anonymous-video-of-lights.

I'm afraid some smart-a$$es will create 'videos' and say they are the Stephenville Ufo's, a normal backlash of sush MSM coverage I guess.

Originally posted by Flyer
This is strange, the video doesnt match up with either the eye witnesses accounts or of course the military account that it was jets. Id probably say that the video is disinfo designed to confuse the whole case.

But it does match up with what the guy in news footage saw. He says so.

Im in the Air Force, and let me tell you this is a huge crock of crap.

No way, one, would they not know that they had 10 jets out training, and two, 10 F-16's do not look like a UFO, nor could they be mistaken as one by anyone with half a brain.

They are loud, and definitely sound like jets.....10 of them in the sky at the same time would have been extremely loud.

Plus, I worked at a major F-16 base for 5 years, where they flew missions every day, and never were there 10 in the same place at the same time. They usually went out 2 or 4 at a time.

This is just fishy, and really is insulting to our intelligence. Im not saying that it really was a UFO, or claiming to know what happened, but it wasnt 10 F-16's.

[edit on 23-1-2008 by PokeyJoe]

Not sure if I put that in right. New to all of this. I have been a readier of ATS since 1998 when I stumbled across this site. I must say it's enjoyable at times. Some stuff I take serious and some I don't but hey it's all in good fun! Anyways to my point and the reasoning why i pasted POKEY"S comment here.
I was in the military from 1998 to 2002 Army to be exact. But did a lot of TDY and deployments in those few years. I will tell you this Pokey is absolutely correct. Unless it's real world (wartime enviroments), or joint training excercises ie JRTC where youre mock fighting another military in full scale battle, they would never have sent out that many planes at a given time. Well unless it was a return home mission from a combat zone and these guys had just taken off from a carrier. Which from the reports everyone is getting this didn't happen.
Why wouldn't they send that many planes in the air (10 are you kidding), well risk assesment wise that is too many bird in the air over populace and commercial skies. Second costs, not only the planes but the fuel it takes to fill those planes, third it's a training mission.
I to have never ever seen anything more than 4 at a time either take off, mission, landing, i have seen more than 4 in a combat zone but they were all effectively doing missions seperate of each other. Combat, support, or even recon. That is the only time.
Think that's not a few million in the air at one time that's more than a few billion and if an incident occured and they lost those planes it's some units not persons ass.
Think the military as a whole for planning looks and plans for worst case senarios when it comes to their equipment because it's so damn costsly. I am highly offended that they would come out with such bull crap. I fought and shed blood for my people, for my constitution, and yes even my country. But not for the lies. I feel every time we get lied to, and boy do us veterans ever get lied to. That the pride I had for fighting in A-stan and all I did gets stripped away. And the purpose of wanting to fight 9-11 over all the innocents that died esp the children that day is being spoon fed to us all when to those in power they really don't and didn't give a rats ass

sorry for the rant everyone. I just had to make a point and clear my soul a bit

Take care everyone

I just wanted to add my thoughts to this. Before I do, I want to say that I beleive I have seen a UFO before, and I do believe they exists. With that being said...

In this case, I have my doubts. The lack of video puts the burden of proof not on the side of the Air Force to say nothing exists, but for the eye witnesses to say something did exist.

We do not have "F-16" bases. We do have air bases that house more than that 1 model of warcraft. Now, just in Texas there are alot of Air Force bases. If you are in Lackland you can hear the training jets take off every morning. If you count them, there are over 12 take offs per set. Having over 10 in the air at one time is not uncommon. Having 10 in formation is. The Air Force stated they had 10 in flight, not 10 in formation. They did not say they had 10 flying in 1 area. Also, just because they stated they had no air craft, then said they did, is not to be taken as lies. There are multiple bases capable of flying air craft. If one base had 4, another had 2, another had 4 that is 10 craft, but from 3 bases. One mad will not have that info, it needs to be updated to him from several sources. To say a jet is in training 10+ hours is also not uncommon. Pilots can relieve themselve in flight. Also they land during that training time. That time is still considered "training" in the air or ground.
To say F-16's are loud taking off is 100% true. However, if a jet is flying towards you; you do not hear it. (the doppler effect). If they turn, use afterburners, pass over head, sure you will hear it then. But F-16's can run "silent" (in flight terms). They would not need AWACS unless training with one.

The Air Force statement is vague enough to say they were doing something, but you are not going to find out what. The lack of "proof" from the witnesses is also an issue.

If it helps anyone, I used to be stationed aboard an E-3 AWACS in the United States Air Force. I am also familair with Air Force press releases. If they wanted to deny anything they would have simply said nothing. They are not required to give any military flight planes to the public.

I read in a news article on this sighting that the good citizens of Stephenville, Texas are wearing homemade T-shirts saying:

"Stephenville, Texas
THE NEW ROSWELL"
on the front and on the back it says:
"They Came for the MILK!" where they are showing a cow being zapped up by a UFO.

Lol, I guess Stephenville is known for it's Dairy industry.

Well, by some STRANGE coincidence, a few months ago ATS had a Banner Contest and though I did not re-enter the contest after it was delayed for some reason where those who still wanted to be in it had to re-enter it again, here's one banner I did that was only meant to be a joke but amazingly enough the theme of it was "Got Milk" where I ALSO had a cow being zapped up by a UFO!!

Anyway, I changed the text message of this banner from it's "Check Out ATS" theme to what those Stephenville T-shirts are saying and here's that flash banner as it looks now:
www.fantasticfrog.net...

The ending where the cow is being zapped up by a UFO is a bit delayed ... just thought I'd mention that so you don't miss it!

Also, this is how that banner looked before I changed it to how it looks now with the Stephenville theme on it.
www.fantasticfrog.net...



[edit on 24-1-2008 by Palasheea]

How hard could it possibly be, for this to be proven by the military?
I mean if everyone's so sure it was an UFO up there that day.
And as ussual they come up with this story two weeks later, why cant anyone do anything about it.
Instead of just writing about it on the forums.
Change would be nice.

-Double-

[edit on 24-1-2008 by vanderLinde]

The military is obviously lying through its teeth.

That alleged humanoid figure on mars was probably picked up again as disinformation.

We're in a major flap and its global.

Like the witnesses say, "something's happening."

Only God knows what's up.

[edit on 24-1-2008 by reject]