New development adds to saga of 'Lubbock Lights' phenomena

Jeff South, Update Staff Writer, 1977
L'article d'origine
L'article d'origine

The mystery of the 'Lubbock Lights', a V-shaped string of illuminated objects which flew over the xxxx City 26 years ago, is now more baffling than ever.

In the latest development, computer-assisted scientists examining photographs of the 1951 celestial spectacle have shot holes in the federal government's "explanation" that the lights were a natural phenomena.

The independent researchers reported after extensive analysis of the pictures that the shiny objects photographed as they zommed over Lubbock represent a formation of extraordinary flying objects.

Ground Saucer Watch, a Phoenix-based civilian research group, said the Air Force was altogether wrong in writing off the "Lubbock Lights" as a natural occurence.

GSW investigators said their tests on the photographs prove that they could not have been caused by a flock of migratory birds reflecting the lights of the city.

And the research team also discounted the possibility the lights were caused by airplanes, stars or any atmospheric phenomenon.

Based on the photographic evidence and the analyzed data on the said Lubbock photographs, it is the consensus of the GSW photographic staff that the images depicted herein represent a formation of extraordinary flying objects, the researchers said.

They called the photographs one of the more vexing photographic sequences ever taken, since the conception of modern-day UFO sightings.

The lights — resembling a string of pearl-like objects moving with incredible speed, according to witnesses — were viewed in late août 1951 and early le mois suivant. In some cases, there were several flights of the objects reported each night.

Though seen by many citizens, only one person — Carl Halt Jr., a teenager at the time — photographed the display. His pictures supported other eye-witness accounts that the spectacle involved a V-or U-shaped set of illuminated objects.

Several investigations were conducted. The government's official account of the sighting, made public years later with the release of the Air Force's Project Blue Book, said :

The kind of birds responsible for this sighting is not known, but it is highly probable that they were ducks or plovers. Since plovers do not usually fly in formations of more that six or seven, ducks become more probable. The fact that this was late summer, and that the objects consistently flew to the south, tends to substantiate the conclusion that the objects of this sighting were migratory birds.

The GSW team, however, dispelled the Air Force conclusion. Using its computers, the civilian research organization recently reported that :

GSW said that while some of the sightings of the lights reported in 1951 may have been birds, lights caught on film by Hart definitely were not.