1 The Levelland Sightings Of 1957 by Antonio F. Rullán October 18, 1999, revised March 26, 2000 Analysis of the Evidence and Evaluation of the Ball Lightning Hypothesis Map of the Levelland area (Courtesy Larry Hatch Map Collection) Introduction by Mark Cashman The following document is the most comprehensive study of the famous Levelland vehicle interference case ever performed, and took two years to complete. It has undergone peer review through CUFOS and by some members of Project 1947. Tony Rullán has kindly allowed me to reproduce this as part of my site. I hope you will find it as interesting and thought-provoking as I have. Acknowledgments by Antonio Rullán I could not have conducted this study without the great help and previous work of Mark Rodeghier (CUFOS), Jan Aldrich, and Loren Gross. Mark Rodeghier and CUFOS provided me with copies of their extensive file on the Levelland case and all the declassified material
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Transcript
1
The Levelland Sightings Of 1957 by
Antonio F. Rullán October 18, 1999, revised March 26, 2000
Analysis of the Evidence and Evaluation of
the Ball Lightning Hypothesis
Map of the Levelland area (Courtesy Larry Hatch Map Collection)
Introduction by Mark Cashman
The following document is the most comprehensive study of the famous Levelland vehicle
interference case ever performed, and took two years to complete. It has undergone peer
review through CUFOS and by some members of Project 1947. Tony Rullán has kindly
allowed me to reproduce this as part of my site. I hope you will find it as interesting and
thought-provoking as I have.
Acknowledgments by Antonio Rullán
I could not have conducted this study without the great help and previous work of Mark
Rodeghier (CUFOS), Jan Aldrich, and Loren Gross. Mark Rodeghier and CUFOS provided
me with copies of their extensive file on the Levelland case and all the declassified material
from the Air Force Blue Book study of the case. Jan Aldrich provided voluminous amounts
of news-clippings from the Southwest for November of 1957 that provided perspective on the
case and details not found anywhere else. Loren Gross provided his great research summary
on Levelland in his November 1957 books. I also am indebted to Wendy Connors who
provided support and took time to review the final draft. I also want to thank Newell Wright
and A.J. Fowler who gave their time and attention to discuss and review this case 42 years
after their experiences. All errors or faulty logic in this paper are my own.
Table of Contents
1 Purpose of Study
The purpose of this study was to re-evaluate the sightings that took place in Levelland, Texas
42 years ago with the benefit of declassified Air Force files, updated knowledge of ball
lightning, full review of all the literature on this case, and personal interviews with a two of
the participants. While this case has been documented in numerous UFO books, a thorough
analysis of the witnesses, their claims, the investigators, and the pros and cons of the ball
lighting explanation has not been done. Moreover, the story and claims differ depending on
which book or newspaper is read. Thus, there was a need to determine the most reliable
sources and the most likely description of events from the night of November 2-3, 1957. The
study evaluates the likelihood that ball lightning was the cause for these sightings and
summarizes the reasons for rejecting or accepting that hypothesis. The key issues brought up
by the pro-UFO and pro-ball lighting investigators are summarized and discussed.
2 Summary of Levelland Case
In 1957, between the late evening hours of November 2 and the early morning hours of the
3rd, seven independent witnesses near Levelland, Texas saw an oval shaped ball of light
approach their vehicles causing their engines to stop and headlights to shut. The sightings
took place in a 2.5 hour period (from 10:50 PM until 1:15 AM) and was limited to a 10 mile
radius area West, North and East of Levelland. The events lasted from a few seconds to no
more than 5 minutes. Once the ball of light left the scene, all witnesses were able to start their
automobile engines and their headlights went back to normal operation.
Most witnesses were scared about the incident and eventually called the Levelland Police
Department to report the incident. While descriptions of the sighting varied amongst all
witnesses, there was a general consensus that some lighted object was stopping cars and
trucks around Levelland. On the early morning of November 3, there were other witnesses
who saw lights in night sky and flashes of light. While these sightings added to the confusion
and emotion of the evening, they will not be considered in this study. The Levelland
Sightings are defined in this study as only those seven reports where a bright ball of light was
within 500 feet of the witness’ vehicle and led to engine and headlights failure.
On November 4, 1957, the incident at Levelland was reported in most of the newspapers
across the US. Newspapers were dumbfounded as to the nature of the mysterious ball of light
and gave it different names: mysterious object/thing, flying egg, whatnick, and eggnick.
Many newspapers quoted Representative J.T. Rutherford from Odessa, Texas who wanted to
know whether the sightings were the result of an American experiment and sent a telegram to
Air Force officials in Washington asking for answers. It was not until Nov. 5, 1957, that the
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idea that an extraterrestrial craft caused the Levelland sightings gained publicity in the
newspapers. Most of the newspaper quoted James A. Lee (a NICAP member from Abilene,
TX) as the key proponent of this idea. On Nov. 15, 1957, the Air Force issued a summary
report concluding that the incident was a rare form of lighting called ball lightning. The Air
Force solution to this puzzling case was so controversial that the Air Force had to discuss the
case in a US Congressional briefing on the UFO program on July 15, 1960 . While the case
was solved as far as Blue Book was concerned, for many UFO organizations (NICAP,
APRO, CSI) the case was not closed but instead represented one of the best-documented
cases of a UFO.
3 Literature Survey page 4
3.1 Commentary and Analysis from Pro-UFO Authors
3.2 Commentary and Analysis from Pro-Ball Lightning Authors
4 The Witnesses and the Investigators page 9
4.1 Witness Reliability and Source of their Statements
4.1.1 Newell E. Wright
4.1.2 Pedro Saucedo
4.1.3 Ronald Martin
4.1.4 James D. Long
4.1.5 Jim Wheeler, Jose Alvarez, and Frank D. Williams
4.2 Conclusion on Sources of Evidence and Witnesses
5 Analysis of Levelland Sightings: Searching for Patterns page 18
6 Air Force/Blue Book Investigation and Explanation page 31
7 The Weather
7.1 Weather According to the Air Force
7.2 Weather According to Dr. James. E. McDonald
7.3 Weather According to Newspaper Records
7.4 Weather According to US Weather Service
7.5 Summary and Conclusions on Weather
8 The Extraterrestrial Spacecraft Hypothesis page 39
9 Other Possible Explanations for Levelland Sightings page 40
10 The Ball Lightning Hypothesis page 41
10.1 General Definition of Ball Lightning
10.2 The Reality of Ball Lighting
10.3 Properties of Ball Lightning
10.4 Deviations between Levelland Sighting Descriptions and Ball Lightning Properties
10.5 Fitness of Ball Lightning Hypotheses
11 Conclusion page 56
12 Appendix page 57
12.1 US Weather Bureau - Local Climatological Data (Lubbock-Texas, Nov. 1957)
12.2 US Weather Bureau - Local Daily Precipitation (Levelland-Texas, Nov. 1957)
13 References and 14 Sources and Notes page 62
4
Literature Survey
Commentary and Analysis from Pro-UFO Authors
Many UFO researchers have written about the Levelland UFO sightings in one way or
another. Most authors write about the standard claim: that 7 witnesses had their automobiles’
engines and headlights shut off by a UFO within a 2.5 hour period and within a small area
surrounding Levelland. Each author gives his reason for the importance and merits of the
Levelland case. The section below summarizes what made this case so popular among UFO
researchers.
According to Donald Keyhoe, Director of the National Investigations Committee on Aerial
Phenomena (NICAP) from 1957 to 1969, the reason this case became so popular was that too
many newspapers were taking the sighting reports seriously. The press took the sightings
seriously because five Texas law officers backed the story. Keyhoe believed that had it been
an isolated case, the press would have killed it with ridicule. The press did not kill the story
because there were too many trained observers on record. Keyhoe, however, did not give this
case any exalted importance. He did not believe it was the beginning of the 1957 UFO wave
but the continuation of it. Keyhoe thought the evidence put forward by NICAP was sufficient
to conclude that the UFO at Levelland was an extraterrestrial craft. Overall, Keyhoe
supported this case as evidence for the extraterrestrial hypothesis because there were multiple
independent witnesses, because the claims were backed up by law officers, and because of
the lack of a reasonable explanation for the reported anomalous events.
Dr. J. Allen Hynek, astronomer and former Project Blue Book scientific consultant, thought
the case was significant enough to include it in his book The UFO Experience as the top
Close Encounter of the 2nd Kind (CEII) amongst 23 cases listed. Hynek developed a
Strangeness-Probability Index for the cases he evaluated in order to determine their
worthiness for study. The Levelland case had a Strangeness Index of 5 and a Probability
Index of 8. This rating put it at the top of Hynek’s CEII list. Hynek’s definition of the
Strangeness Index is the number of information bits a report contains, each of which is
difficult to explain in common sense terms. For example, in the Levelland case he found 5
items that he could not explain using common senses. Unfortunately, he did not list these
items. We could guess at them based on Hynek’s list of items difficult to explain:
1. weird looking ball of light (BOL)
2. BOL stops car engine
3. BOL shuts off car headlights\ engine and headlights start fine when BOL leaves
4. BOL appears under intelligent control.
Hynek’s probability rating is a function of assessed credibility of the witnesses. He judges
this by (1) internal consistency of the report, (2) consistency among several reports of same
incident (3) manner in which report was made (4) conviction of reporter and (5) subtle
judgement of “how it all hangs together”. Hynek gave the Levelland case a very high
probability rating of eight out of ten. He gave such a high rating because of the multiple
independent witnesses in this case. Hynek stated “that all seven cases of separate car
disablement and subsequent rapid, automatic recovery after the passage of the strange
5
illuminated craft, occurring within about two hours, could be attributed to coincidence is out
of the statistical universe – if the reports are truly independent”.
As opposed to Keyhoe, Hynek did not conclude that this incident was an extraterrestrial craft.
What Hynek concluded was that the Air Force ball lightning explanation for the cause of the
sightings was not acceptable. Hynek did not believe the ball lighting explanation for two key
reasons: (1) observers at the time of the incident did not report lightning but overcast and
misty weather (2) there is no evidence that ball lightning can stop cars and put out headlights.
These two points are very significant regardless of the number of witnesses who experience
the phenomenon. For Hynek, however, the fact that 7 observers reported similar events,
brought significant credibility to the observed claim. Hynek did not put a lot of weight on the
weird light reports from the 5 law enforcement officers in Levelland because they did not
experience the auto engine and light failure.
Dr. Jacques Vallee also wrote about the Levelland case in Anatomy of a Phenomenon.
Vallee, however, did not analyze the case in detail nor gave it any special importance. For
him, it was another case among the wave of sightings in 1957. He stated that the wave had
been going on for a long time and did not start with Levelland or Sputnik II . It did not
represent anything new to him, since he was very familiar with the UFO landing reports from
France in 1954. Vallee, like Hynek, did not believe the ball lighting explanation for the case.
Vallee wrote in 1965: “the official fairy tale concerning the Levelland case is that the
sensational interpretation of the sightings by the press triggered the series of reports now
known as the 1957 wave.” In Jan 16, 1964, Vallee and Hynek met with Bluebook Officers -
Captain Hector Quintanilla and Sergeant Moody in Chicago to discuss the UFO
Phenomenon. In that meeting, Captain Quintanilla and Sergeant Moody agreed that they
could not explain the Levelland case. An interesting revelation given that Bluebook had
explained the Levelland sightings seven years earlier as Ball Lightning.
Ronald Story also had a high regard for the Levelland case. He called the Levelland case one
of the two best cases on record of electromagnetic effects caused by UFO’s. He included the
case as one of the 10 most baffling cases on record in his book titled Sightings. Story agreed
with Hynek in rejecting the ball lighting hypothesis as the explanation for the Levelland
sightings. Story stated four reasons why the case was so extraordinary and had never been
explained satisfactorily to him:
1. No evidence that ball lighting stops cars and put out headlights
2. Ball lighting preference for dirt roads and paved highways
3. Ball lightning size of 200 ft is not common
4. Six independent witnesses experienced something similar and extraordinary within a
10 mile radius of Levelland
Richard Hall included the Levelland case in his book the UFO Evidence as just one more
case in the UFO wave of November 1957. The case was of importance to Hall because it was
the first series of sightings to be widely publicized in November of 1957 and it had the most
intensive single concentration of UFO sightings. In the book, Walter Webb gave a good
summary of the events at Levelland in November 2-3, 1957. While no analysis of the case
was provided in the book, Richard Hall and Walter Webb made several good points:
They wondered why should reddish elliptical UFOs, which cause cars to stall, suddenly be
reported from one small Texas town.
They pointed out that the witnesses were going about their business when the UFOs intruded
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upon the scene. There was no evidence that the witnesses were searching the sky or otherwise
expecting to see anything unusual. Their independent reports told a consistent story.
Dr. James E. McDonald was also fascinated by this case. McDonald added the Levelland
case to his list of UFO Cases of Interest mainly because he had personally checked the case
and saw in it characteristics of special interest. McDonald was very disappointed in the
analysis of the case done by Dr. Menzel and the Air Force who explained away the Levelland
sightings as ball lightning and wet ignitions.
McDonald checked the weather data for the night and locale in question. He studied the
weather maps and rainfall data and concluded that a large, high-pressure area was moving
southward over the Texas panhandle. He believed that these weather conditions were not
conducive to lightning of any sort. He checked half a dozen stations in the vicinity and found
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 passed through. McDonald concluded that the
prevailing anticyclonic conditions in Levelland the night of November 2-3, 1957 almost
categorically ruled out ball lightning . Thus, McDonald concluded that the Levelland case
was not ball lightning and that it was still an unknown. The key reasons McDonald did not
agree with the ball lightning explanation was:
1. He believed that ball lightning had to accompany a thunderstorm, but there was none
reported the night in question
2. He believed that ball lightning seldom exceeds a few feet in diameter, but the
description of the objects was about 200-ft.
McDonald certainly did not believe that ball lightning could form under fair-weather
conditions (free of all thunderstorm activity). He claimed that via some elementary
computations he could show how quantitatively absurd this claim was. Moreover, McDonald
also did not like the wet ignition explanation for the failure of the car engines. He pointed out
the fact that the engines could be re-started just as soon as the object darted off was entirely
inconsistent with wet ignition idea.
The Levelland case was also written up in the American edition of Aime Michel’s Flying
Saucers and the Straight-Line Mystery (Michel, 1958) by Alexander D. Mebane (member of
the Civilian Saucer Intelligence group in New York). Mebane used four arguments to accept
the Levelland sightings as flying saucers:
1. Used the analogy to the French sightings from the Fall of 1954
2. Disagreed with the Air Force explanation that rain and storms led to wet electrical
circuits that shut the auto engines.
3. He wrote: “How the circuits happened to dry out instantly when the ball lightning had
departed was not explained.”
4. Claimed that there were no thunderstorms in the area during the sightings. He quotes
a Levelland weatherman statement in the Levelland Sun-News of November 5, 1957.
5. Complained about the Air Force investigation being too short
Of these four points only point #2 and #3 are valid and will be discussed further in this paper.
The Levelland case was also included in the 1981 CUFOS study on UFO reports involving
vehicle interference (Rodeghier). Rodeghier evaluated 481 UFO reports, which involved
7
vehicle interference. Of these 481 reports, eight came from the Levelland case. In the study,
Rodeghier found 35 statistically significant correlations amongst observed properties of the
electromagnetic (EM) UFO events. He grouped these highly correlated properties into three
Nexus consisting of 3 to 4 properties each. In a nexus, the presence of any one characteristic
implies that the likelihood of the other three occurring is increased.
Nexus I had the following positively correlated characteristics:
presence of light beam
control of the vehicle
physiological effect on witness
chasing of the vehicle
Nexus II had the following positively correlated characteristics:
metallic appearing UFO
UFO that lands
disc-shaped UFO
presence of sound
Nexus III had the following positively correlated characteristics:
movement in a straight trajectory
UFOs that appear as a light
size range under fifteen feet
Rodeghier concluded that UFO reports that fall within Nexus I and II do not represent some
unknown natural phenomenon because in these groupings the UFO is described as metallic
and behaves with intelligence. On the other hand, Rodeghier concluded that Nexus III
contains characteristics, which appear to describe an undiscovered natural phenomenon. The
relevance of Rodeghier’s work to the Levelland case is that the Levelland sightings do not fit
in Nexus I or II (the Nexus groups that most likely describe non-natural phenomena). The
Levelland sightings fit better under the Nexus III category because the Levelland UFOs
moved in straight trajectories and they were described as balls of light. The only
characteristic that does not fit with Nexus III is the size of the reported UFO (between 30 to
200 ft as opposed to Nexus III characteristic of less than 15 ft). The key point here is that the
Levelland sightings do not fit into the EM UFO groupings that are unambiguously strange
and unexplainable. The interpretation of the Levelland sightings is open to a possible natural
phenomenon explanation.
In summary, most pro-UFO authors felt that the Levelland case deserved attention because of
the multiple independent eyewitness testimony and the consistency of the anomalous claims.
Moreover, most of the authors rejected the ball lightning hypothesis because the weather
conditions and the object’s behavior, characteristics, and its effect on the automobiles did not
match what was known about ball lightning. Thus, determining the accuracy of the witness
testimony, understanding their claims and description of the object and its behavior, and
determining the weather conditions are crucial to understanding this case.
8
Commentary and Analysis from Pro-Ball Lightning
Authors
Dr. Donald H. Menzel (Harvard Astronomer and Director of the Harvard College
Observatory) also wrote about the Levelland sightings in his book The World of Flying
Saucers (Menzel, 1963). In the book, he retracts previous statements made to the press in
1957 when he stated that mirages were causing the sightings. He explains that he made these
statements too quickly without having all the evidence at hand. His original statements to the
press (back in Nov. 6, 1957) were:
“The whole thing amounts to another flying saucer scare. They are caused by a layer of
heated air… acting as a lens and forming an image of objects as much as 40 to 50 miles way.
They are nothing more than a mirage. They are prevalent just after nightfall as the heated air
begins to cool off at the ground and they are common in the West where they have clear air.”
As for reports of auto engines stalling, Menzel said, “it would not be surprising that a nervous
foot could stall an engine.”
Six years after this statement, in his 1963 book, Menzel fully supported the ball lightning
explanation for the events of November 2 and 3 and rejected the mirage hypothesis. He states
“in Levelland the night of Nov. 2, conditions were ideal for the formation of ball lightning.
For several days the area had been experiencing freak weather and on the night in question
had been visited by rain, thunderstorms and lightning.” He also states that the month of
November 1957 proved to be the wettest ever recorded in West Texas. However, Menzel
does not include the sources or references for his weather information.
Menzel gives three possible reasons for why the automobiles’ engine died during the ball
lightning sightings:
1. The rain during the evening could have seeped under the hood and soaked the ignition
or dampened the spark plugs
2. The feed line may have been clogged
3. A region of highly rarefied air created by the ball lightning may temporarily have
deprived the engine of oxygen
Explanation #3 is the only one that makes a cause and effect connection between the ball of
light and the car engine. Nevertheless, most of the press reports quoted only the first one
(which did not make a lot of sense given that all cars and trucks started right after the ball of
light left the scene). Menzel also argued against the claim of a new kind of electromagnetic
force that flying saucers use to stop vehicles. He states “there are physical phenomena that
the scientist does not yet understand, but he does know that electrical and magnetic forces do
not and cannot perform all the feats attributed to them by saucer enthusiasts.” Moreover, he
said, “no imaginable single force – electric, magnetic, or gravitational – could possibly have
caused all the effects attributed to saucerdom’s miraculous electromagnetic force. An E-M
field with the postulated powers is as improbable as a force that would lift fallen apples from
the ground and draw them up to reunite with the branches of their parent tree.” For Menzel to
believe that UFO’s have such powers he would have expected the following events to take
place:
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Thousands of automobiles should have been temporarily disabled in the neighborhood
of every car-stopping UFO.
Hundreds of TV sets should have blurred in the neighborhood of every TV-blurring
UFO
Physical evidence of landing should be found (shrubs crushed, grass scorched, ground
disturbed)
Moonwatch (on alert that week all over the US and Canada) teams should have
detected the objects in the sky
Menzel focused mainly on one witness to the Levelland sightings (Pedro Saucedo). He
claimed that Saucedo saw lightning when he reported the flash of light prior to the UFO.
Saucedo, however, never stated on record that he saw lightning. The only references to the
Levelland case that Menzel used to arrive at his conclusion are two newspaper clippings (El
Paso Times, Nov. 4, 1957 & Denver Post, Nov. 6, 1957) and Aime Michel’s book (Michel,
1958). Based on the references listed on the Levelland chapter, it does not appear that he had
access to the Blue Book files, interviewed any of the witnesses, or had any specific weather
report for the area and time in question.
Edward Ruppelt’s (chief of the Air Force’s Project Blue Book from 1951-1953) opinion of
the Levelland sighting is not clear. He did include the Levelland case on the 2nd edition of
his book The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects in 1959. While he included the case in
his book mainly to summarize popular cases of 1957, he did state that these sightings had a
“new twist” (i.e. the stoppage of automobiles by the UFOs). Nevertheless, he did not
comment whether the Blue Book explanation for the sightings was appropriate or not. He
stated: “according to the best interpretation of the maze of conflicting stories, facts and
rumors about these famous sightings, the only positive fact is that there were scattered storm
clouds across West Texas on the night of Nov. 4, 1957. This was unusual for November and
everyone in the community was just a little edgy”. But later in the same chapter Ruppelt
stated: “The Levelland, Texas sightings were written off as “St. Elmo’s Fire” (parenthesis by
original author)”[10]. Maybe Ruppelt used the term “written off” to suggest that he did not believe the Blue Book explanation. On the other hand, he did believe that there were storms during the sightings (a critical requirement at the time for the ball lightning explanation).
The Witnesses and the Investigators
The Levelland case is entirely dependent on eyewitness testimony. There were no physical
traces on the ground, none of the affected vehicles were examined, and no photographs were
taken. As a result, the witness testimony becomes the only way to evaluate the case.
Unfortunately, many newspapers misquoted the witnesses or embellished the stories.
Moreover, very few eyewitnesses were actually interviewed by the Air Force and Journalists.
In order to determine whether the seven reports were consistent, the source of the report and
the manner in which it was reported must be reliable. In the Levelland case, witness
credibility was not an issue with regard to the fact that something was seen. The Air Force
and the Journalists all agreed that something was seen on the evening of Nov.2-3.
Nevertheless, witness credibility was an issue with regard to the description and details of
what was seen.
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In order to better judge level of accuracy in each of the seven reports, we must understand
who the witnesses were, their level of training, how the report was made, who interviewed
the witnesses and how the report was documented. Below is a summary of the how testimony
was obtained for each witness and which source is deemed most reliable.
Witness Reliability and Source of their Statement
Newell E. Wright
Newell Wright - 1957
Newell Wright was a 19-year-old freshman student at Texas Tech.University in Lubbock. He
was driving late on Saturday night (Nov. 2) on his way to Levelland for a weekend visit with
his parents. Shortly after midnight (at about 12:05 AM), he witnessed the ball of light and his
car engine stopped. After the event, he went home and went to bed. He did not call the
Levelland Police Department that evening because he did not think much of the event. The
following day (Sunday Nov. 3) he was encouraged by his parents to report the incident to
Sheriff Weir Clem. His parents felt that he should report it because they had read about
similar incidents in the Levelland newspaper and because they knew and trusted Sheriff
Clem. Newell described the incident to Sheriff Clem on Sunday at 1:30 PM. He was
subsequently interviewed by a journalist from the Levelland Daily Sun. He was also
interviewed by the Air Force officer who came to Levelland to investigate on Tuesday
November 5. Newell’s story was also documented in the Texas Tech student newsletter titled
Toreador and 25 years later he was interviewed by a Hockley County News-Press reporter.
The author recently interviewed him to better understand his previous statements.
In summary, Mr. Newell Wright is on record on several sources: Air Intelligence Information
Report , Levelland Daily Sun, and Toreador. In this study, we will consider the Air Force
report as the most accurate because the Blue Book officer’s main purpose was to determine
causation and not to create newsprint. Nevertheless, we compared how key descriptions of
the sighting were reported in each of these sources in order to determine the reliability of the
press at the time (shown below in Table 1). It appears that the description of Mr. Wright’s
sighting on Levelland Daily Sun and the Toreador were very close to the Air Force report.
While there are minor discrepancies on the location of the sighting, the key difference is that
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the newspapers implied that the object was solid (ie. “image not just a light”, “solid with a
definite form”). Moreover, while the Air Force Report and the Toreador said that the sighting
lasted minutes, the Levelland Daily Sun states more accurately that the Mr. Wright thought it
was minutes. In a recent interview, Mr. Wright said that while it might had seemed minutes at
the time it probably was more like 4 to 5 seconds. The key point here is that witness
testimony is subjective and facts and figures are just rough estimates made after a stressful
event. The same comment can be made about the size of the object. Recently Mr. Wright said
that the glow from the ball of light covered the whole width of the two-lane road. This size
estimate is less than 30 ft (see note below), but back in 1957 he said the object was between
75 and 125 ft wide.
Table 1: Comparison of Three Reports of Newell Wright’s Sighting
Sighting Descriptions Air Intelligence
Information Report
Levelland Daily
Sun Toreador
1. Date of Interview Nov. 5, 1957 Nov. 4, 1957 Nov. 4, 1957
2. Date of Report Nov. 18,1957 Nov. 5, 1957 Nov. 5,1957
3. Investigator/Reporter Sgt. Norman P. Barth Dale Johnson
4. Location On Hwy. 116, 4 mileswest
of Smyer
Near the town of
Smyer
On Route 116, one
mile west of Smyer
5. Event Duration 4 to 5 minutes Thought it was
minutes
~ 5 minutes
6. Weather:
(Clear,Cloudy, Rain,
etc)
Heavy clouds and a light
rain falling
Not Available Night was overcast
7. Description: UFO
Shape
Shaped like a loaf of
bread
Like an egg but
flat on the
bottom
Egg-shaped and flat
on the bottom; solid
with a very definite
form
8. UFO Size: How was it
estimated?
75 to 100 ft long He did
not know how far object
was. Size of a baseball at
arm's length.
~75 ft long but
he did not know
how far object
was
~75 ft long but he
did not know how
far object was
9. UFO Color White with a little
greenish tint
Saw an image
not just a light;
not as bright as
neon
White with a little
greenish tint
In the Air Force report of Mr. Wright’s sighting, he was considered to be a reliable witness. It
is interesting to note that James A. Lee, a NICAP investigator from Abilene, TX, also
interviewed Mr. Wright and described him as the “most important and authentic of all” the
witnesses in the Levelland case . The comment is curious because Mr. Lee concluded on
Nov. 4, 1957 that the sightings were due to “space craft from one of the neighboring planets”
but his best witness never believed in the spaceship theory. Mr. Wright always thought it was
some sort of natural phenomena. After the sighting, he went to bed and did not think much of
it. On Sunday he reported it only because his parents asked him to do so. The Monday after
the sightings, Mr. Wright met a professor of Electrical Engineering at Texas Tech (who he
12
worked for part-time) who explained the sighting as ball lightning. This explanation was
reasonable to Mr. Wright and he has been satisfied with this explanation ever since.16 In a
interview in 1982 he tells the Hockley County News-Press that people did not want him to
say he thought what he saw was something from nature. He said “nobody that ever talked to
me was ever satisfied to hear that (his explanation) because the other was more exciting”.
Pedro Saucedo
Pedro Saucedo - 1957
Pedro Saucedo was a 30-year-old farm hand and part time barber from Levelland. He was the
first witness to call the Levelland Police Department (PD) on the Saturday evening of
November 2, 1957. Saucedo had his sighting on Hwy. 116 about 4 miles west of Levelland
near the Pettit Community. After the sighting, he drove towards Whiteface and made the call
to the Levelland PD. Mr. Saucedo talked to A.J. Fowler who was the officer working the
night shift at the Levelland police dispatch. The Saucedo sighting was the only vehicle
interference case that evening that had two witnesses. A friend of his, Joe Salaz, also
witnessed the event. Nevertheless, nobody ever interviewed Mr. Salaz to confirm the story.
Saucedo returned to the Levelland PD the following day (Nov. 3, 1957) in order to give a
more complete report. Saucedo gave a complete statement of his sighting to Officer Shelby
Hall and he later talked at length with a Lubbock Avalanche Journal reporter named Bill
Wilkerson. On Tuesday Nov. 5, the Air Force officer who came to investigate the Levelland
sightings interviewed Mr. Saucedo. Thus, there are two documented sources of what Mr.
Saucedo saw on the evening of Nov. 2, 1957: the Air Intelligence Information Report and the
Avalanche Journal report made by Mr. Wilkerson.
To determine if there were any discrepancies between the Saucedo story reported by the Air
Force and the story reported in the newspapers, we selected a few key descriptors of the event
and compared them for each report.
13
This comparison is shown Table 2 below.
Sighting Descriptions Air Intelligence
Information Report
Lubbock Avalanche Journal
1. Date of Interview. Nov. 5, 1957 Nov. 3, 1957
2. Date of Report Nov. 18, 1957 Nov. 4, 1957
3. Investigator/Reporter Sgt. Norman P. Barth Bill Wilkerson
4. First Thing Noticed Saw a large flame in the
West
Flash of light in a field to his right
5. Sound None Reported Sounded like thunder
6. Physical Effects Felt heat Felt rush of wind and truck rocked
from the blast. Felt a lot of heat
7. Location On Hwy. 116, 4 miles
west of Levelland
On Hwy. 116, 4 miles west of
Levelland
8. Event Duration: 2 to 3 minutes None Reported
9. Description: UFO
Shape
Shaped like a torpedo Torpedo shaped orlike a rocket but
much larger
The are three slight discrepancies in the two statements. First, the Air Force does not mention
any sound heard during the Saucedo sighting, while the Avalanche Journal reported that it
sounded like thunder. Second, the Air Force reports that the sighting lasted 2 to 3 minutes
while the Avalanche Journal did not mention time. The fact that the object described by Mr.
Saucedo flew past him very fast (like a rocket) implies that it could not have been minutes.
Thirdly, the air force report does not mention that Saucedo’s truck rocked from the blast
while Wilkerson’s report does mention this.
Mr. Saucedo told the Air Force investigator (Sgt. Barth) that he thought the object was an
electronically controlled rocket. The Air Force, however, considered Mr. Saucedo not reliable
and to be below average intelligence. It is interesting to note that the Air Force never stated in
its report that Mr. Saucedo was a Korean War veteran but the Lubbock Avalanche Journal did
report it. According to A.J. Fowler, the Levelland police officer that took Saucedo’s call on
that Saturday evening, Mr. Saucedo did not speak very good English and it was difficult to
understand him. This might be the reason why the Air Force investigator did not think much
of Mr. Saucedo. Moreover, in his Air Intelligence report Sgt. Barth wrote that Mr. Saucedo
“had no concept of direction and was conflicting in his answers.”
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Ronald Martin
Ronald Martin - 1957
Ronald Martin was an 18-year-old truck driver who happens to have been in Levelland at the
time of the sightings. While Loren Gross writes that he was staying at the Padgett Hotel in
Levelland , nobody was able to determine where he was from. Ronald Martin never called
A.J. Fowler on the evening of his sighting (Nov. 3, 1957 at 12:45 AM). Martin was the 2nd
witness who showed up at the Levelland Police Station the day after the incident (Nov. 3,
1957). At the Levelland Police Station he gave a report to Officer Shelby Hall. Moreover, the
Lubbock Avalanche Journal reporter, Bill Wilkerson, was able to interview Mr. Martin on
Nov. 3. Besides interviewing the witness in person, the Avalanche Journal was also able to
photograph Mr. Martin and showed his picture on the Lubbock Morning Avalanche of Nov.
4, 1957. The Air Force officer who showed up on Nov. 5 was not able to locate Mr. Martin
and concluded in a memo to file that “contrary to newspaper reports, source (Ronald Martin)
did not live in Levelland ”. Therefore, the only good source of information for the Ronald
Martin story comes from the Lubbock Avalanche Journal report. This story was subsequently
sent via Associated Press wire to numerous papers across the country.
According to Civilian Saucer Intelligence (CSI), there was a probable hoax in the Levelland
case . CSI speculated that the unreliable witness was Ronald Martin based on the fact that he
reported the sighting the day after. CSI quotes a press report stating that “an unidentified
employer said the facts simply would not have allowed one of the local witnesses to be where
he was under the circumstances described.” The Levelland Daily Sun claimed the discovery
that at least one of the dramatic sightings appeared to be of the imaginary variety . However,
they did not identify the witness. As a result, we have to withhold judgement on Mr. Martin.
He is one of the few who did come back the afternoon following the sightings and
interviewed with newspaper reporters. By then, he had already heard the news of the
sightings and it is possible that he embellished the story. Martin’s story, however, is more
reliable than that of other witnesses who were not interviewed and who just reported the
sightings to A.J. Fowler.
15
James D. Long
James D. Long was a truck driver from Waco who, like Ronald Martin, was driving on the
outskirts of Levelland in the early morning hours of Sunday, Nov. 3, 1957. Right after his
sighting, he called the Levelland Police Department and talked to A.J. Fowler to report the
sighting. Nevertheless, Sheriff Weir Clem is the one who is quoted in most of the newspaper
stories that mention Long’s sighting story. While Sheriff Weir Clem was quoted in the El
Paso Times as saying that he talked to Mr. Long, this quote is doubtful.
In a recent interview with A.J. Fowler, A.J. said that he talked to a negro man who called on
the early hours of Nov. 3 to report a sighting and car stoppage. While A.J.’s description of the
man’s sighting is different than the one reported 42 years earlier, this man must have been
James D. Long because there was only one negro man quoted on the whole Levelland case.
Moreover, Long’s sighting happened at 1:15 AM, which is only 15 minutes earlier than
Sheriff Clem sighting of a streak of light. It is difficult to have Mr. Long calling Mr. Clem
within a 15-minute period when both of them were on the outskirts of Levelland. It is more
likely to conclude that Mr. Long called the Levelland PD and talked to A.J. Fowler, who then
communicated the news to Sheriff Clem via radio.
No newspaper reporter or Air Force investigator claimed to have talked to Mr. Long. It was
presumed that Mr. Long continued to his home in Waco after the incident and there was no
further follow-up interview. As a result, the descriptions available about Mr. Long’s sighting
are based on what Sheriff Clem told the press on November 3 and 4 and on what Officer
Fowler told the press on November 3.
A.J. Fowler is the only person who is on record talking to Mr. Long. A.J. Fowler told the
author that George Dolan, from the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, was the only reporter who
called him the day after the sightings on Sunday, November 3, shortly before noon . He also
recalls talking later to the local newspaper (Levelland Daily Sun) but does not recall talking
to anybody from the Lubbock Avalanche Journal. Nevertheless, no full-length interview of
Mr. Long took place.
In conclusion, if we rely on Sheriff Clem’s description of James Long’s sighting then we are
relying on third hand information: Long told Fowler, Fowler told Clem and Clem told the
Lubbock Avalanche Journal reporter. If we rely on what A.J. Fowler told the Fort Worth Star
Telegram, then we minimize the potential for error. Nevertheless, the Star Telegram account
is still second hand information. As a result, the quality of the details in the Long story is not
the most reliable.
Jim Wheeler, Jose Alvarez, and Frank D. Williams
Jim Wheeler, Jose Alvarez, and Frank D. Williams also called the Levelland Police
Department to report similar sightings and vehicle interferences. According to the Fort Worth
Star-Telegram, Wheeler and Williams had their sighting north (8 and 4 miles) of Levelland
on Route 51 at 11:50 PM and 12:15 AM respectively. Alvarez had his sighting at midnight
about 14 miles east of Levelland on Highway 116. There is very little information available
on these three independent witnesses. Jim Wheeler and Jose Alvarez were supposedly from
Levelland while Frank Williams was from Kermit.
16
On November 4, the Levelland police searched for Wheeler and Alvarez but were unable to
locate them. Sheriff Clem asked Winkler County Sheriff L.B. Eddins to search there for
Frank Williams. Sheriff Eddins said that he “turned Kermit upside down” and even had an
appeal broadcast on the Kermit radio station but was unable to find Williams. Neither
newspaper reporters nor the Air Force investigator ever interviewed these three witnesses. As
a result, the story that Wheeler, Alvarez, and Williams told was only available via whatever
A.J. Fowler wrote on the Levelland police records on the evening of November 2 and
whatever Officer Fowler recalled and told the press.
In October of 1998, the author contacted the Levelland Police Department and asked the
Chief of Police whether they had kept any records going back to 1957. The Chief of Police
said that there were no records in Levelland prior to 1978. Given the lack of primary
interviews available, the most reliable information available on the Wheeler, Alvarez, and
Williams stories is the report that George Dolan wrote on the Fort Worth Star-Telegram on
November 4 supplemented with reports from the Levelland Daily Sun and Associated Press
wires from Levelland.
Conclusion on Sources of Evidence and Witnesses
Of the seven Levelland witnesses who reported a ball of light that shut down their vehicles,
only three of them were interviewed and questioned by investigators. Of these three, only two
were interviewed by the Air Force. Newspaper reporters were also able to document these
three witnesses. The reports of the remaining four witnesses were secondary reports. The
newspaper reporters obtained their stories on these other 4 witnesses by interviewing Sheriff
Clem and Officer Fowler. As a result, there is a lack of consistent data amongst the reports, a
lack of consistent investigation procedure, and a lack of details on four of the seven reports.
Nevertheless, there is enough data available for analysis.
We can analyze the data and draw conclusions from it as long as we take into account its
source of origin. One way of ranking the level of accuracy in the reports is by using the
Information Quality Index proposed by MUFON. This Index (with a value between zero and
one) indicates the relative strength that a report has for analysis based on how it was
acquired. MUFON’s criteria for indexing the quality of the information is based on the type
of investigation conducted (direct or indirect), the time spent interviewing the witness and the
level and source documentation. The ranking classification is shown below in Table 3.
Type of Investigation Level of Investigation Time/Length Index
Direct Investigation
At the Site >= 2 hours 1.0
At the Site < 2 hours 0.9
Interview Person to Person >= 1 hour 0.9
Interview Person to Person < 1 hour 0.8
By Telephone >=1/2 hour 0.7
By Telephone <=1/2 hour 0.6
Indirect Investigation
Questionnaire with Follow-up Extensive 0.7
Questionnaire with Follow-up Brief 0.6
Letter with Follow-up Extensive 0.6
17
Letter with Follow-up Brief 0.5
Questionnaire 0.6
Letter/Narrative >= 1 page 0.4
Letter/Narrative < 1 page 0.3
Others
Newspaper >= 500 words 0.2
Newspaper < 500 words 0.1
Radio/TV 0.1
Witness Relative 0.1
Verbal/Rumor 0.0
Based on the level of investigation and reporting done on the seven Levelland witnesses, we
rated the level of accuracy using the MUFON’s Information Quality Index. We also rated the
level of Accuracy of the information using the author’s subjective levels (Low, Medium and
High). The author’s criteria for accuracy of data is shown below:
High: Witness was interviewed in person; a full record of witness testimony is
available; witness was questioned thoroughly by Air Force investigator
Medium: Witness was interviewed in person; the witness report was documented but
only in newspapers; no formal Air Force investigation took place
Low: Witness was not interviewed in person; witness was not interviewed by an
investigator or journalist; no record of witness testimony is available
The resulting Information Quality Index and the author’s own subjective rating are shown
below in Table 4. The Information Quality Index given to Long, Wheeler, Alvarez and
Williams is zero because nobody interviewed them and wrote a report. The source of
information for their sightings was based on a verbal conversation via phone with A.J.
Fowler. No report or record of these sightings was made. A.J. Fowler gave the details of these
sightings to the press via another phone call. Thus, these witnesses were not really
investigated (directly or indirectly). Their reports were obtained verbally.
Table 4: Subjective Rating of Accuracy of Witness Report
Witness InformationQuality
Index
Level of
Accuracy in
Report
Type of Investigation
Pedro Saucedo 0.8 High Interviewed in person by Air Force
officer and Avalanche Journal
Reporter
Newell Wright 0.8 High Interviewed in person by Air Force
officer and Avalanche Journal
reporter
Ronald Martin 0.8 Medium Interviewed in person by
Avalanche Journal reporter
James Long 0.0 Low Talked to Officer A.J.Fowler via
phone; A.J. then told reporters
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Jim Wheeler 0.0 Low Talked to Officer A.J.Fowler via
phone; A.J. then told reporters
Jose Alvarez 0.0 Low Talked to Officer A.J.Fowler via
phone; A.J. then told reporters
FrankWilliams 0.0 Low Talked to Officer A.J.Fowler via
phone; A.J. then told reporters
Quality of Information is different that reliability of witness. In the Levelland case, most
witnesses were credible and truly experienced something that they never saw before. The
issue is not whether they saw a ball of light in sky in the early morning hours of Nov. 3 1957,
but the details of what they saw. It is the details that will help determine and or explain what
they saw. Thus Quality of Information is deemed more important than witness reliability.
Witness Reliability is usually estimated using parameters like age, occupation, and education.
In this study, however, source of information at the time of the sightings is deemed more
important than a potentially biased Witness Reliability Index.
A key point to make with regard to witness reliability is that during and after the sightings,
neither the Air Force, Sheriff Clem, nor Officer A.J. Fowler doubted that the witnesses saw
something and that their vehicles were stopped. Even today, A.J. Fowler says that all the
witnesses who called and talked to him were credible, scared, and did see something that
night. The issue of reliability of the report has only to do with how accurate the report was
made and how well documented was the sighting description from each witness. It is the
details of the description of the phenomena seen that will help the most in finding a solution
to the mystery.
Searching for Patterns
The seven witnesses who reported vehicle interference told their stories to different people
via different mechanisms. As a result, the seven stories vary in depth of information,
accuracy, and quality. In order to minimize error in the analysis, we limited sources of
information to those reports and/or newspapers that had access to the key witnesses. For
example, newspaper references were limited to the Lubbock Avalanche Journal, Levelland
Daily Sun News, and the Fort Worth Star-Telegram because we know their reporters actually
interviewed key witnesses (Pedro Saucedo, Newell Wright, Ronald Martin) and key
participants in the event (A.J. Fowler, Weir Clem). Part of the witnesses' stories were
retrieved from other newspapers when more details were available in those papers but
missing in the Lubbock/Levelland/Fort Worth papers. However, out of town newspapers
(with the exception of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram) that were not quoting the Associated
Press wires from Levelland, tended not be as accurate as the Lubbock and Levelland papers.
The report from the Air Force investigation was also a key source for the details of the story
of Pedro Saucedo and Newell Wright.
Unfortunately, the stories of some witnesses, who just called the Levelland Police
Department and talked to A.J. Fowler and were not fully interviewed by the Air Force
investigator or a newspaper reporter, are lacking many details that are impossible to
determine 42 years later. Even when the witnesses are still alive, the details of the story are
not reliable. Thus the best we can do is analyze the best data available at the time.
19
Table 5 summarizes the key elements of the Levelland sighting story for the seven witnesses.
The witnesses are listed in the chronological order of the sightings. Twenty-one elements of
the story were tabulated ranging from time and place of sightings to details of the actual
sighting. When data was not available, the table cell was left blank or indicated not reported.
Of the 21 elements shown in Table 5, ten describe the object's behavior and properties and
the other eleven describe the witness, his behavior, and the source of information. The ten
properties selected to describe the object sighted are shown below:
Event Duration
Shape
Size
Color
Type of Motion
Direction
Distance
Type of Vehicle Interference
Sound
Physical and Physiological Effect
Review of the descriptions given by the seven witnesses (as shown in Table 5) indicates that
not one report was identical to another in all these 10 properties. The only generalization that
can be made is that seven independent witnesses (while driving within a 10 miles radius of
Levelland and within a 2.5-hour period) ran into a light source that shut down their car's
engine and headlights. Then when the light source left the scene, the car's engine and
headlights worked normally.
Table 5: Descriptions and Key Elements of the Seven Levelland Vehicle Interference