Mysterious lights 'changing formation' spark UFO fears for Texas locals

Onlookers were left stunned by the changing lights spotted across an 80-mile radius over Texas, with some convinced of an alien visit.

 By Laura Sharman & Michael Havis

Mesmerising footage shows a series of glowing lights hovering above Texas sparking fears of a possible UFO.

The mysterious lights were spotted changing formation in the night sky over three separate counties across an 80-mile radius.

Stargazers in and around Dallas chimed in with sightings after footage of the bizarre presence over Duncanville, in the south of the city, was shared online.

Javier Estrada III said he knew it was something out of the ordinary when filming the bizarre formation (Image: Credit: Pen News/Javier Estrada III)

A flurry of witnesses came forward to claim sightings from multiple sites, with some convinced the lights were caused by visiting aliens.

Retail manager Javier Estrada III, who filmed the footage, said: "What I saw mesmerised me. I was visiting family for my grandma's birthday and happened to look up.

"I saw glowing lights hovering real slow and that's when I knew it was something out of the ordinary - not scary, just crazy to look at.

"I do believe in extraterrestrials so the first thing that came to mind was a UFO. As soon as I saw it, I was starstruck - it seemed so real.

"I wouldn't mind having aliens come to visit but knowing us in the USA we will probably attack them first."

In Javier's video, four lights are visible in the starry sky, shifting from a kite-like formation to a square one, before drifting apart and out of view.

Two more lights then come into view before the clip ends. They could have been drones.

Sightings were reported from a total eight different areas in and around the city, mainly towards the south, with many describing the lights as forming a "straight line."

Onlookers also reported the phenomenon in Allen, to the north of the city, and Granbury, to the southwest - which are separated by a distance that would take nearly two hours to drive.

And with more than 16,000 people seeing the footage, there were plenty of suggestions as to what the lights could be.

Some suggested the display was caused by drones or Chinese lanterns, but nobody ventured an explanation as to how they were spotted in places so far apart.

Others speculated satellites or weather balloons, though nobody offered any tracking data.

While others turned to aliens or conspiracy theories.

One viewer added: "It's 2020. Anything is possible."

Close Encounters of the Artistic Kind

By Piper Whitehead

The year is 1964. You and two friends decide to go for a walk in Cape Cod, when, suddenly, you see a strange object in the sky. You report it to the National Guard, and they do nothing. Obviously. I’m going to go out on a limb and say that most people believe there is some form of intelligent life out there in our infinite universe; scepticism usually kicks in about whether aliens consider Earth a one-stop scientific resource/tourism destination. Anyway, your interest is piqued, you begin to research, to publish your ideas and before long, more and more people are contacting you about their experiences with aliens. You’re also the acclaimed abstract artist Budd Hopkins, but everyone needs a hobby.

Hopkins claims to have been an alien sceptic ever since being one of the many listeners who were traumatised by Orson Welles’ The War of the Worlds, history’s most unethical radio play, which is best known for making lots of people think aliens were actually invading the earth. So Hopkins clearly knew the danger of hoaxes, but even he was eventually convinced that the danger of actual aliens was much more worrisome. He went on to dedicate significant portions of his time to researching aliens and supporting victims of supposed abductions.

What I find most compelling about Hopkin’s experience is that it was never something he claimed to represent in his art. Though some people have found his later sculptures quite alien-like, it would be remiss to write an article about extraterrestrial experiences that doesn’t acknowledge the fact that people usually see what they want to see. Still, claims of alien encounters seem to have been detrimental to the career of a respected abstract expressionist, with works held by the likes of Met and MoMA. It certainly dominated his Wikipedia page.

Blatant liars are always around to attach themselves parasitically to any good mystery, invariably for profit. In 2015, British painter Lloyd Canning claimed he was visited by aliens numerous times and that his works were the result of their projections into his mind. A few months later he then announced it was a lie for exposure, and he’d never been abducted, though he had had ‘great sightings’. I don’t think many people were shocked. Perhaps the most questionable part of his story was why aliens thought the psychedelic dreamscapes Canning painted needed to be urgently communicated to earthlings. Personally, I find his paintings the least interesting of those I examined for this article. Then again, that might be my expectations at play. They do say that money is the enemy of good art.

There are also stories of artists encountering aliens that might challenge even the most tin-foil hat-friendly of us. David Huggins, the subject of documentary Love and Saucers, claims to have been visited by aliens for most of his life. What’s more, he claims to have lost his virginity to an alien named Crescent, who continued to visit him throughout his life, and with whom he fathered alien-human hybrids. Unlike Hopkins, Huggins actually did use these encounters as the basis for his art (as you might guess, they get erotic – don’t say I didn’t warn you). His works are eerie and unsettling, often showing himself, Crescent, and others in blank interior environments. Does the fact that the aliens in his paintings resemble ‘greys’, the most stereotypical image of an alien, make it more or less likely that he actually saw them? Does the sheer outrageousness of it all make the story more believable than a defensible lie, like seeing something in the sky? Though his narrative beggars belief, those who have met or seen interviews with Huggins find him compelling. He does not give the impression of a liar.

Perhaps Huggins and Hopkins are just crazy. We tend to treat people who search for UFOs as quacks, eccentrics and outcasts (after all, if you weren’t an outcast before, telling people you’ve seen aliens certainly puts you on the fast track to becoming one). We don’t romanticise claims of alien encounters in the irresponsible way we often do with artists’ mental illnesses. However, there are a number of crossovers between truth seekers and those we call great artists: they’re unusually perceptive, they question the intent of institutions like governments, and they’re willing to say things that the rest of us are afraid to. Perhaps most importantly, both groups have the tendency to wander about in isolated areas. The edge of reason has always been well populated by artists, philosophers and avant-garde types. Maybe they’re the only ones willing to see what we don’t want to.

Filmmaker James Fox on his new UFO documentary The Phenomenon

By UFO Congress

James Fox will be sharing information about his latest film, The Phenomeon.

James Fox is the Executive Producer and Director of three critically acclaimed UFO documentaries, 50 years of Denial, Out of the Blue and I Know What I Saw. Out of the Blue aired on the Sci-Fi channel and I Know What I Saw aired on the History channel. He is now working on an eagerly awaited new documentary that he says will blow the socks off audiences. All of these documentaries are geared towards sharing eye-witness accounts from individuals with impeccable credentials, breaking the stereotype of the typical UFO witness.

Fox assembled the most credible UFO witnesses from around the world to testify at The National Press Club in Washington D.C.: Air Force Generals, astronauts, military and commercial pilots, government and FAA officials from seven countries tell stories that, as Governor Fife Symington from Arizona stated, ”will challenge your reality”. Fox has won the support of several key media, government and military personnel, and has made numerous television and radio appearances including: Larry King Live (CNN) appearances, Anderson Cooper 360° (CNN) appearance, ABC Nightline appearance, Dateline NBC appearance, George Noory’s Coast to Coast Radio.

In 1998, he completed and sold his first major documentary ‘UFOs: 50 Years of Denial’ to the Discovery Channel. It included such notables as Apollo 14 Astronaut Edgar Mitchell and Col. Philip J. Corso, who was in charge of the foreign technology desk at the Pentagon during the Eisenhower administration.  For his film, Out of the Blue, James interviewed witnesses including President Gerald Ford, Mercury Astronaut Gordon Cooper, Cosmonaut Pavel Papovich in Star City, Russia, and five-star Admiral Lord Hill Norton in England.

The Road To UFO Disclosure -- Special Guest: Stephen Bassett

By The Black Vault Originals

The year is 2020. 

It has brought us a global pandemic; riots in the streets of America; and a Presidential impeachment trial that turned the United States upside down. But in between those world changing events – the UFO phenomenon has increasingly been given more credibility and more serious exposure on the nightly news programs. 

UFO Sightings Up During October Says MUFON

By Tim Weisberg

UFO sightings were up around the world and in the United States last month, according to the most recent statistics released by the Mutual UFO Network, or MUFON, in its monthly newsletter.

October saw MUFON collect reports of 414 worldwide sightings, with the United States accounting for the most of any nation at 340, followed by Canada (34) and the United Kingdom (19). Fifteen countries reported sightings in the single digits.

In September 2020, there were 404 worldwide UFO sightings reported to the organization, with the United States leading the way with 313 of those sightings. Canada (28) and the United Kingdom (21) were again the next closest, with 27 other nations having reports in the single digits.

Twenty-one states saw an increase in UFO activity from September to October. California led the way with 56 reports last month, up from 34 in September. North Carolina had the second-biggest jump, going from two reports in September to 11 in October.

When it comes to the shape of the objects, 80 of the worldwide sightings were reported as being a “circle” while 50 were a “sphere.” There were 34 instances each of the craft reported as “star-like” or triangular.

While sightings overall were up in October, landings, hoverings or takeoffs were down from 13 in September to 11 in October. Similarly, fewer entities were observed in the craft in October (six) as compared with September (11).

The ‘Alien Invasion’ Radio Broadcast: Would it Terrify Listeners today as it did 82 years ago?

On October 30, 1938, actor Orson Welles terrified radio listeners when he announced that Martians were invading New Jersey. His announcement horrified listeners who believed the world was under attack by hostile aliens. But the “news” was fake. Recently the Pentagon released UFO videos depicting objects in the sky. However, the videos did not elicit the same reaction as the “fake” alien invasion story 82 years ago.

The current population is more informed with extensive research conducted on extraterrestrial life that such news would not have them petrified. The general understanding is that Mars does not harbor an advanced alien civilization with lethal weapons and spacecraft. Even though the public is still fascinated with extraterrestrials, if Welles was to make his announcement today that strange creatures were invading the Earth, the reaction would be different. The millennials’ typical response would be to capture “the invasion” on their smartphones and share with friends on social media.

In 1938, an actor posed as a news anchor and interrupted a scheduled music performance. With a threatening tone, he described to the audience telescope observations of three explosions on Mars. He then brought in a reporter from the scene in Gover’s Mill, a town next to Princeton, New Jersey. The performance also included eyewitnesses who stated that they had seen Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs) and strange creatures shooting an ultramodern heat ray that has killed several people.

Although the program was interrupted by reminders that it was not real, many people tuned in believed the alien invasion was real. Later, newspapers reported how the fake alien invasion had caused a lot of panic among the people. The next day the Daily News was full of accounts of how many listeners ran from their homes in New York and New Jersey with their faces covered with towels to shield themselves from the gas that the invader was said to be emitting.

At the time, space scientists were already aware of the fact that Mars was not capable of harboring a thriving civilization. According to experts, an alien attack of military proportion would require intelligent and technically advanced extraterrestrials. Also, an unbelievable number of variables would have to happen for the invasion to occur.

It is believed that the first encounter would be through discovering microbes from other worlds that are likely to be common in all the cosmos as opposed to intelligent organisms. In the current day and age, an announcement on finding extraterrestrial microbes is likely to attract the interest of many rather than cause panic. However, another school of thought believes that an encounter with intelligent extraterrestrial communications cannot be ruled out.

Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Institute (SETI) based in California scans the skies to detect any signals emanating from any form of intelligent life. The institute scans for radio signals that could be directed towards the Earth, and they are confident that as their equipment becomes more sophisticated, they are likely to find something. When they do, you can bet that the announcement will not be horrifying as it was 82 years ago!

World governments taking UAPs seriously

The truth is out there and more and more top officials are taking notice of what’s happening in the skies above our earth.

The phenomenon is nothing new and perhaps even predates manned flight on earth.

Ezekiel saw the wheel, just what did he see?

“As I looked, behold, a stormy wind came out of the north, and a great cloud, with brightness around it, and fire flashing forth continually, and in the midst of the fire, as it were gleaming metal. And from the midst of it came the likeness of four living creatures. And this was their appearance: they had a human likeness ...”

UFOs, or UAPs (Unidentified Aerial Phenomena) as they’re now known, are being taken very seriously by governments, military and civilian agencies around the world.

The matter was given high profile and mainstream legitimacy when the Pentagon, this past April, declassified three previously top secret U.S. Navy videos. They show UAPs photographed by pilots, giving credence to the phenomena.

“The aerial phenomena observed in the videos remain characterized as ‘unidentified,’” according to a Pentagon spokesperson.

The videos captured what Navy fighter pilots saw on their video sensors during training flights in 2004 and 2015.

“I can tell you, I think it was not from this world,” retired Cmdr. David Fravor told ABC News in 2017 of what he saw during a routine training mission on Nov. 14, 2004 off the coast of California.

In 2004, F/A-18 Super Hornet fighter pilots, and sensor instrumentation associated with the USS Nimitz Carrier Strike Group, reported unknown aerial objects. According to Fravor, a radar operator aboard the USS Princeton told him to investigate a target at 80,000 feet (24,000 m) that had apparently moved rapidly down to the sea before stopping at 20,000 feet (6,100 m).

During 2014-2015, fighter pilots associated with the USS Theodore Roosevelt carrier strike group reported unknown aerial objects. These UAPs were  reported in the mainstream media and some of the involved pilots subsequently gave interviews about their experiences.

The now well known videos show encounters by jets from Nimitz and Theodore Roosevelt with unusually shaped, fast-moving aircraft. The videos feature cockpit display data and infrared imagery.

A Pentagon spokesperson confirmed that the videos were made by naval aviators and that they are “part of a larger issue of an increased number of training range incursions by unidentified aerial phenomena in recent years.”

Schomberg’s Andre Milne, of Unicorn Aerospace, argues the Nimitz UAP incident is in fact not only an extremely serious threat to U.S. national security, but to Canada’s as well.

“Speaking strictly from a military defence position, there is zero doubt the Nimitz battle group’s threat detection and response capabilities were probed by an unknown threat ... with technology far superior than anything ever documented on multiple primary radar and sonar targeting systems,” Milne said.

He’s pushing for Notices to Airmen (NOTAM) through the International Civil Aviation Organization, an agency of the United Nations. This would notify all pilots in the air when UAPs are encountered.

The sightings continue.

This past Aug. 19, Russian astronaut Ivan Vagner filmed several dots that appear to have lined up in space over the Earth. He filmed his 52-second video from the ISS and it does appear as a string of lights in an angled line.

There have been many official responses to the growing phenomenon.

This past Aug. 4, U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense David L. Norquist approved the establishment of an Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force (UAPTF). The Department of the Navy, under the cognizance of the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security, will lead the UAPTF.  

The UAPTF is charged with improving its understanding of, and gaining insight into, the nature and origins of UAPs.  The mission of the task force is to detect, analyze and catalog UAPs that could potentially pose a threat to U.S. national security.

DOD takes incursions by unauthorized aircraft in U.S. air space very seriously.

The Department of Transport, Department of National Defence, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the National Research Council have all dealt with UFO investigations.

From Project Magnet (1950), Project Second Story (1952), through 1978, the federal government has been keeping tabs on such “visitors.”

Currently, NAV Canada, a company that owns and operates Canada’s civil air navigation service, does have a procedure for reporting sightings. Their Aviation Occurrence Reporting Procedure is used to address instances of unauthorized or unknown aircraft in NAV Canada managed airspace. A spokesperson said depending on these details, NAV Canada may send a report to the Department of National Defence (DND), the North American Aerospace Defence Command (NORAD), Transport Canada (TC) and/or the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).

Some 9,000 government documents, ranging from defence department memos about “flying saucers” to RCMP reports by officers who investigated UFO sightings across the country, are available on the Library and Archives Canada website.

The documents show a “fairly consistent track record of Canadian official involvement and interest in the subject, almost to the present time,” said UFO researcher Chris Rutkowski said. “People in Canada have been way ahead of the United States in the sense that we’ve had a body of evidence and a body of documentation showing official interest in UFOs.”

Rutkowski says Canadian authorities have historically been more transparent than their U.S. counterparts and that Canadians saw UFOs more as a scientific curiosity rather than a military threat.

The issue is treated with high regard at the world’s governing body.

The United Nations has an Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA) that’s  responsible for promoting international cooperation in the peaceful uses of outer space. UNOOSA serves as the secretariat for the General Assembly’s only committee dealing exclusively with international cooperation in the peaceful uses of outer space: the  United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS). Some say it’s a precursor for making first contact.

More and more governments are creating protocols and reporting mechanisms to better prepare pilots.

Japan’s Self-Defense Forces (SDF) have protocols when encountering an unidentified flying object (UFO) that could potentially pose a threat to national security. Their military is also tasked with looking into reports of UFO sightings from the public.

Looking back, most of us are familiar with the mysteries surrounding Roswell, Area 51 and Project Blue Book, which included UFO reports investigated between 1951 and 1970. The actual number of UFO reports in Blue Book files is between 12,000 and 15,000 cases.

The truth it out there, and with global, cooperative efforts, the answers may be within our grasp. As governments and agencies work together, we will be better prepared to handle potential threats.

Texas history full of UFO sightings

BY BARTEE HAILE

A torpedo-shaped sphere cruised the night sky over the West Texas town of Levelland on Nov. 2, 1957, while on the ground mysterious “eggs of light” blocked the roads.

The reexamination of the so-called “Roswell Incident” in the 1990’s revived interest in Unidentified Flying Objects. Although nothing in the Lone Star past can compete with the controversial claim that a flying saucer crashed in the New Mexico desert 73 years ago, Texas history is full of out-of-this-world sightings.

Farmworkers at Bonham filed one of the earliest reports on record in 1873. Stupefied laborers swore they saw an enormous “serpentine object” float overheard in broad daylight.

This obscure episode preceded by a generation the Great Airship Mystery, the first nationwide commotion concerning UFO’s. Starting on the Pacific coast in November 1896 and slowly moving eastward for six sensational months, thousands of Americans insisted they gazed upon giant flying machines two decades before the Wright brothers mastered heavier-than-air flight.

An oblong, propeller-powered craft supposedly churned against the wind over Sacramento on Nov. 19, 1896. The next day a similar airship mystified Oakland, where onlookers said they heard voices, laughter and Christmas carols.

During the wacky weeks that followed, flying cigars and cylinders were spotted over Omaha, Kansas City, St. Louis and countless other communities. In April 1897, an entire fleet of UFO’s caused a high-altitude traffic jam over metropolitan Chicago.

A former congressman had a Kansas encounter of the much-too-close kind. As an airship hovered 30 feet off the ground, six odd-looking creatures were plainly visible inside a transparent undercarriage. The shaken ex-lawmaker said, “I don’t know whether they were angels, devils or what.”

Popular speculation picked up by the press hinted the astonishing contraptions were the secret creations of Thomas Edison, proof of the public’s boundless confidence in the inventive genius. But Edison indignantly denied any involvement and dismissed the strange phenomena as an elaborate fraud.

Meanwhile, a Dallas daily reported the crash of a spaceship at the Wise County hamlet of Aurora. According to a local correspondent named S.E. Hayden, the craft collided with a windmill and exploded killing the lone alien occupant. The blast “scattered debris over several acres of ground” but enough remained of the intergalactic guest “to show he was not an inhabitant of this world.”

“T.J. Weems, the U.S. Signal Service officer at this place and an authority on astronomy, gave it as his opinion that the pilot was a native of the planet Mars.” The tall tale concluded with the announcement that the deceased would be given a Christian burial by the compassionate earthlings of Aurora.

During the flying saucer frenzy after the Second World War, the “Lubbock Lights” focused media attention on the Panhandle. Streaking across the heavens on a crystal clear night in November 1951, the blue lights were observed and photographed by numerous eyewitnesses, including my own mother who fearing ridicule kept quiet about the experience for 50 years. Unable to chalk off four Texas Tech professors and an Atomic Energy Commission representative as crackpots, the Air Force blamed the light show on migratory birds.

Never at a loss for down-to-earth explanations, government investigators deduced the glowing “eggs” that materialized on highways outside Levelland in 1957 were simply ball lightning. To motorists, whose engines died when they drove too close to the eerie orbs, the official verdict was more far-fetched than the bizarre incident itself.

The forgotten story of the Martian mishap in North Texas was discovered in 1973 by a bored newspaperman. UFO enthusiasts descended upon tiny Aurora in search of evidence of the ancient accident but failed to find a single fragment of the shattered spacecraft.

The last straw for residents, who had politely put up with the eccentric invasion, was a request from a team of Oklahoma UFO hunters to exhume a body in the cemetery. The grave robbers were sent packing, and a guard was posted at the burial ground.

In the aftermath of this carnival-like furor, a Wise County writer proved that Hayden, the Gay Nineties chronicler, was just pulling posterity’s leg. The windmill never existed, the astronomy expert was actually a blacksmith and cemetery records showed no alien internment. Elderly Aurorans would have remembered the crash landing, yet everyone agreed nothing unusual happened in April 1897.

But hoaxes, birds and ball lightning do not explain the thousands of sightings in Texas and elsewhere during the past century or more. To borrow the tag line from a popular television show of the 1990’s, the truth may still be out there.

DNA And Our Extra-terrestrial Origins... (The Evidence Is Everywhere)

Researcher of ancient mysteries, Wayne Herschel shared his theory that modern day humans are descendants of ETs who came to Earth 10,000 years ago. Richard C. Hoagland of Enterprise Mission, appearing during the third hour, agreed with some of Herschel's concepts, but thought his timeline was off. He suggested that rather than the Egyptian pyramids being 10,000 years old that their foundations were actually created 200, 000 years ago, and the timing was associated with changes in human DNA development.

Roswell Council to vote on UFO Festival management

By Juno Ogle

During its November meeting, the Roswell City Council will consider awarding management of the 2021 UFO Festival to a professional event production company from Texas.

MainStreet Roswell had organized the festival since 2014, but MainStreet advised the city it wanted to step out of that role to focus on its mission of promoting downtown, according to an August press release from the city and MainStreet.

The city has proposed using the $40,000 it had been providing to MainStreet previously for organizing the event, to hire a professional event company to manage the festival for a one-year contract.

The city received two responses for its request for proposals to manage the festival, with staff recommending awarding the RFP to In Depth Events, McKinney, Texas.

The other proposal was from The Liberty, a Roswell private social club.

Stephanie Mervine, tourism manager for the city, said both interviewed well, showing passion and enthusiasm for the UFO Festival, but In Depth showed superior event management skills and well-defined leadership.

“In Depth spoke specifically to what we were asking for in the scope of work and the deliverables. Their focus was on what the city needs and not what the company needs. They really listened well to that,” she said at the Oct. 22 Finance Committee meeting.

Committee members voted unanimously to send the recommendation for In Depth’s management of the festival to the full City Council’s Nov. 12 consent agenda. Consent agenda items, which can include RFPs, leases, resolutions and meeting minutes, are all approved in one action unless an individual item is requested and approved to be moved to the regular agenda during the meeting.

The scope of work outline in the RFP includes creating “an elevated design that brings a refreshed experience to attract a broader national audience.”

The management company would oversee much of the work of putting on the festival including logistics; managing all aspects of entertainment, event production and contract negotiations; training and supervising volunteers; managing all communications; and preparing a budget outline and cost proposal.

The goals for the festival outlined in the RFP include increasing overnight hotel stays and length of stays; developing ticketed events; and expanding the festival’s audience to a broader national level.

As for MainStreet Roswell, Executive Director Kathy Lay said the organization still plans to be involved.

“MainStreet Roswell plans to coordinate our efforts with those chosen by the City Council to organize the official UFO Festival. As the city works toward growing and expanding this into a city-wide event, we will focus our time and energy on downtown festival activities that will encourage attendees to visit the businesses located in the MainStreet Roswell’s district, not to compete with the city-wide event, but to enhance and complement it by having more things for people to do over the festival weekend,” Lay said.

That could include MainStreet’s passport program, in which participants acquire stamps at participating businesses in a booklet that can then be entered into a prize drawing.

Downtown events would also likely include craft and merchandise tents, local musicians, a prize drawing and the pet costume contest, she said.