The Levelland Sightings Of 1957 by Antonio F. Rullán: Air Force/Blue Book Investigation and Explanation

After all the publicity on the Levelland sightings was reported all over the nation on November 4, the Air Force was besieged by reporters calling for explanations. On November 7, Captain Andy Beasley (NORAD public information officer) said NORAD had sent an investigator to Reese AFB, Lubbock, Texas, on Monday (November 4) to probe reports that a brilliant colored, egg shaped object had stalled automobiles in West Texas and New Mexico. This investigator was due to return to command headquarters on November 7.[48]

The Air Force sent Sergeant Norman P. Barth to Levelland to investigate the sightings on November 5, 1957 (Tuesday). Sgt. Barth was a NCOIC (Non Commissioned Officer in Charge) of the UFO Section of the 1006th Air Intelligence Security Service (AISS) located at Ent Air Force Base in Colorado Springs. Sgt. Barth showed up in Levelland at Sheriff Clem’s office around noon and finished his field investigation at around 6:30 PM.[49] Of the 6.5 hours he spent in the area, at least 3 hours were spent in Lubbock. During the 6.5 hour period, he interviewed six people: Sheriff Weir Clem (Levelland), Newel Wright (Levelland), Pedro Saucedo (Levelland), Patrolman Lee Roy Hargrove (Littlefield), Harold D. Wright (Lubbock), and J.B. Cogburn (Whiteface). Of the six people that the Air Force interviewed only two had their car engines and headlights shut by the mysterious ball of light (Pedro Saucedo and Newell Wright). Three others (Sheriff Clem, Hargrove, and Harold Wright) only saw a streak of light and J.B. Cogburn’s sighting was 2 days after the Levelland event (Nov. 4, 8:45 PM).Even the Air Force report concluded that Cogburn’s sighting was not connected with the other Levelland sightings two days earlier.

Lt. Colonel William P. Brunson of the 1006th AISS in Ent Colorado wrote the Air Intelligence Information Report on November 18, 1957. Col. Brunson had different conclusions for each of the witnesses. Moreover, he and Sgt. Barth rated each of the witnesses with a reliability scale.While this study is only concerned with the auto stoppage cases, the Air Force interviews and reliability estimates of the 3 other witnesses does provide useful information about the weather conditions on the evening of November 2. A summary of the conclusions for each of the five relevant sightings in Levelland is shown below in Table 8.

Table 8: Air Force Reliability Ratings and Conclusions for Levelland Sightings

	Reliability Estimate by Air Force	Reliability Code given by Air Force[50]	Air Force Explanation for Sighting
Newell E. Wright	Usually Reliable	B	Ball Lightning
Pedro Saucedo	Not Usually Reliable	D	Imagination
Sheriff Weir Clem	Fairly Reliable	C	Streak Lightning
Patrolman Lee Roy Hargrove	Not Reported	B	Streak Lightning
T/Sgt. Harold D. Wright	Usually Reliable	B	Heavy Electrical Storms

Col. Brunson concluded that Pedro Saucedo’s account was unreliable because of a discrepancy between Saucedo’s estimate of the object’s speed (800 miles per hour) and distance (300 ft away) and Saucedo’s estimate of the length of time the object was in sight (2 to 3 minutes).Besides this incompatibility, Col. Brunson states another reason why Saucedo is not deemed reliable: Saucedo’s description of the weather condition did not agree with the established conditions in the area. Nevertheless, Saucedo’s description of the weather was never written in the AISS report on Levelland. ATIC’s conclusion on Saucedo was “that the excitement of the situation probably wetted the imagination of this witness, and that at least part of the information which he provided is false”[51].

On the other hand, Col. Brunson had a high opinion of Newell Wright. He called the Newel Wright’s sighting the most important (of the six he reviewed).Moreover, he states that the reliability, sincerity, and intelligence of Mr. Wright lend credence to his account. Col. Brunson proposed four possible explanations for Newel Wright’s sighting:

Weather phenomena, such as St. Elmo’s Fire or a similar phenomenon
Ball lightning
Reflection of excess burning gas from a very low cloud cover
A meteorological phenomenon which could be any combination of 3 shown above

However, he wrote that insufficient knowledge of the meteorological phenomena proposed as possible explanations existed at his organization to completely resolve the sightings. Thus, he forwarded the sighting to the Air Technical Intelligence Center (ATIC) as unresolved. ATIC on the other hand, concluded that the conditions, which existed in Levelland during November 2 and 3, were consistent with those associated with ball lighting. In particular, they concluded that what Newel Wright saw was ball lightning.ATIC concluded:

“It is the opinion of ATIC that ball lightning may have contributed to the overall circumstances of the Levelland sighting, but was not a major factor. It is concluded that the major cause for the Levelland case was a severe electrical storm. The storm stimulated the populace into a high level of excitement. This excitement reflected itself in their reactions to ordinary circumstances, and resulted in the inflation of the stories of some of the witnesses concerning their experiences”.[52]

ATIC’s conclusion that a severe electrical storm was the major cause and not ball lightning was due to the fact that three of the six witnesses they interviewed saw only a streak of light. Moreover, they discounted Saucedo’s sighting and ignored Cogburn’s. Thus, only one sighting (Newel Wright’s) out of 6 sightings required the ball lighting explanation.

Col. Brunson’ AISS report did not address directly the possible cause of the automobiles engine stoppage. That is probably why he submitted the Newel Wright case as unresolved. ATIC, on the other hand, concluded that the two cases of motor stoppage that the Air Force investigated (Saucedo and Wright) could be attributed to the electrical storm either directly or indirectly. ATIC’s summary report states that “the high humidity may have resulted in sudden deposition of moisture on distributor parts and the possibility of stoppage due to this is especially true if moisture condensation nuclei were enhanced by increased atmospheric ionization” This suggestion, curiously enough, was made by Dr. J. Allen Hynek in a memo to ATIC. In the memo Hynek says that a connection between the ball lighting phenomena and the engine stoppage was possible via ionization of the air and moisture deposition. Later in his life, Hynek regretted supporting this hypothesis because he could not explain why the auto engines would start right after the ball of light left the scene and because he found no evidence that there was an electric storm in Levelland the night of sightings.

For ATIC, the auto stoppage issue was obviously the most difficult to explain away given the limited data and science available on ball lightning. The head of the Blue Book in 1957, Captain George T. Gregory, admits the weakness of the ball lightning explanation in a letter to the Air Science Division on December 4, 1957. In that letter he asks for a review of the Levelland case with emphasis on the “missing factor” of the ball lightning hypothesis. The missing factor he asks about was “what effect does nearby lightning discharges have on the electrical circuits or voltage potential of automobiles”[56]. Presumably, Captain Gregory could not explain the auto stoppages and restarts with the limited knowledge available on ball lightning.

On January 3, 1958, Captain Gregory writes another concluding memo stating “the phenomenon was undoubtedly related to the meteorological conditions that existed in the area at that time: fog, light rain, mist, very low ceiling (400 ft), and lightning discharges. The latter were definitely established through the results of numerous investigative reports”[57]. He concludes that all the weather conditions were conducive to a ball lightning manifestation.Furthermore, he explains the auto stoppage occurrence with Hynek’s explanation that ball lightning or lightning discharges were capable of ionizing the air and in turn affect the moisture laden ignition components of a motor vehicle.

Observations and Conclusions of Air Force Investigation

While the Air Force investigation of the Levelland case had pluses and minuses, overall it made a positive contribution to the evaluation of this case. The negative aspects of the Air Force investigation were:

They limited the scope of investigation to only the people who they could find in Levelland when Sgt. Barth arrived.While Sgt. Barth, tried to locate Ronald Martin, no extra effort was made to find the other four witnesses.
No investigation was made on the affected automobiles.
They focused their attention on the electrical storm hypothesis despite many witnesses stating that there was no electric storm.

The positive aspects of the Air Force investigation were:

They documented the interviews with the witnesses and provided better investigative reports than the newspaper accounts.
They used Air Force resources to check for other possible causes and did not find any.
They documented the weather conditions in Levelland and Lubbock at the time of the sightings.
They started the scientific debate on the possibility of Ball Lighting being the cause of many UFO reports.

Nevertheless, the crux of Blue Book’s Levelland explanation rests on two key assumptions: (1) that there was an electric storm in Levelland on the night of November 2, 1957 and (2) that ball lighting can cause automobile engines to stop.Thus, to better understand this case, we must determine what was the weather like on Nov. 2-3 and what are the known properties of ball lightning.