The Levelland Sightings Of 1957 by Antonio F. Rullán: The Extraterrestrial Spacecraft Hypothesis
The Lubbock Avalanche Journal never claimed that the Levelland sightings were flying saucers or spaceships. While on November 3 their headlines called the sightings a “Flying Fiery Object”, by November 4 the morning paper called it a “Thing” and the afternoon paper called it a “Flaming Thing”. James A. Lee was the first person to publicly claim that the Levelland sightings were spaceships from other planets. James Lee claim was first printed on November 4, 1957 and was quoted in wires from the Associated Press and United Press.
James Lee was a NICAP (National Committee on Aerial Phenomena) investigator and also the director of the Interplanetary Space Patrol (a West Texas organization). Mr. Lee lived in Abilene where he owned and operated a surgical and medical equipment supply store. He rushed to Levelland on Sunday (Nov. 3) to interview and tape record the witnesses (we believe he interviewed Newell Wright, Pedro Saucedo, and Weir Clem). Lee identified the object as “a space craft from one of the neighboring planets” the same day he arrived in Levelland[70]. Lee told Sheriff Clem that Levelland had a visit from another planet and left by 11 AM on Sunday. Lee told the Lubbock Avalanche reporter that “machines inside the object disturbed the magnetic field of balance and caused car engines to stall”.
The Dallas News staff asked Mr. Lee on November 5 about the possibility that the mystery object might have been ball lightning. Lee responded:
“Not a chance. Whatever it was showed every indication of being under intelligent guidance. Its objective seemed to be to land on the highway and interrupt traffic, then immediately leave that area and fly over to another highway leading into Levelland. It landed four times, and when observed it would take off to another location. In every case when a car or truck would approach, it would fail to function and the lights would go out”[71].
Dr. Wayne Rudmore (a physics professor at Southern Methodist University) was the one who offered the possibility that engine failures were caused by ball lightning or static electricity as early as November 5.
Despite Mr. Lee’s conclusions, none of the witnesses went on record stating that the object seen was a spacecraft from another planet. With the exception of Pedro Saucedo (who described the object as looking like a rocket), none of the witnesses described a solid craft or flying saucer. None of the witnesses saw landing legs, windows, or protrusions from the object. Six of the seven witnesses only saw a flaming ball of light. Most witnesses, including Pedro Saucedo, did not know what they saw and called the police department for help. Newell Wright, the best witness according to Mr. Lee, never believed he saw a spacecraft but his statements were not as popular in the press as Mr. Lee’s.
While Mr. Lee saw intelligence in the behavior of the object, Newell Wright stated recently that he never thought the object behaved as with intelligence. One of the reasons Lee and others assigned intelligence to the object is that when it landed it chose preferentially to land in the middle of roads. Of the seven witnesses, five of them ran into the object in the middle of the road in front of them. If the object was ball lightning, then it is peculiar that it dropped preferentially onto asphalt and dirt roads. On the other hand, we don’t know where else it fell that evening. While it is interesting that the phenomena was observed mainly along roads, this fact alone cannot justify a spacecraft from another planet. Maybe the phenomenon was observed elsewhere and was not reported because it was deemed uneventful.
The second major reason why the extraterrestrial spacecraft theory was proposed was that nobody could figure out how a mysterious ball of light could interfere with the operation of a vehicle. The quick explanations that the Air Force gave (wet ignition systems, nervous feet, etc.) were only fueling the mistrust of the public. The spacecraft theory was quickly accepted because it was able to explain the vehicle interference, the supposedly intelligent behavior, and it rejected the Air Force’s explanations, which were deemed untrustworthy by the major UFO groups (NICAP, APRO, and CSI). Moreover, even after the Air Force publicly discounted the Levelland UFO sightings on November 15, Sheriff Weir Clem publicly disagreed. He stated that the Levelland sightings were not caused by freak weather conditions, because he had seen ball lightning and St. Elmo’s fire before and it wasn’t that[72]. Statements from Sheriff Weir Clem and Police Officer A.J. Fowler supported the idea that ball lightning was not the cause of the sightings and unintentionally enhanced the extraterrestrial spacecraft idea. A.J. Fowler recently stated that he always believed (and still believes) the object was something that the Air Force was experimenting with and that the Air Force did not want anybody messing with it. He also stated that Sheriff Weir Clem always believed that the object was a solid craft as opposed to a weather phenomenon.