Stephenville Texas, 2008 UFO Sighting Revisited
On January 8th 2008, the Texas town of Stephenville experienced something very unusual, a phenomenal UFO sighting. Angelia Joiner, then staff writer for the Stephenville Empire Tribune, published the incident thus introducing the entire world to Stephenville.
Why bring up Stephenville? Well I was flipping through previous UFO reports in my filing cabinet and came across my Stephenville folder. Pausing for a moment, I opened the folder to look through my notes. I had remembered it had occurred in January of 2008 and was saddened by the fact I looked at the folder days after its anniversary. I decided to travel onto the Internet and see if any new information had been released on this three year old sighting. Clicking through many-of-websites, I stumbled upon a video segment from a television program talking about the sighting. I remembered seeing this segment when it aired, and the (unmentioned) television program not only did a lousy job of investigating the sighting, but totally missed the boat with their analogies. This bothers me! Why? Well one of my previous investigations was negatively manipulated by amateurs on a “so called” Paranormal Investigative show. So now I thought hmm… Let’s see if I can dissect this particular video segment and locate its flaws.
First, here’s a little history about the Stephenville UFO sighting.
January 8th 2008 Steve Allen, Mike Odom and Lance Jones, were experiencing a typical Texas sunset when they spotted something very unusual in the sky. A UFO! Allen said the craft wasn’t really visible, but its lights stretched out about a mile long and a half a mile wide. The lights went from corner to corner and were completely silent. They moved directly above Highway 67 traveling towards Stephenville at an estimated speed of 3000 miles per hour. He also stated two military jets possibly F16’s, were in hot pursuit. Allen has had over 30 year’s pilot experience and is quite familiar with known aeronautical craft. Mike Odom said, “The experience was unbelievable”, and Lance Jones said, “I’ve never seen anything like it before but it didn’t scare me.” [Excerpts taken from Stephenville Empire-Tribune article January 2008]
There’s the sighting in a nut shell. At the end of this blog will be a URL pointing to a website with more information about the sighting.
This particular event mimics the famous March 13th 1997 Phoenix, Arizona sighting. Multiple lights were seen by thousands of people and some eye witnesses spotted a large triangular craft too! Oh but the skeptics say, “It was just military flares”. Well the UFO investigators say different and know different too!
Now let me play critic to the television show segment I watched on the Stephenville event.
This specific episode is divided into three segments each covering a different weird event. (Ok I just gave you a clue to the show’s name.) The first segment covered the Stephenville UFO sighting. This is what I found from analyzing and dissecting the segment.
The total clip ran just over twelve minutes.
About four minutes were allocated to the eyewitnesses describing their UFO sighting.
Just over eight minutes were allocated to the skeptics giving their opinions on what the eye witnesses really saw or didn’t see.
34 percent was Pro UFO.
66 percent was Anti UFO.
The “Pro UFO” included three eye witnesses describing what they saw.
The “Anti UFO” first included a professor claiming the eye witnesses were suffering UFO type illusions brought on by our culture. The second individual claimed what the people really saw were military flares and the third person claimed it was a military blimp. A blimp traveling in excess of 3000 miles per hour? That’s one fast Balloon, Boy. (blog humor)
I knew where this twelve minute investigative segment was headed because within the first minute the announcer said, “It’s time to separate hard fact from science fiction”. Hard fact, they wouldn’t know what hard fact was even if a UFO investigator hit them over the head with it. Ok it’s time to get on my soap box.
Now if the producers of this show wanted to cover this sighting correctly, they would have contacted MUFON (Mutual UFO Network) or at the least a UFO investigator in the area. What would they have learned?
Back in 2008 I followed this sighting very closely and was doing some research of my own. The TV show kept the sighting and all plausible explanations around the Stephenville area, when in fact the craft (I mean the flares) travelled further. Much further.
This map picture is from my 2008 notes, and shows the direction of the UFO from reported sightings on January 8th.
WOAI radio in San Antonio reported UFO sightings were seen the same night by dozens of witnesses.
MUFON reported sightings were coming in from Corpus Christi. Sightings in both cities were identical to the UFO characteristics over Stephenville earlier that evening. And the sightings continued the following night!
MUFON’s Texas chapter had UFO sightings reported on January 9th and 10th all along this area.
With a little more searching I had found a sighting occurred on January 7th in Tulum, Quintana Roo, Mexico.
The sighting was one day before the Stephenville incident! Could this picture be depicting a route used by UFO’s traveling into and out of the North American continent? But where would they be coming from? Here’s a thought, how about a USO? (not the military one)
A (USO) or Unidentified Submerged Object, is a craft generally seen flying in or flying out of large bodies of water. Many UFO investigators speak of underwater UFO bases in which these alien type craft are stationed. Bases off the shores of California, Florida and Texas (just to name of few) are explanations for the abundant amount of craft sightings in which once they leave the mainland, they simply just disappear. Craft have also been spotted flying in and flying out of lakes too! Not just big ones like Lake Michigan, but small lakes just like the ones right here in the San Luis Valley, Colorado, where craft have been seen for years.
Could the previous map picture show a possible UFO route in which an underwater base is located in the Gulf of Mexico? Many investigators believe there’s an underwater base off of Gulf Breeze, Florida, attributing to all the previous sightings they had in that location. So what about near Corpus Christi, Texas? There’s plenty of water there to hide such a base. Provided we don’t flush the occupants out with an oil spill. Hmm… Oil spill accident in the Gulf. I’ll have to think about that one.
Well with just a little effort on the part of the producers from this “less than informational” TV show, they could have turned their little twelve minute skeptic segment into a full hour exciting television program.
Now I’ll step off my soap box and bow my head to the readers of this blog for comments. What do you think happened in Stephenville the night of January 8th, 2008? Flares? Military blimp? How about a military flare blimp? What about the TV show? Did you see it? If so, what do you think about its content? Could they have done better? You decide and tell me.
Many thanks to investigative reporter Angelia Joiner for her diligent efforts reporting this incident. She lost her job at the Tribune because of it, but she gained so much more. Friends, and plenty of them…
For more information on Angelia Joiner go to:
For more information on the Stephenville UFO incident go to:
http://www.stephenvillelights.com
Category: Alien & UFO Sightings, Chuck Zukowski, Investigations, MUFON, Orbs, Lights & Shadows, The Z-Files
