Report of UFO thrusts Stephenville into limelight

Media swirling around Stephenville UFO story, but so far it's unverified

12:00 AM CST on Thursday, January 17, 2008

From Staff and Wire Reports The Associated Press contributed to this report.

STEPHENVILLE, Texas – Whether or not that was a UFO buzzing Erath County last week, the lights have certainly come this week – television lights.

Stephenville has been thrown into the national limelight since reports that dozens of local residents – including a pilot, county constable and business owners – reported seeing a large, silent object with bright lights flying low and fast the evening of Jan. 8. Some said fighter jets were chasing it.

A Glen Rose freight company owner, Steve Allen, is offering a $5,000 reward for authentic video of whatever it was he saw, he told the Stephenville Empire-Tribune in a Web story published Wednesday. Mr. Allen, a pilot, said he has been interviewed by national radio and TV networks about the object. He estimated it was a mile long and a half-mile wide.

"It was positively, absolutely nothing from these parts," he said this week.

No one has produced a photo of what they reported seeing.

While federal officials insist there's a logical explanation, locals swear that it was larger, quieter, faster and lower to the ground than an airplane. They also said the object's lights changed configuration, unlike those of a plane. People in several towns who reported seeing it over several weeks have offered similar descriptions of the object.

Machinist Ricky Sorrells said friends made fun of him when he told them he saw a flat, metallic object hovering about 300 feet over a pasture behind his home in Dublin. He decided to come forward after reading similar accounts in the Empire-Tribune.

"You hear about big bass or big buck in the area, but this is a different deal," he said.

He said he has seen the object several times. He said he watched it through his rifle's telescopic lens and described it as very large and without seams, nuts or bolts.

About 200 UFO sightings are reported each month, mostly in California, Colorado and Texas, according to the Mutual UFO Network, which will be in the 17,000-resident town of Stephenville to investigate on Saturday.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.