UFOs are everywhere when you really think about it

By JIM SMITH/Editor

Article Created: 01/27/2008 08:28:01 AM PST

Probably like many of you this time of year my mind has been numbed by politics and turned to more important things, like the Jan. 8 sighting of a UFO over Texas, being pursued by military fighter jets.

Hey, forget the "man on Mars" photograph, which has been making the rounds on the Web as well as TV news; the Jan. 8 UFO sighting has people all stirred up.

Only Wednesday did the Air Force suddenly reverse itself and admit that it had fighter jets in the skies over Stephenville when dozens of residents reported seeing the object. Previously, the Air Force denied it had any jets aloft. Of course, now Air Force officials are telling the truth. Right!

Of course, the Air Force announcement did little to satisfy residents of Texas dairy country who swear that what they saw in the sky was no airplane. Some said it even bolstered their claims, because several people saw at least two fighter jets chasing the object.

"This supports our story that there was UFO activity in that area," said Kenneth Cherry, the Texas director of the Mutual UFO Network, which took more than 50 reports from locals at a meeting last weekend. "I find it curious that it took them two weeks to 'fess up. I think they're feeling the heat from the publicity."

Officials at the Joint Reserve Base Naval Air Station in Fort Worth initially said none of their planes had been in the area, but on Wednesday they said 10 F-16s were there that day. The officials said they were mistaken and wanted to set the record straight "in the interest of public awareness."

Maj. Karl Lewis, a spokesman for the 301st Fighter Wing at the base, declined to comment on the nature of the military training or say whether it took place on other days. Lewis had said earlier this month residents might have seen an illusion caused by two commercial airplanes and reflections from the setting sun. On Wednesday, he said he should not have speculated about the reported sightings. To me, it sounded like Roswell all over again.

Several dozen people in Stephenville, many of them highly qualified professionals, say they saw a flying object that was larger, quieter, faster and lower to the ground than an airplane. They also said its lights changed configuration, unlike those of a plane.

"I guarantee that what we saw was not a civilian aircraft," said Steve Allen, a pilot and freight company owner.

I'm always fascinated by so-called UFOs, which I don't think necessarily means alien aircraft. UFOs are simply unidentified. They could be anything.

Years past, while in college (most likely after having too many beers), the photographer of our student newspaper at Idaho State University and I started talking about UFO sightings and he dug up information showing the Arco, Idaho, area was a hotbed for UFO activity because it was near the Idaho Nuclear Engineering Laboratory in the desert, the sight of dozens of nuclear testing reactors.

Of course, I had to check this out. So, one weekend I drove the 160 miles to Arco and camped out on a Saturday just off a deserted stretch of road near the INEL site in my 4-wheel drive Jeep Wagoneer. I had a Thermos of hot coffee and warm sleeping bag and decided to watch the skies from on top of my Jeep to keep away from the rattlesnakes.

I kept a running commentary on a cassette tape machine throughout the night of things I saw in the sky and on the ground, using a powerful pair of binoculars. I held on to the tapes for years after college before finally losing them in a move. I saw a lot of things in the sky, nothing I would call an alien aircraft. There was plenty of activity, but all the flying lighted objects could easily have been airplanes or satellites.

The only exciting bit during the night - and preserved on tape - was when a coyote decided to check out the Jeep and gave a howl only a few feet away, loud enough to wake the dead. I was so startled I had to change my underwear.

So much for my UFO hunt. I may be a believer but I'm still a skeptic; and the overnight trip didn't answer any questions.

Of course there was another time many years later on the Mendocino Coast. I was walking to work early one morning during the winter. It was still dark. Midway through my walk I heard a "whooshing" sound overhead and looked up to see a bright set of lights in the sky zipping along nearly right over me. I thought it was a low-flying jet. Then it made a perfect right angle turn from north to south, heading west out over the ocean.

I hadn't been so startled since that coyote howled years earlier.