UFO
sightings put Texas town in the spotlight
Small
town has some fun with all of the attention
January
18, 2008
By MATT
FRAZIER and BRYON OKADA
MCCLATCHY
NEWSPAPERS
STEPHENVILLE,
Texas -- "Dozens in Texas Town Report Seeing UFO," read an online headline
for the Washington Post.
"Multiple
reports of UFO-like sighting in Texas town," proclaimed Canada's CBC News.
UFO
photos were among the top Yahoo searches Thursday morning, along with Katie Holmes
and Prince William's girlfriend.
The reported sightings have become a catalyst
on blogs and in chat rooms, triggering scientific and philosophical debates, religious
inquiries, conspiracy charges and bad Texas jokes.
"It's
amazing how this has taken on an international profile," said Kenneth Cherry,
president of the Texas chapter of the Mutual UFO Network. "I've had calls
from Japanese and British newspapers. I'm supposed to be doing 'Larry King Live'
on Friday."
All
this thanks to reports of a strange, silent object over Stephenville, Texas, a
town about 70 miles southwest of Ft. Worth.
According
to the Associated Press, several dozen people -- including a pilot, county constable
and business owners -- insisted they've seen a large, silent object with bright
lights flying low and fast. Some reported seeing fighter jets chasing it. Sightings
were reported earlier this week.
While
federal officials insist there's a logical explanation, locals swear that what
they saw 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.
And
apparently it's not something limited to Stephenville. People in several Texas
towns who reported seeing it over several weeks have offered similar descriptions
of the object.
But
in Stephenville, a dairy town of 15,000, most people just thought the UFO sightings
were fun.
A
UFO is parked outside a Stephenville business.
City
Secretary Cindy Stafford has been going about town in a green alien mask. Some
high school students are making alien T-shirts. One automobile dealership put
up a sign saying UFOs could be traded in there.
It's
not that people are making fun of those who say they saw a UFO, said Sara Vanden
Berge, managing editor of the Stephenville Empire-Tribune. With such a small population,
the witnesses, including county Constable Leroy Gaitan, are too well-known.
"There
are some people who are taking it very seriously," Vanden Berge said.
"But
there is a large group of people having a good time with it. They are just having
fun with the idea."
Not
amused by the jokes is Dennis Balthaser, UFO researcher and former director of
Roswell's International UFO Museum and Research Center.
"Once
again the media is not taking this seriously, and that makes it difficult to investigate,"
Balthaser said.
