Mysterious Objects Reported In The Skies

By Angelia Joiner

Special to the Reporter-News

Monday, February 2, 2009

Speculation abounds as to why unknown objects continue to fly in the skies over Erath County.

Slightly more than a year after the first report of mysterious objects, now known as Stephenville Lights, more witnesses are coming forth. Walnut Springs resident Matt Collins and his mother, Sharla, and sister Ashlee have all said they have witnessed bright lights in the sky that defy explanation.

On Thursday Matt said he and his sister were returning to their home on FM 203 shortly after 7 p.m. He said they had just been talking about the Stephenville sightings when his sister pointed and said, "'Look at that,'" Collins said. "I thought she was kidding at first because we had just been talking about the Stephenville sightings."

"My sister saw three light sets but by the time I located them there was only one. The lights would come on and stay on for about 20 seconds. Then it would go off and reappear a little to the right or left of where it was."

Matt said the air traffic route for Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport is near his home so he is accustomed to the presence of commercial and private aircraft.

Matt said the object appeared about 25 to 30 degrees off the horizon in the northwest sky toward Stephenville. He said he could definitely see a dark mass between the sets of lights.

"I'm not sure how close or far away it was," Matt said. "It could have been over Chalk Mountain. But, it was definitely in the direction of Stephenville."

Then on Saturday it was back. This time it was about 9:30 p.m., shortly after Matt appeared on the WB 33 (KDAF-TV of Dallas/Fort Worth) news discussing the sighting he had witnessed two nights before.

"I ran in the house and got my sister and woke up my mom," Matt said. He also took video footage of the incident, he said.

Sharla said she was amazed.

"I always thought people that said they saw UFOs were crazy," Sharla said. "Now, I think there is definitely something out there that we don't know about."

The family said the object was visible for about fifteen minutes and had a red center but that the outside of the light changed from red to yellow, to white and bright orange.

CNN called Matt on Monday and made arrangements to show the film he took in a future broadcast.

Apparently, the Collinses were not the only ones to see the objects.

On the same night, Cody and Carrie Tedford and their uncle Dwayne Clover were turning right off Loop 377 South in Stephenville returning to their home in Hamilton.

Cody said he caught something out of the corner of his eye and told his uncle to look out the back window.

Clover said his 5-year-old niece riding in the back seat with him could also see the object and made comments like, "Wow! Look at that."

They agreed the object was fairly low in the skies but estimated it could have been 60 degrees from the horizon and then made a slow descent to about 25 degrees.

"At first it appeared to be just sitting there hovering," Clover said. "But that might have been because it was moving toward us and we couldn't tell that."

Cody said he thought it was over the courthouse and moving toward the City Limits bar on U.S. 377.

"We thought it was landing," Clover said.

All said they saw a double row of horizontal lights.

Clover said he likes to watch planes and he works at a place where helicopters take off and land often, so he was sure it was not one of those types of aircraft.

"I don't know what it was. We weren't frightened," Clover said. "We were just watching it, trying to figure out what it was and it didn't fit for anything I knew. It was a clear descent and moving slowly and close enough to the ground to make you think it was landing."

A reporter from WB 33 said the Bosque County Sheriff's Office dispatcher received four calls reporting something unusual.

Two people in the Abilene area also reported sightings to the Mutual UFO Network Web site.

Source: http://www.reporternews.com/news/2009/feb/02/theyre-baaack/