{"it":{"id":"UFO-LEV1957","name":"Levelland UFO case","kind":"ufo","sub":"Historical sighting","place":"Levelland, Texas, USA","lat":33.587,"lon":-102.378,"date":"1957-11-02/03","rep":"Engines died as the object approached.","off":"Blue Book and sceptics: ball lightning or an electrical storm.","src":[{"t":"Wikipedia: Levelland UFO case","u":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levelland_UFO_case"}],"tags":["Sightings"],"sum":"On 2–3 November 1957, drivers around Levelland, Texas (population about 10,000), said engines died as a glowing object neared. Police got fifteen calls.","nsrc":1,"new":1,"qs":["Fifteen calls, separate drivers, the same story: engines died as the object came near. Is ball lightning a real answer or a placeholder?","The night after Levelland, MPs at the White Sands missile range reported an object about 100 yards long. Coincidence, or a pattern governments noticed?","You're on a dark Texas road, your engine dies and something glows ahead. Do you report it, knowing what people will say?"],"yt":"Check the weather records for that night.","rel":["UFO-COY1973"],"hook":"The Air Force filed Levelland's dead engines as ball lightning, then logged 300 more reports in its wake.","why":"Engine failures reported by several drivers in one night made this a classic case, and the Air Force's ball-lightning answer was disputed inside its own file."},"S":{},"rec":{"id":"UFO-LEV1957","sum":"On the night of 2 November 1957, drivers on the roads around Levelland, Texas, told police the same thing: a glowing object came near, and their cars died. A typed Air Force summary in the Project Blue Book file counts five witnesses, all reporting between 2300 and 2400 hours. They described something round to oval, from the size of a baseball to a basketball, white with a greenish tint, blue, or glowing red.\n\nThe record card condenses it. Sightings lasted from 2 seconds to 4 minutes, and most observers said the object affected or stopped their cars' ignition. Then the story spread. The card logs \"more than 300 similarly described reports\" within a 6 day period, and blames nationwide publicity in the press, on radio and on television.\n\nThe weather is in the file too. The summary records a 400-foot overcast, with drizzle or light rain all evening after heavy thunderstorms. The card adds that all but one observer mentioned lightning, rain or mist.\n\nThe Air Force's answer was \"probably\" ball lightning, which the card calls a very rare phenomenon. Stalled engines were put down to moisture settling on distributor parts, and in one car, the summary says, a faulty distributor was found. Yet the file also holds a consultant's comment dated 5 December 1957 that disputes the ball-lightning reading. Popular accounts add named drivers and a count of calls to the sheriff; those come from later retellings and are left out here.\n\nBall lightning is real, but rarely seen and poorly understood. Could it stall engine after engine across one county in one wet night?","qs":["Ball lightning was the official answer, and a consultant disputed it. Who should have had the last word?","Publicity brought 300 more reports in six days. How do you separate a wave of sightings from a wave of news?","If your car died as a light passed in the rain, what would you need to rule out first?"],"gal":[{"src":"https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e8/Project_Blue_Book_report_-_1957-11-6781581-Levelland-Texas.pdf/page1-1280px-Project_Blue_Book_report_-_1957-11-6781581-Levelland-Texas.pdf.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail","page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Project_Blue_Book_report_-_1957-11-6781581-Levelland-Texas.pdf","title":"Project Blue Book report - 1957-11-6781581-Levelland-Texas.pdf","lic":"Public domain","licurl":"","by":"Project Blue Book","cap":"First page of the Project Blue Book case file for Levelland UFO case","alt":"First page of the Project Blue Book case file for Levelland UFO case"}],"ms":[],"aa":[],"ac":[],"src":[{"t":"Wikipedia: Levelland UFO case","u":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levelland_UFO_case"},{"id":"VUFO-LEV1957-2","t":"NICAP: Levelland 1957 documents (PDF)","u":"https://www.nicap.org/docs/571103levelland_docs.pdf"},{"id":"VUFO-LEV1957-3","t":"Project Blue Book file: Levelland case, 2–3 Nov 1957 (The Black Vault, PDF)","u":"https://documents2.theblackvault.com/documents/projectbluebook/projectbluebook-levellandufocase-november2-3-1957.pdf"}],"pts":[{"p":"Town of about 10,000; first report by Pedro Saucedo and Joe Salaz.","g":"SINGLE SOURCE","b":"S","t":"Wikipedia: Levelland UFO case","u":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levelland_UFO_case"},{"p":"Jim Wheeler reported a 200 ft egg-shaped object; car engines failed.","g":"SINGLE SOURCE","b":"S","t":"Wikipedia: Levelland UFO case","u":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levelland_UFO_case"},{"p":"15 calls to police; Sheriff Weir Clem saw a light about 1:30 am.","g":"SINGLE SOURCE","b":"S","t":"Wikipedia: Levelland UFO case","u":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levelland_UFO_case"},{"p":"White Sands MPs reported a 100 yd object at 2:30 am the next night.","g":"SINGLE SOURCE","b":"S","t":"Wikipedia: Levelland UFO case","u":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levelland_UFO_case"}]},"img":null,"md":{"h":"img/h/UFO-LEV1957.webp","w":1280,"hh":1600,"alt":"First page of the Project Blue Book case file for Levelland UFO case","by":"Project Blue Book","lic":"Public domain","lu":"","p":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Project_Blue_Book_report_-_1957-11-6781581-Levelland-Texas.pdf","g":false,"ct":false,"cap":"First page of the Project Blue Book case file for Levelland UFO case","sec":[]},"hh":null,"hs":{}}