There were other reports during the first half of 1957, 250 of them to be exact, and many could be classified as "good." But they were nothing compared to those that were to come.
On November 3, 1957, a rash of sightings broke out in Texas and they had a brand new twist. To do things up right the powers that guide the UFO picked the town of Levelland only 27 miles west of Lubbock, the home of the now traditional "Lubbock Lights."
It was with a tug of nostalgia that I read about these reports because five years before, almost to the day, Lubbock had plunged the Air Force, and me, into the UFO mystery on a grand scale.
According to the best interpretation of the maze of conflicting stories, facts and rumors about these famous sightings the only positive fact is that there were scattered storm clouds across West Texas on the night of November 4, 1957. This was unusual for November and everyone in the community was just a little edgy.
It was early in the evening, at least early for West Texas on a Saturday night, when Pedro Saucedo, a farm worker, and his friend Joe Salaz, started out in Saucedo's truck toward Pettit, ten miles northwest of Level-land. They had just turned off State Highway 116 and were heading north on a country road when the two men saw a flash of light in an adjacent field. Saucedo, a Korean War Veteran, and Salaz didn't pay much attention to the light at first. They only noticed that it was coming closer. "It seemed to be paralleling us and edging a little closer all the time," Saucedo later recalled. Still neither man paid any attention to the light. They drove on, Saucedo watching the road and Salaz talking.
Then it hit.
The first signal of something wrong was when the truck's headlights went out; then the engine stopped. Before Saucedo could hit the starter again he glanced over his left shoulder. A huge ball of fire was "rapidly drifting" toward the truck. Without a second's hesitation Saucedo did what the Korean War had taught him to do when in doubt, he shoved open the car door and hit the dirt.
Salaz just sat.
"The 'Thing' passed directly over my truck with a great sound and rush of wind," Saucedo later told County Sheriff Weir Clem, after he'd started his truck and had driven back to Levelland. "It sounded like thunder and my truck rocked from the blast. I felt a lot of heat."
The "Thing," which disappeared across the prairie, looked like a "fiery tornado."