Post by Graveyardbride on Sept 26, 2013 11:34:42 GMT -5
Reported UFO activity rose last year, with major sightings in Texas
The night was clear, a perfect backdrop for the strange, floating object that lit up the sky.
Two witnesses, jailers at the Johnson County Correctional Facility in Cleburne, described it as triangular in shape with a dark surface and a series of circular lights. They said it hovered above them as they talked in the parking lot.
“The object flew over them very slowly, appearing to be going only about 5 mph,” according to an account released by the California-based Mutual UFO Network, a nonprofit group of UFO sleuths.
That sighting, another in North Texas and one in Central Texas were among the “strongest 10 cases” from 2012 that a MUFON science review board determined “cannot be identified as any known object.”
But the peculiar sightings aren’t just cropping up in our own backyard – the whole Lone Star State is a hotbed of UFO activity.
“Texas is one of the top five states every month for UFOs,” said Roger Marsh, a MUFON spokesman.
He attributed the high volume of sightings to the state’s large population and its many airports and military installations. Most sightings turn out to be readily identifiable, sometimes even a Chinese lantern.
Across the country, MUFON reported a record 7,182 sightings of unidentified flying objects last year – a 27 percent increase over the year before. Texas trailed only California in the number of sightings.
The other two strong Texas cases identified by MUFON occurred in the Milam County town of Milano in Central Texas, and in Van Alstyne, near the Texas-Oklahoma border.
All involved triangular or pentagon-shaped objects with mysterious lights hovering above.
The Johnson County case was reported about 3 a.m. on March 25, about 50 miles southwest of Dallas.
“The primary witness said that as they walked through the parking lot, the lights over them turned on. The object then sped up and was gone north in a second,” the MUFON report said.
The witness, 45-year-old Kerry Snell, said in an interview last week that he was taken aback by what he saw.
“You could plainly and clearly see this thing – a huge triangle with no lights, no sound,” Snell said. “There was no interaction. I didn’t feel frightened. I didn’t feel scared.
“I was just soaking in all the information. I’m just sitting there looking up at it.”
The review board, made up of scientists with degrees in physics, geology, chemistry and electrical engineering, was formed last year to help MUFON take a closer look at the most intriguing UFO sightings and draw attention to them.
Their expertise and earnestness notwithstanding, the board and MUFON still face an uphill battle in getting folks to treat their body of work seriously.
They’re often met with skepticism – and giggles.
And media portrayals often make the UFO buffs, even the ones with impressive credentials, look like crackpots, they say.
“It’s constant,” said Robert Powell, 59, a retired engineering manager from Austin who serves as director of the eight-member scientific body. “The media wants something that’s way out there.
“So they are not interested in dry facts of unexplained objects. They want to interview the guy with the alien on the back porch.”
Two members of the review board are so worried about public perception that they don’t even want their names disclosed, Powell said.
“It could actually hurt their career,” he said. (cont.)
Source: James Ragland, The Dallas Morning News, September 23, 2013.