Welcome back to our last installment of our Lubbock Lights Sighting investigation from Area 51 Alien Center!
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A Quick Recap
On August 25, 1951 in Lubbock, Texas, three professors from Texas Technological College (now Texas Tech University) were sitting in one of their backyards. Around 9 pm, the three professors saw a total of 20 to 30 lights. They said the lights were as bright as stars but larger in size, and they were flying overhead.
They ruled out meteors as a possible cause of the lights, and while they were talking about what they saw, a second group of lights appeared, similar to the first.
Over the next week or so, other residents of Lubbock also saw the lights, and one freshman at TTC was able to capture photo evidence of the lights when they flew over his parents' house. The lights appeared on three different nights, and the professors were again witness to the lights on the last night.
A team analyzed the photos taken by Carl Hart Jr., the freshman, and determined they were unedited. A local photographer attempted to recreate the photos but was unsuccessful.
The Air Force claimed everyone had actually seen plovers, a type of bird, flying overhead. The "lights" were caused by the new streetlights reflecting off the underside of the birds. This claim was disputed by pretty much everyone, however. The professors said the lights were moving far too fast to be birds; local biologists asserted that plovers were not present in the area at that time of the year, and the lights were too large to be birds.
The Air Force never retracted their "findings", even though no one actually agreed with their explanation.
The Media
The Lubbock Lights Sighting has been mentioned multiple times in the media:
Life Magazine
In April 1952, Life Magazine published an article detailing the events. The article also included the photos taken by Carl Hart Jr. a few months prior.
The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects
Edward Ruppelt, the lead investigator for the government program Project Blue Book, wrote a book published in 1956. A chapter of this book is dedicated to the Lubbock Lights Sighting.
Texas Television
In 1999, a local Texas news station, KDFW, aired a story about the Lubbock Lights. They interviewed Carl Hart Jr. about the photos he took as well as the Air Force investigation that followed.
Project Blue Book
The History Channel released a TV series in 2019 titled Project Blue Book. The third episode of the series covers the Lubbock sightings.
