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.”

Five years before and a little east of where Saucedo and Salaz were “buzzed” I had talked to two women who described almost an identical UFO.  And it remains “unknown” to this day.

In Levelland, the two men’s story would have been enough to keep Sheriff Clem busy for the rest of the night but between the hours of 8:15P.M. and midnight on the 2nd the “Levelland Thing” struck five more times.

James D. Long, a Waco truck driver, came upon “it” four miles west of Levelland and fainted as it roared over his truck.  Ronald Martin, another truck driver, was stopped east of Levelland, as was Newell Wright, a Texas Tech student.  Jim Wheeler, Jose Alvarez and Frank Williams added their stories to the melee.

All of those who had been attacked told Sheriff Clem a similar story:  “The ‘Thing’ was shaped something like an egg standing on end.  It was fiery red, more like a red neon light.  It was about 200 feet long and was about 200 feet in the air.  When it came close to cars the engines would stop and the lights would go out.”

“Everyone,” Sheriff Clem said, “seemed very excited.”

That night everyone in West Texas saw UFO’s.  Sheriff Clem saw a brilliant light in the distance.  Highway patrolmen Lee Hargrove and Floyd Cavin reported similar brilliant lights at the same time but from a different location.  The control tower operators at the Amarillo Airport, to the north, saw a “blue, gaseous object which moved swiftly and left an amber trail.”

There were dozens more.  It was a memorable Saturday night in Levelland.

But unbeknown to Sheriff Clem or the residents of West Texas, they weren’t alone on the visitor’s list.

At 2:30A.M. on Sunday morning, only a few hours after the “Thing” raised havoc around Levelland, an army military police patrol was cruising the supersecret White Sands Proving Ground in New Mexico.

Here is their report as they gave it to Air Force UFO investigators: