“At approximately 0230, 3 November 1957, Source, together with PFC
------, were on a routine patrol of the up range area of the White
Sands Proving Ground when Source noticed a ‘very bright’ object high
in the sky.  This object slowly descended to an altitude estimated to
be approximately 50 yards where it remained motionless for about 3
minutes, then it descended to the ground where the light went out. 
The object was not blurred or fuzzy, emitted no vapor or smoke.  The
object was in view for about 10 minutes, and Source estimated that it
was approximately 2 or 3 miles away.  It was estimated to be between
75 and 100 yards in diameter and shaped like an egg.  Source stated
that it was as large as a grapefruit held at arm’s length.  The
weather was cold, drizzling and windy, and Source stated no stars
were visible.  After the light went out Source and PFC ------
continued north to the STALLION SITE CAMP and reported the incident
to the Sergeant of the Guard who returned to the area but failed to
find anything.”

The flap was on.

On Monday, the 4th, the “Levelland Thing” struck again near the White Sands Proving Ground.  James Stokes, a 20-year Navy veteran, and an electronics engineer, had the engine of his new Mercury stopped as “a brilliant, egg-shaped” object made a pass at the highway.  As it went over, Stokes said, “it felt like the radiation of a giant sun lamp.”

Stokes said there were ten other carloads of people stopped but if this is true no one ever found out who they were.

The Air Force wrote off Stokes’ story as, “Hoax, presumably suggested by the Levelland, Texas, reports.”

Maybe the Air Force didn’t believe James Stokes but when the Coast Guard Cutter Seabago radioed in their report from the Gulf of Mexico wheels began to turn—­fast.

On Tuesday morning, the 5th, the Seabago was about 200 miles south of the mouth of the Mississippi River on a northerly heading.  At 5:10A.M. her radar picked up a target off to the left at a distance of about 14 miles.  This was really nothing unusual because they were under heavily traveled air lanes.

The early morning watch is always rough and as the small group of officers and men in the Combat Information Center quietly watched the target, with a noticeable lack of enthusiasm, it moved south, made a turn, and headed back to the north again.  A few of the men noticed that the turn looked “a little different,” but this early in the morning they didn’t give it much thought.

At 5:14 the target went off the scope to the north.

At 5:16 it was back and the lassitude was instantly gone.  Now the target was 22 miles south of the ship.  No one in the CIC had to draw a picture.  Something, in two minutes, had disappeared off the scope to the north, made a big swing around the ship, out of radar range, and had swung in from the south!

Word went up to the lookouts.  They tensed up and began to scan the sky.