Armed with a list of names of other observers of the mysterious lights, the intelligence officer and I started out to try to get a cross-section account of the other UFO sightings in the Lubbock area.  All the stories about the UFO’s were the same; various types of formations of dull bluish-green lights, generally moving north to south.  A few people had variations.  One lady saw a flying Venetian blind and another a flying double boiler.  One point of interest was that very few claimed to have seen the lights before reading the professors’ story in the paper, but this could get back to the old question, “Do people look up if they have no reason to do so?”

We talked to observers in nearby towns.  Their stories were the same.  Two of them, tower operators at an airport, reported that they had seen the lights on several occasions.

It was in one of these outlying towns, Lamesa, that we talked to an old gentleman, about eighty years old, who gave us a good lead.  He had seen the lights and he had identified them.  Ever since he had read the story in the papers he had been looking.  One evening he and his wife were in their yard looking for the lights.  All of a sudden two or three appeared.  They were in view for several seconds, then they were gone.  In a few minutes the lights did a repeat performance.  The man admitted he had been scared.  He broke off his story of the lights and launched into his background as a native Texan, with range wars, Indians, and stagecoaches under his belt.  What he was trying to point out was that despite the range wars, Indians, and stagecoaches, he had been scared.  His wife had been scared too.  We had some difficulty getting back to the lights but we finally made it.  The third time they came around, he said, one of the lights emitted a sound.  It said, “Plover.”  The old gentleman had immediately identified it as a plover, a water bird about the size of a quail.  Later that night, and on several other occasions, they had seen the same thing.  After a few more hair-raising but interesting stories of the old west Texas, we left.

Our next stop was the federal game warden’s office in Lubbock.  We got the low-down on plovers.  We explained our interest and the warden was very helpful.  He had been around west Texas all of his life so he was familiar with wildlife.  The oily white breast of a plover could easily reflect light, but plovers usually didn’t travel in more than pairs, or three at the most.  He had never seen or heard of them traveling in a flock of fifteen to thirty but, of course, this wasn’t impossible.  Ducks, yes, but probably not plovers.  He did say that for some unknown reason there were more than the usual number of plovers in the area that fall.

I was anxious to get the negatives that Hart had lent us back to the photo lab at Wright Field, but I had one more call to make.  I wanted to talk to the two ladies who had seen a strange object hovering near their car, but I also wanted to write my report before I left Lubbock.  Two Air Force special investigators from Reese AFB offered to talk to the ladies, so I stayed at the air base and finished my report.