Lubbock Lights
One of the classic early cases of UFO sightings
which received nationwide publicity despite the fact that the mystery was
quickly solved – by the very people who first reported it. One night
in August 1951, three faculty members of Texas Tech University were watching
the sky together and trying to count meteors. Suddenly, they saw 15 to 20
faint, yellowish-white lights moving from north to south. An hour later
the spectacle was repeated, and again after another hour. The three scientists
estimated the lights to be moving at a height of about 50,000 feet and a
speed of about 5 miles per second. Following a call to the Lubbock Evening
Avalanche, the story snowballed. However, the three witnesses delved
further into the incident and uncovered its true cause – birds. The
lights turned out to be nothing more than flocks of migrating plover, reflecting
the glow from newly-installed mercury-vapor street lamps. The fact that
three professional scientists had so badly misjudged the scale of the phenomenon
underscores the difficulties people face in gauging the height and speed
of unidentified objects in the sky.
Related category
• UFOs
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