Posted on 01/24/2008 8:40:09 AM PST by mnehring
FORT WORTH — So much for aliens in Texas dairy country.
At least that's what the military said today, reporting that 10 F-16 fighter jets were training in the Stephenville area the night dozens of residents reported seeing a UFO.
Although Air Force Reserve officials at the Joint Reserve Base Naval Air Station in Fort Worth initially said none of their planes were in the area Jan. 8, they said today that they had made a mistake and wanted to set the record straight "in the interest of public awareness."
Some residents aren't buying it, though, saying the military's revelation actually bolsters their claims because several reported seeing at least two fighter jets chasing an object.
"This supports our story that there was UFO activity in that area," said Kenneth Cherry, the Texas director of the Mutual UFO Network, which took more than 50 reports from locals at a meeting last weekend. "I find it curious that it took them two weeks to 'fess up. I think they're feeling the heat from the publicity."
From well-respected business owners to a county constable, several dozen people swear that what they saw was larger, quieter, faster and lower to the ground than an airplane. They also said the object's lights changed configuration, unlike those of a plane.
"I guarantee that what we saw was not a civilian aircraft," Steve Allen, a pilot and freight company owner, said today.
Allen said that the planes' training area in the Brownwood Military Operating Area that includes Stephenville's Erath County does not include the airspace where he saw the object. Also, Jan. 8 was not the only day sightings were reported.
Anne Frazor, who owns a fabric store in Stephenville, about 70 miles southwest of Fort Worth, said many in town have seen military aircraft zoom overhead from time to time as part of training operations. But she said that is different than what she saw Jan. 8.
"I couldn't begin to say what it was, but to me it wasn't planes," Frazor said.
Since the reported sightings two weeks ago, the 17,000-resident town has had some fun with the international publicity. Some high-schoolers made T-shirts that read "Stephenville: the new Roswell" on the front and "They're here for the milk!" on the back. A picture features flying saucer beaming up a cow.
This week Tarleton State University is even hosting a lecture by a UFO researcher on the U.S. government's secret response to UFOs, based on previously classified documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.
The U.S. Air Force says it has not investigated UFO sightings since 1969 when it ended Project Blue Book, which examined more than 12,600 reported UFO sightings — including 700 that were never explained. That program started a few months after the 1947 crash near Roswell, N.M., which the government said it was a top-secret weather balloon but others involved later said was an alien spacecraft.
"What we want is the government to admit there are UFOs and what they know about them," Cherry said.
Does anyone have the eight day prayer vigil he is talking about? I got one but deleted it (sigh).
Refresh my memory. Type II errors are false negatives?
Yeah, I can get them switched, too.
A TYPE II ERROR
is
NOT
REJECTING THE NULL HYPOTHESIS
WHEN
IT IS FALSE
NULL SAYS THERE IS NOTHING THERE.
IF
THERE IS SOMETHING THERE
and the decision is to believe NOTHING IS THERE
THEN you have a TYPE II ERROR.
So, a false negative is a fair way of stating it.
Thanks for asking.
I have to think it through at least every third time.
LOL.
I’m sure it’s available at his website.
Please FREEPMAIL it to me when you find it. Vice versa if I find it first, which I doubt, given other things to do.
Thanks.
Checking it out.
I have permission to post his articles on this site so may as well post that one here:
from:
http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/51832
Local reporter on Texas UFO case leaves newspaper; integrity of local, national news media explored
By Steve Hammons
February 09, 2008
The local newspaper reporter in Stephenville, Texas, who helped cover a UFO sighting case there is no longer working at the Stephenville Empire-Tribune newspaper, effective last Thursday, Feb. 7.
Journalist Angelia Joiner had been covering the UFO story which broke early in January and brought national and international news media representatives and researchers to Stephenville, other nearby small towns and the surrounding region.
Mainstream media such as the Associated Press, CNN and other major TV networks and newspapers covered the incident with great interest. The international press also paid special attention to the UFO sightings in Stephenville and towns in the area.
Media personalities such as CNN’s Larry King and NBC’s Today show host Matt Lauer explored the sightings on their shows.
In Stephenville, Joiner was a staff writer at the small-town newspaper there. She did an excellent job of researching and interviewing local residents who were surprised, curious and concerned about the very unusual objects they reportedly saw.
As national and international interest in the case grew in January, Joiner was contacted for information as the reporter on the scene with some of the best knowledge of the local community.
Her articles helped inform not only local residents who relied on professional reporting for their community, but also assisted other Americans and people internationally understand that Stephenville people and residents in the area were down-to-Earth, solid and of good character.
The factual and level-headed journalism Joiner provided helped the national news media understand and respect the citizens in these communities. This resulted in some of the most serious and credible reporting in the national media on such an incident in recent memory.
The AP article was carried in hundreds of papers and news outlets. People like Larry King and Matt Lauer talked about the subject with intelligence and open minds.
All these outcomes were related in part to the high level of credibility of local witnesses who were courageous enough to come forward and the professionalism of local reporter Joiner and her colleagues in the national and international news media.
However, some of these witnesses and Joiner seem to be paying a price for doing their civic duty and communicating about an incident that appeared to be very significant, and could even have affected the public safety of the communities in the area.
CENSORSHIP AND “NEED TO KNOW”
According to information obtained for this report, management at the Stephenville Empire-Tribune did not want further coverage in the paper of the sightings by local citizens of something that appeared to be highly unusual. Pressures may have been placed on newspaper management to discontinue articles on the subject.
According to the newspaper’s Web site, “The Stephenville Empire-Tribune is a mid-morning paper published six days a week by Erath Publishers, Inc., a Consolidated Southwest Media company which is owned by American Consolidated Media. The Empire-Tribune is a member of the Associated Press, Texas Press Association, West Texas Press Association and the Inland Press Association.”
Publisher Rochelle Stidham and Managing Editor Sara Vanden Berge were contacted for their comments for this report but did not immediately respond.
Did the paper’s management face pressures to end coverage of the UFO sighting by a local peace officer, respected businessman and pilot and reportedly dozens of other local citizens? Did they back away from accounts of local citizens who said they were apparently being threatened for talking about what they saw?
Is this a case of media censorship or self-censorship and political correctness? Is it about professional courage and moral integrity? And, can the newspaper now be trusted by the community to cover important aspects of public health and safety, local political activities and other sometimes sensitive topics?
These seem to be questions for the citizens who read and subscribe to the paper and advertisers who use that newspaper.
The corporate owners of the Empire-Tribune (Consolidated Southwest Media, American Consolidated Media) and the professional news and journalism organizations with which the paper is affiliated (Associated Press, Texas Press Association, West Texas Press Association, Inland Press Association) might also want to review developments there.
As for the former reporter Joiner who had covered the concerns and accounts of local citizens so professionally, life goes on.
She appears to be confident that she did the best job she could have for her community as a responsible local journalist who realized something important had happened to her fellow citizens, neighbors and friends.
“I appreciate the opportunity I have had at the newspaper,” Joiner said. “A story of this magnitude drained the limited resources a small newspaper has. I performed my other duties to the best of my ability.”
Even as the national and international media interest calmed down somewhat, other ominous developments were occurring in the Stephenville area.
A local resident stated he had received threatening phone calls and threats of implied bodily harm or death for talking publicly about what he saw.
An intruder had also appeared on his rural property at 1 a.m., causing the resident to be concerned about the safety of his family.
See my Feb. 7 article: “Texas UFO witnesses threatened for talking to media?”
As Joiner was covering this more serious aspect of the UFO sighting case (in articles published Feb. 3 and Feb. 4) which appeared to be a law enforcement and criminal matter affecting public safety, she was reportedly told by newspaper management to back off.
“My directions were to move on to something else,” Joiner said.
The reason given to Joiner for this was, “because our readership had grown tired of the UFO stories.”
However, Joiner was still a contact person and resource for community residents, researchers, news media representatives and others.
While trying to obey management’s directives to cover topics other than the UFO sightings and related developments, Joiner said, “It was a difficult task to achieve. I was still receiving a surprising number of e-mails and phone calls on the subject.”
“I tried to direct those calls and interviews to after hours or during lunch hours. And I forwarded e-mails to my home so that I would not be giving newspaper time to the subject. I honestly tried to do as they had asked.”
The apparent irregularities and journalistic priorities of what was starting to emerge at the Empire-Tribune probably also started to dawn on Joiner as she realized things were not going in a good direction at the paper.
She gave her two-week notice, then was told to leave immediately.
“I had given notice when I realized my boss was unhappy with my performance, but was unexpectedly asked to pack my things and leave Thursday,” she said.
Joiner apparently felt that people in her community had “a need to know” about what was going on when respectable citizens came forward with their accounts and subsequent serious incidents reportedly involved the safety of and threats to a local family.
GOING FORWARD
The Stephenville UFO sighting incident is not the first and will not be the last. The responses by local and regional public safety officials to such incidents have also occurred before, and will again. Local, national and international news media professionals are also part of the picture, past, present and future.
Americans wearing the military uniform of our country and our intelligence professionals are certainly also parts of the puzzle involving UFOs and how our society deals with an apparently sensitive and complex situation. Their respect and support for good American citizens will remain crucial in the days ahead.
Many of the residents of the Stephenville region are just such good Americans. Reporter Joiner knew this because she knows the people of her community.
Local journalists typically work on topics involving all kinds of community activities: the local schools and hospitals, area peace officers and public safety personnel, businesses and employers, civic groups and organizations. And when they do, reporters often feel a sense of responsibility to do their best for their neighbors and their communities.
This works in reverse too, at the local and national levels. Our newspapers, TV and radio media, Web-based news and other similar information platforms are sometimes only as good as the standards we expect of them, and the support we give to honorable and ethical journalists.
Like the old saying, “In a democracy, citizens get the government they deserve,” the same can be said about our news media. We get the newspapers and news media we demand, deserve and support.
If we continue along a path of the “dumbing down” of Americans, as many have alleged, the fabric of our communities and our nation may deteriorate.
If we search for truth, integrity and honor within ourselves, our media and our government officials, we may just find that too.
The citizens of the Stephenville region, and all the rest of us, must decide about the directions we want to take. Do we want to continue being dumbed down? Do we want to stick our head in the sand and close our eyes?
Or, do we want greater respect as American citizens and intelligent human beings who have the ability to understand sensitive, complex and, yes, even highly unusual and unexpected situations?
When events occur that affect public health and safety, public information, our rights and responsibilities as citizens, what are our roles and those of our institutions such as local and national government and the news media?
These are questions that, it appears, must be faced and dealt with if our communities, our society and our nation will continue to thrive.
They might use running lights for the same reasons we do - to prevent terrestrial aircraft from colliding with them.
Didn't the LEM have lights as it descended to the lunar surface? I believe so it could be observed from the command module, and for docking upon return.
A true flying alien craft wouldn’t advertise itself . . .
= = =
OH REALLY? THAT’S SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO IMPRESSIVE that you know sooooooooooooooooooooooooooo much about their psychology and their goals to be able to make such an accurate 100% perfect assessment of that issue.
I didn’t know you’d lived amongst them so many years such that you know what 100% of their goals were/are, 100% of the time, 100% flawlessly.
Please tell us . . . how long did it take for you to learn to think like they did?
How long did it take before they took you in their confidence and shared with you all their goals with this planet?
How much detail about their goals did they go into?
What verification did they give you proving that what they told you about their goals was true and completely true?
Have you informed the government officials about your vast perfect understanding of their goals—because, last I checked, most experts working around them for decades didn’t really have a clue what their goals—especially their ultimate goals—were. I’m sure officials would be most thankful for your participant observer information from living amongst them so many decades.
Please tell us—what kind of hybrid are you? Were you the result of an impregnation into your mother taken after the first trimester of the pregnancy and raised longer in a plastic tube in some sort of solution?
Did they really show you to your earth mother periodically for some sort of affection/socialization sort of thing?
Or were you the result of some human man being forced to surrender his sperm or even to ejaculate into an alien female against his will via mind manipulation and some sort of trance state?
Inquiring minds are eager to know.
What specifically did the ET’s tell you that convinced you that they would NEVER have the slightest goal of being obvious? And what proof did they offer?
################################
Some folks think the ET’s are going to push the envelope about discovery against the government’s interests and will. Perhaps that’s started.
Please see my last post just above.
If ET’s wanted to infiltrate us, they wouldn’t be so obvious about it...I’m just stating an opinion!
Jeez quix, you and I have ageed on a lot in the past, I didn’t expect this much verbal vomitus from you on this subject. I was just stating a opinion!
I think there is something to reports of alleged abductions, especially the reports where such beings seemed to recoil in horror when ever potential(beings come into a bedroom but end up fleeing the room) abductees defended themselves by singing religious songs or denouncing them in the name of Christ!
I think a truly ethical advanced civilization would be very cautious about contact with a less socially advanced one. Yet the Apostle Paul even proclaims that we wrestle against ‘powers and pricipalities of the air’. What ever power is behind some of these “contacts” we keep hearing about, I sense malevolence.
That being said, I think our own military has advanced black ops projects going on, and they may use differing patterns of landing and running lights...just for saftey reasons alone as well as ID, not that they couldn’t turn them off when they wanted to. UFO stories might even provide great cover for these projects!
I think i left open the possibility of landing light or such in my post. I have more of an issue with the “here we are us UFO people are here” type of open exposure sitings. Look, instead of just flitting over Mexico city in broad day-light(like one UFO special reported on a series of broad-daylight sitings..as well as supposed ET’s showing up in back-yard birthday parties and such on the same day) just land already and say “Howdy folks!” I’m not sure that those particular incidents weren’t just blown up hype and hysteria but if true, then the cat is out of the bag!
But I think a lot of it is high military in nature. I think a lot of these phenomena may be spiritual in nature; battles against powers and principalities “of the air”!
But if You REAL ET’s are behind some of these openly viewed phenomena(and are monitoring Free Republic), then just land already, we’ve already seen you! You can come sit on my porch...I’ll serve tea!
Hey, even aliens like pimped out spacecraft with lots of bling.......
According to many accounts, including my relative . . .
they landed long ago—at least as ‘early’ as the 1950’s . . . at Holloman AFB or some such in NM and at Edwards AFB in CA where IKE and a host of others were at the ‘party.’
He said he was sitting on his back deck one summer afternoon in Sterling Heights when he spotted a silver thing hovering way up in the sky. He said he must have been watching it for about an hour and he said he experienced a feeling of total calm and relaxation with no other thoughts in his head.
Now here is the kicker, he had no recollection of this occuring until about 3 weeks after the incident when the memory of that event suddenly came back to him..........He said it was as if he were in a hypnotic trance for that hour or so.
Sorry.
I don’t keep a fair number of individuals straight in my memory unless there’s a LOT of routine contact . . .
And, I’m more than a little punchy on such threads because of the obnoxious naysayers.
Will try harder to remember your screen name.
I agree more or less fairly wholesale with your post I’m responding to.
I think I also tend to overreact to flat statements as though the flat statments are absolute fact set in granite when they can, at best, be opinions.
Sorry for my overreaction.
Interesting. Thanks.
Ooops, I updated on the wrong thread . . .
Also . . . here’s a link to an ATS thread with a bunch of very interestnig pics taken by pilots . . .
http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread334139/pg1
And the Stephenville update:
UPDATE TO ALL:
http://www.stephenvillelights.com/
You’ve heard of the lights and objects in the sky around Stephenville, Texas recently. This website will bring you the latest.
Breaking News – Feb. 12, 2008
By ANGELIA JOINER
Stephenville Lights – Reporter
It’s clear. Whatever is hovering over Erath County isn’t leaving. UFO reports are pouring in and two are from original witnesses and there are two new ones coming aboard. This time there are pictures and video — Constable Leroy Gaiten made sure of it. The following are accounts from Gaiten, Ricky Sorrells, Mac McKinnon, and a source not wishing
Editor’s note: Gaiten’s first sighting was with his eight-year-old son on Jan. 8 when he saw a red glow that faded and then reappeared. Later he said he saw bright white lights that seemed to “bounce around in the sky” and took off at a “blazing speed”.
Gaiten’s second sighting
“It was Feb. 2 in the early morning hours. I videotaped it for about 40 minutes. It was an object with red, green, and blue lights. I was on U.S Hwy. 377 by Woody’s looking South towards Dublin. It was about a quarter of the size of a full moon. It was several thousand feet up, maybe 4,500 or 5,000 feet up, I don’t know.
“I zoomed in 168X and you could see it was round and spinning. Something that could not be seen with the naked eye and you could almost see through it. There was what looked like a pyramid or triangle shape on the inside of the thing.”
Gaiten’s next sighting was Feb. 9.
“This time I was in St. Gobain’s parking lot in Stephenville close to the same time in the early morning. I was looking East Northeast of Dublin. I videoed for 10 minutes and zoomed in but it was too far. It was moving but not real fast. It was spinning and shooting off colors. I’m fairly certain this thing spins. This time I could not see through it.
That night a friend called and said he was seeing something through his telescope, an object southeast of my house. I went outside and there it was. It was moving southeast towards Gustine. I watched it for at least 30 minutes and took several pictures. I called my sister and she had seen it, too, and so did her neighbor. Then this guy calls me back about 11:30 and said there is another one coming in from the Selden area. He said it was moving towards Dublin. We go out and we can see it looking toward Harbin. We went to County Road 847 and we took several pictures with the new Cannon camera we purchased with a special lense. It appeared to be the same thing that was hovering Southeast of my house and we never lost sight of it. Then my sister called and they saw it again, too. It headed southwest. Then we lost sight of the first one we’d seen for a little bit and then it reappeared. Then, there was two of them; one in the southwest sky and one in the northeast sky.” Gaiten said the same friend (refusing to be identified publicly) called the night of Feb. 10 to inform him he had viewed five of the objects in the sky but Gaiten had forgotten his cell phone and got the message hours too late. “It does not match what we saw on Jan. 8,” Gaiten said. “But it was as big as that one was. The first time I didn’t see all the colors — it was a white strobe light, LED type of light.
“Also this one was more stationary and not bouncing around like the night of Jan. 8. Now, you cannot see it with the naked eye but it was spinning. And the guy that called said he could see it spinning through the telescope. But, he said he could see something attached to the top and the bottom, something like a capsule or some kind of object. He also told me it was bouncing around in his telescope view but didn’t bounce around when viewing with the naked eye.”
Ricky Sorrells is visited again – Feb. 9
“It was about an hour after the sun went down, maybe 7 or 7:30 p.m. I was coming back from the store in Dublin. When I crossed my cattle guard I looked past my big oak tree and there it was about a mile away. The lights were erratic – red, blue and green and then they kind of combined and made a white light that glowed. I stopped and rolled down my window and yelled at it. I told it to ‘Leave me alone.’ I went ahead and went up my driveway and got out. I looked and it was still there. I just went in the house and shut the door because I really didn’t want to see it anymore.”
When questioned further, Sorrells said he couldn’t determine how high it was because of the darkness. This was his first night time sighting — the other four visits were daytime. He said, “It was higher than the trees by a large margin so it was way above 300 feet.”
Sorrells also reported military aircraft in his area the night before the sighting or Friday, Feb. 8. “Nine F-16s flew over in a definite grid pattern,” Sorrells said. “They have an idea of where this thing is.”
A source not wishing to be publicly identified
“I don’t want my name used because I don’t want to go through what Ricky has been through. But, I’ll tell you what I saw but I’m no aeronautical expert by any shape, form or fashion. I live near Desdemona about 15 miles from Ricky as the crow files. Saturday night (Feb. 9) I saw something that reminded me of careflight with a big spotlight on it. I saw red and green lights but they were faint. I watched it for five minutes. As far as the time, it was dark enough to see the stars and the white light would have been equal to the brightest stars in the sky. I thought it might be some kind of helicopter but it was unusual for a helicopter. It never moved. I saw Ricky the next day and I was joking with him that I thought I had seen a UFO right about over his house. I could tell by the look on his face he had seen something again. That’s when he told me not to be joking around because it had been back to his house. When all this first started, I told him I thought he was seeing a helicopter and somebody was just jacking with him. I’ve known Ricky for 14 years and couldn’t tell you a bad story on him. I don’t doubt him at all. I’ve always known him to be straight up and honest. He’s the butt of a lot of jokes but everyone likes him and it’s in a good-natured way. He would have never told everybody what he told them if he wasn’t serious – if he didn’t honestly believe he saw something. They can investigate him until the cows come home and they won’t find anything on him. Ricky is just a good guy – a handshake is good with Ricky. I would like to be able to use my name but my income would be hard to replace. I can’t.”
Mac McKinnon’s eyewitness account— Owner/publisher, Dublin Citizen
“Somebody called me at 8 Saturday (Feb. 9) evening to tell me about it. I was at home and went out and looked up and there it was. It was way too big to be a helicopter and it had red, green and white lights. I’ve never seen this before. Later, I got in my car but I never got closer to it. I didn’t really see anything but lights. I quit chasing it about 11 p.m. and went to bed. Nobody’s making this stuff up but I think it’s military. I think they were normal looking navigational lights. A lot of things get developed and tested around here that nobody realizes”
... pictures will follow very soon
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