Project Blue Book case file: Levelland, November 2-3, 1957 (81 pages)

Read from the scan by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word.

In Levelland the night of November 2 conditions were ideal for the formation of ball lightning. For several days the area had been experiencing freak weather, and on the night in question had been visited by rain, thunderstorms, and lightning. Shortly before the glowing sphere approached the truck, the two men had noticed a lightning flash in a nearby field. The original description of the phenomenon—a "flaming ball" or a "fiery tornado" that floated toward and over the truck and detonated with light and heat-fits the classic picture of ball lightning. The truck's engine may have died for one of several reasons. The rain during the evening could have seeped under the hood and soaked the ignition or dampened the spark plugs. The feed line may have been clogged. Or the region of highly rarefied air created by the ball lightning may temporarily have deprived the engine of oxygen.

Of the other drivers near Levelland that night who reported having trouble with balky motors and seeing a blazing object like an egg-shaped fireball, three probably saw ball lightning. Others, after hearing Saucedo's frightening story, perhaps unconsciously dramatized their own experiences and magnified ordinary lightning flashes into attacking fiery objects. It is significant that although the night was stormy, only Saucedo reported seeing the ordinary lightning that normally accompanies a thunderstorm.

Since ball lightning is short-lived and cannot be preserved as tangible evidence, its appearance in Levelland on the night of November 2 can never be absolutely proved, even though this explanation fits all the facts-facts that in themselves do not warrant so lengthy a study. Only the saucer proponents could have converted so trivial a series of events-a few stalled automobiles, balls of flame in the sky at the end of thunderstorm-into a national mystery. (Ball lightning doubtless accounts for other UFO reports, such as the phenomenon observed at Lock Raven Dam on October 26, 1958, when two men returning late at night from a fishing trip saw a flaming ball hovering above the superstructure of a bridge; it exploded with a loud noise and a brilliant white flash and disappeared.)

One thing is certain. No evidence exists to suggest the presence of a spaceship over Levelland. Any extraterrestrial vehicle attempting to patrol the area that night would certainly have been seen and its path would have been accurately plotted. Moonwatch crews in New Mexico, Arizona, and Colorado were all watching the skies for a passage of Sputnik, and in Texas itself official observers were on the alert at Big Spring, 100 miles southeast of Levelland; at San Antonio, 370 miles southeast; at Wichita Falls, 250 miles east; at Dodson, 162 miles northeast; and at Amarillo, 120 miles north. None of the trained witnesses at these stations saw anything in the sky that should not have been there.