Lubbock Lights, Texas
August 1951 · Lubbock, Texas
Summary
Five Texas Tech professors saw a group of lights pass over a Lubbock backyard on the evening of August 25, 1951, according to Captain Edward J. Ruppelt's March 1952 briefing. Ruppelt said they were discussing meteors when the lights appeared, that the lights returned about half an hour later, and that they counted 12 over five or six nights. The professors first assumed the objects were Air Force missiles and set up a baseline with two-way radios and homemade angle-measuring devices. They failed to get an altitude but measured an angular rate of 30 degrees per second, which Ruppelt called the only measurement the Air Force had.
Ruppelt said the Air Force heard of the lights about a month later. He interviewed the witnesses and first suspected a hoax. A college freshman photographed formations on August 31, using a Kodak 35 at 1/10 second on Plus-X film. Ruppelt spoke to him twice, and the Office of Special Investigations spoke to him about three times. He signed a sworn statement. The professors called the pictures faked. The Air Force photo lab found actual images and no proof of faking, and the negative density was slightly greater than that of a bright planet.
Ruppelt gave one mundane explanation: a duck flight was known to be in the area, and the lights could have been ducks reflecting city lights. Ruppelt said 75 to 80 feet altitude would be needed to fit the angular rate. Residents who tried to photograph ducks by city light failed, and the professors rejected the idea. Ruppelt said the Air Force was up against a blank wall. He also described a Sandia guard and his wife who saw a dark winged shape the same night, about two hours before the photographs.
A magazine article reproduced in an FBI file, credited to Dr. Menzel, gave a different explanation. It said temperature inversions could make distant city lights appear to float and fly in formation, and called this the Lubbock Light phenomenon. The article said he reproduced such effects in his laboratory. It gave the photographs' date as August 30, 1951, by Carl Hart, Jr., aged 18.
Where the files disagree
Two documents give different accounts of the same detail. Both are quoted as written; we don't say which is right.
Date of the Lubbock photographs
“Well, this was, these happened to be taken on the 31st of August.” page 7 →
“These are the Lubbock Lights, as photographed Aug. 30, 1951, over Lubbock, Texas, by 18-year-old Carl Hart, Jr.” page 257 →
What the files say
“If the source is a line of distant street lamps, the images appear to fly in formation—the Lubbock Light phenomenon.”
Page 260 →“However, they did get their angular measurement across the sky, and it came out to be 30 degrees per second.”
Page 7 →“We've never been able to prove that they were faked.”
Page 8 →“So we're up against a blank wall on this certain, this one case.”
Page 9 →
Explanations in the record
What the documents themselves say the event was, as recorded. Not our assessment.
- Ruppelt said a duck flight was known in the area and the lights might have been ducks reflecting city lights, though the professors and about half of local witnesses rejected this. — Ruppelt briefing transcript on UFO investigations (1952), page 9
- The article credited to Menzel attributed the Lubbock Lights to temperature-inversion mirages of distant city lights, tested in a laboratory. — FBI UFO case file section 6: flying disc records (1947-1968), page 260
- Ruppelt said the professors and the Air Force first suspected a hoax, and that the Air Force could not prove the photographs were faked. — Ruppelt briefing transcript on UFO investigations (1952), page 8
Related
- Releases: Release 1, Release 6
- Programs: Project Blue Book
- Search the transcripts for “Lubbock Lights”
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