By JON AWBREY, Publisher, DeLeon Free Press, former Staff Writer, Dublin Citizen

After a few years of covering the Stephenville Lights phenomenon for the Dublin Citizen and the DeLeon Free Press, I am almost certain that most people are witnessing military flares dropped from airplanes from the Brownwood MOS. The flare seems to be the culprit most bandied about by those in the know as the source of the Stephenville Lights.

However, some witnesses report seeing a machine of some kind, and, at the time of the sighting, there was a machine flying in the sky. It wasn’t a plane, and it wasn’t a flare. Truth is, I don’t know what it was, and neither does anyone else who is willing to share. All I know is what I saw. It was round, light in color, flashed a wide array of green, yellow, and blue lights from a light bar located at the bottom of the object. Many other lights that I have seen – and that many locals have seen - were most likely some sort of flare. The round object with the light bar was not a flare, however. So the window of possibility for some bizarre state of affairs remains somewhat open in the Stephenville Lights case.

Other explanations have cropped up as well. A woman in Scotland believed the lights to be a divine harbinger of apocalyptic things to come. Her prophecy made the pages of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Since the world has not yet ended, I think we can breathe a sigh of relief.

The following is a brief outline of the Stephenville Lights case. Aside from the initial sighting, many of the following examples come from areas west of Stephenville. Other sightings have continued east and southeast of the city, but I have not included them as I know much less about them.

The Stephenville Lights began during the first week of January, 2008, when over 150 witnesses in Erath County reported seeing something large and bright floating through the night sky between January 4 and January 9. Witnesses included at least six local and county law enforcement officers and one pilot.

The major sighting – at least the one that interested the media – occurred on Jan. 8, 2008, when four witnesses reported seeing an unidentified flying object southwest of Stephenville in the Selden area. Others soon came forward, reporting sightings of a massive flying vehicle with multiple lights hovering above Erath and surrounding counties, then vanishing at speeds approaching 3,000 mph. Soon, the tale was on CNN and the major broadcast networks, as well as news pages worldwide.

MUFON, the Mutual UFO Network, arrived at the Dublin Rotary Building on Sat. Jan 19, 2008 to take witness accounts.

The scene was crowded with travelers apparently looking for some way to spend a weekend. A few locals shared their stories with MUFON, but most of the men, women, and children who crowded into the turn-of-the century brick building were spectators, at the very least. Some wore tin foil hats, some carried humorous signs, some placed tin foil collars on their dogs – all in good fun. The world’s oldest soft drink bottling plant, the local Dublin Dr. Pepper plant, marketed its product to the crowd.

By the end of that Saturday, at least 500 people had moved through the building. And MUFON reported that they had received at least 50 credible sightings reports, including one from a Kentucky-based truck driver who just happened to be driving through the area when the events occurred. Another witness produced deer camera footage that revealed an orb hovering around a herd of deer. According to the witness, one series of frames shows a deer disappear in the presence of the orb.

On Sunday, Jan. 20, 2008 video evidence – 800 times zoom – was made of a large, light colored orb that hovered above Dublin, Texas for about an hour. Witnesses report that the orb was first spotted as it moved southwest from Stephenville toward Dublin. While the witnesses were video-taping the event, another similar orb hovered behind them. There was no noise associated with the object. There were, however, a series of red, blue, green, white, and amber lights that animated the object.

On February 9, 2008, a local law enforcement officer and several other Dublin citizens witnessed five lights high in the sky, with military jets flying alongside. The lights appeared over Harris Street in Dublin, coming from the direction of Selden. At least one of the objects was large and circular, and moved south toward the town of Gustine before returning to Dublin. The object was still in the area at sunrise. One witness who saw it in daylight said it had a purple hue.

On April 6, 2008 a witness reported seeing a bright light southeast of Dublin at 11:30 p.m. With binoculars, the witness was able to make out a spectacular, wide variety of colors coming from the object. The witness woke a neighbor, and together they spotted three more objects southwest of Dublin. One moved rapidly toward the city. All objects, the witness stated, had dazzling, radiant colors of the spectrum. The objects hovered at least two hours. Police were notified of the sighting. It was the first sighting since early February.

On July 4, 2008, an object was witnessed hovering above Lake Proctor about 11:30 p.m., in neighboring Comanche County. It hovered about five minutes before making a 90 degree turn to slowly fly off to the northwest toward DeLeon. Within five minutes, the object returned and repeated the same pattern. This object was red and triangular.

On July 24, 2008, about 10 p.m., two witnesses reported observing an object hovering above U.S. Hwy. 377 two miles north of Dublin. One witness described the object as purple or grayish in color, and having seven or nine “tentacles.” The object hovered for several minutes above a local restaurant, moving left to right “like a chime.” This sighting was the second sighting in less than three weeks on the Erath-Comanche County line.

By August 21, 2008 MUFON was ready to release its long awaited radar report regarding the night of Jan. 8, 2008, the most reported sighting. The MUFON report located all civilian and military flights that night. However, they also found that an unidentified aircraft without a transponder beacon was present, and its behavior corresponded with the many witness reports. According to MUFON, an unidentified flying object was confirmed in Erath County about 6:15 p.m. on the night of Jan. 8, 2008. According to radar data, the object was picked up on radar seven miles north of Selden, then only 20 seconds later the object was picked up again nine miles north of Stephenville, moving at an adjudged speed of 2,100 mph. By 6:40 p.m. the object had moved over Dublin and remained in that area until 7:15 p.m., when it moved toward the southeast. The location and timeframe cited in Dublin witness reports matched exactly with the timeframe and location in the radar reports. The object, MUFON asserted, was no smaller than 524 feet. It veered north from Dublin at speeds of about 1,900 mph, before slowing and returning to a southeasterly trajectory. The object was reported to have the capability of speeding up to 532 mph in less than 30 seconds, and slowing to 49 mph only ten seconds later. Such force, they say, would cause any known aircraft to crash.

Billy Cox, a reporter for the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, reported that the military claimed it had lost its own radar records from that night. MUFON stated that at least eight military jets flew into the Dublin area on the night of Jan. 8, and that two left the main body of airplanes to fly a circular route around Stephenville, Comanche, and Dublin. An AWACS aircraft was also present, flying at 41,000 feet. Their mission was never explained.

MUFON’s position was clear: a real, physical object was in the sky over Erath County on the night of Jan. 8. It was not any known aircraft, it was enormous, it was silent, it was fast.

Despite some sort of conclusion to the Jan. 8 sighting, other sightings continued.

On Sunday, Oct. 26, 2008 early in the evening, witnesses in DeLeon, Texas reported seeing an unusual oval-shaped light in the southwestern sky. The object appeared in a stationary position, radiating white sights. Witnesses reported that other flying aircraft circled the object. After several hours, the object descended to the right and dipped below the horizon. The object returned the following Thursday, and sightings continued nightly until the following Sunday evening. Witnesses reported it to be three times larger and brighter than a star.

On the night of Nov. 19, 2008, a witness reported seeing an object hovering above Memorial Stadium in Dublin. The witness snapped a photo revealing what appeared to be a long, twisted ribbon-like object in the night sky. Obviously, this object was most likely small and round in shape. However, the photographic process – i.e. nighttime exposure – caused the image to “string out,” causing the ribbon-like effect. This object was thought to be one part of a series of lights witnessed outside of DeLeon on the same night.

On the night of Thursday, Nov. 19, 2009, exactly one year after a similar DeLeon sighting, four witnesses in two locations reported seeing the same phenomenon – about half a dozen lights that flashed “really fast, faster than any plane, five or six times.” One witness called the sighting into local law enforcement. According to the witness, after a short period she received a phone call from a law enforcement official who told her that the lights were jets from Ft. Hood.

“They’re setting off flares,” she was told. “Do you understand?”

Other witnesses who saw the same lights reported that they may have been part of one large stationary object that was larger than a half mile wide – something very similar to the Jan. 8, 2008 sighting.

The sightings continue.

Interestingly, the Dublin area has had a history with unidentified flying objects, the first being recorded in June, 1891, over a decade before the invention of the airplane. An article published in a June 1891 edition of the Dublin Progress reported that an object that resembled a cotton bale “soaked in kerosene and ignited” was suspended more than 300 feet in the air before it exploded near the Miller Grist Mill in southwest Dublin. “It created a much brighter light, almost dazzling those who perceived it,” said the newspaper. The explosion left vegetation on the ground “burned to a crisp,” and it was reported that the crash site contained strange stones and pieces of metal all of a leaden color, and also a manuscript with a foreign language on it. “No one has yet been found who has ever seen such a language before, hence no information could be gained from their examination,” said the newspaper.