Will We Ever Solve the Mystery of the Lubbock Lights?

• When: August 1951 (ongoing sightings)
  
• Where: Lubbock, Texas
• What: V-shaped string of large, bright, solid white, circular lights flying at high rate of speed (famous sighting was documented in newspaper)

While it was the eyewitness reports of three respected university professors that brought credibility to the Lubbock Lights case of 1951, it was unversity freshman Carl Hart, Jr.'s eyewitness photograph that brought the US Air Force down to investigate.

original Lubbock Lights witness photograph http://www.texashighways.com/travel/item/2316-web-extra-the-original-lubbock-lights

Less than five years after a UFO famously crash-landed in Roswell, multiple residents of Lubbock, Texas witnessed an incredible fleet of solid, white orbs of light fly in a V shape overhead. It was Texas Tech professors Dr. Oberg, a chemical engineer, Dr. Ducker, a petroleum engineer, and Dr. Robinson, a geologist, who were the quickest to report the sighting. The three men were visiting with each other in of the men's backyards when they watched 20+ mysterious lights fly over them in a matter of seconds around 9 PM on August 25th, 1951.

Lubbock TX 1950s https://www.pinterest.com/pin/209839663861135950/

Professors at Texas Tech (left to right), Dr. Oberg, Prof. Ducker, and Dr. Robinson and Dr. E. L. George http://www.ufocasebook.com/lubbocklights.html

If that wasn't amazing enough, a freshman at the university the professors taught at, Carl Holt, Jr., also witnessed the same phenomenon, but several days later, on August 30th. Fortunately, he was able to snap five photos of the event, which to this day, are some of the most famous UFO photos ever taken. The photos were first published in the the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal, and then in a 1952 edition of Life magazine featuring Marilyn Monroe on the cover.

Lubbock Lights evidence on record with Project Bluebook http://www.ufocasebook.com/lubbocklights.html

Lubbock Lights edition of Life Magazine https://www.nicap.org/life52.htm

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About a month after this wave of reports, Project Bluebook (AKA Project Sign), the official government organization for investigating UFOs at the time, got involved. Lieutenant Ed Ruppelt, a former Army Air Force pilot, led the Project Bluebook investigation and interviewed the witnesses directly. He later went on to write a book about the case.

Lubbock Lights by Edward J. Ruppelt Book cover and author, who was an investigator of the Lubbock Lights http://roswellbooks.com/museum/?page_id=166

The accounts and photographs of the Lubbock Lights were ultimately proven to be authentic, and the Lubbock Lights case remains open to this day.

However, early on in the investigation, many assumed that the awestruck witnesses of the Lubbock Lights had really just seen a flock of birds, specifically plovers, whose bellies were reflecting the street lights from down below. A plover, by the way, is a water bird that had indeed been seen in Lubbock that month. However, this theory was tested and put to rest eventually.

Ed Dunens "Turnstones, Stints and Hooded Plovers" https://www.flickr.com/photos/blachswan/ & https://www.flickr.com/photos/blachswan/36539952792

Lt. Ed Ruppelt ended up concluding that there was a natural, prosaic explanation for the lights. However, he unfortunately would not reveal it. Ruppelt met with  a man who was able to explain the case via a serious of investigations he'd done. However, Ruppelt traded the man's anonymity for his silence: 

 From Roswell Books:

The lights that the professors saw—the backbone of the Lubbock Light series—have been positively identified as a very commonplace and easily explainable natural phenomenon.It is very unfortunate that I can’t divulge exactly the way the answer was found because it is an interesting story of how a scientist set up complete instrumentation to track down the lights and how he spent several months testing theory after theory until he finally hit upon the answer.   Telling the story would lead to his identity and, in exchange for his story, I promised the man complete anonymity.   But he fully convinced me that he had the answer, and after having heard hundreds of explanations of UFOs, I don’t convince easily.

This frustrating and teasing tidbit has led many  UFO researchers to wonder if the Lubbock Lights could be similar to other famous "UFO" cases that most people now believe to have a natural origin, like the Hessdalen Lights in Norway or the Marfa lights in Texas.

Hessdalen lights http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2632650/Has-mystery-glowing-Norwegian-orbs-solved-Expert-claims-underground-battery-creates-amazing-light-show.html

Marfa Lights https://www.livescience.com/37579-what-are-marfa-lights-texas.html

What do you think of the amazing Lubbock Lights? Do you think we will ever know what happened in August 1951 in Lubbock, Texas, or has the truth been long covered up by now? Share your theories on this case and more in the comments below, or join the conversation on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram!

Kathleen Zarubin girl looking to sky https://www.flickr.com/photos/64204416@N02/5846976223 & https://www.flickr.com/photos/64204416@N02/

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