At about 9 p.m. on August 25, 1951, three professors from Texas Technological College, a chemical engineer, a petroleum engineer and a geologist, were sitting in a backyard in Lubbock when 20 to 30 lights, as bright as stars but larger, flew over in a curved formation. A second group passed minutes later.
The professors and colleagues saw the lights many more times over the following weeks and tried to measure their speed and height. A student, Carl Hart Jr., photographed a V of lights, and the pictures were widely printed.
Project Blue Book investigated. Officially, Captain Edward Ruppelt said, all the sightings except one radar contact were unknowns. Ruppelt later wrote that he believed the lights were birds reflecting the town's new mercury-vapour streetlights, but that idea is still argued over.
