From the first recorded use of “saucer” to mysterious lights that have never been explained, these UFO sightings in Texas continue to bewilder people.
The history of unidentified flying objects, or UFOs for short, is extensive and fascinating. Though the term was officially coined in 1952, the history of “flying saucers,” or other objects or lights that observers or the military can’t immediately identify, dates back much further. Today, the government has moved toward describing these occurrences as Unidentified Aerial Phenomena, and later, Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP).
The National UFO Reporting Center has documented nearly 6,800 UFO entries for the Lone Star State. These range from modest “I think I saw something” types of reports to far more eerie experiences. We’re most excited about the latter, so let’s dive into nine mysterious UFO sightings in Texas history.
1. The Denison Saucer (1878)
The first use of the term “flying saucer” is widely credited to Kenneth Arnold, a pilot who coined it to describe an object he saw on June 24, 1947. However, a man named John Martin also referenced a “saucer” in regard to an unidentified object 69 years prior. It’s believed to be the first mention of a “saucer,” and perhaps the first UFO sighting in Texas.
On Jan. 25, 1878, the front page of the Denison Daily News read: “A Strange Phenomenon.” The story, which may or may not have been reprinted from the old Dallas Herald, details a North Texas farmer named John Martin seeing an object in the sky while he was out hunting. The object “appeared to be about the size of an orange, which continued to grow in size.
After staring at it for too long, Martin “became blind” and had to look away. When it was directly overhead, Martin reported that it was “about the size of a large saucer” and most closely resembled a balloon.
The article concludes: “Mr. Martin is a gentleman of undoubted veracity and this strange occurrence, if it was not a balloon, deserves the attention of our scientists.” May we all strive to be people of “undoubted veracity.”
2. The Marfa Lights (1883–present)
The Marfa Lights have been one of the more mysterious elements of Texas for nearly a century and a half. The Visit Marfa website even has an entire page dedicated to them, and the Marfa Lights Festival is an annual celebration of the intrigue with live music, food, and a parade.
These lights, which you can sometimes spot on Route 90 about nine miles east of Marfa, have shone in white, pink, yellow, blue, and green hues. Sometimes they dance wildly; other times they remain still but gradually grow more intense. The first sighting dated back to 1883. Rancher Robert Ellison was herding cattle with some fellow ranchers and saw flickering lights off in the distance. He believed they were Apache campfires, but when he explored the next day, he found no sign anyone had been there.
Since then, countless reports of lights have occurred, and scientists have never been able to definitively determine the source. Depending on who you ask, the lights are either UFOs, witches attempting to fly, the spirit of the Apache Chief Alaste, reflections of Spanish gold, other hidden treasure, or (if you’re a skeptic) a car headlight or someone with a bright flashlight playing tricks on you.
If you can’t visit Marfa anytime soon, plenty of visitors have done deep dives trying to figure out what these lights are. And, as Visit Marfa reminds us: “You never know who or what you might encounter in Marfa, it could be anything or nothing and both are special.”
3. The Aurora airship (1897)
On April 17, 1897, the tiny town of Aurora got an unexpected visitor. Dallas Morning News reporter S.E. Haydon reported that a slow-moving airship soared over the city’s public square before colliding with a windmill on property belonging to Judge J.S. Proctor. Army Signal Service officer T.J. Weems believed the pilot was from Mars. (It’s unclear whether the pilot had a first name or only initials, like everyone else in this story.)
In any case, the pilot had unfortunately died from the crash. However, as locals investigated the scene, they found the pilot was “not of this world.” The townspeople buried the pilot at the nearby Aurora Cemetery, which today has a Texas Historical Commission marker documenting the event.
Decades later, at least one resident of Aurora claimed that Haydon made up the entire incident to bring tourists to the fledgling town, but that’s a far less interesting story. The Aurora airship is featured in the film “The Aurora Encounter” and covered in the first episode of the third season of History Channel’s “Ancient Aliens.”
Aurora wasn’t the only Texas city to have a close encounter in 1897. The “Texas Almanac” wrote that between April 13 and 17 of that year, 38 reports across 23 counties came from the Lone Star State. Were they all UFO sightings in Texas? If so, North Texas was certainly a popular meeting point.
4. Fort Worth’s Roswell wreckage (1947)
Even if you’re not into UFOs or UAPs, you’re likely familiar with Roswell being one of the premier alien hotspots. But there’s some Texas lore to the story, too. On July 8, 1947, media reported a UFO crashing in New Mexico the previous evening, with a military spokesman mentioning a “flying saucer.” The wreckage was loaded onto a cargo plane and brought to an air base in Fort Worth. General Roger Ramey, then a high-ranking Army Air Force Brigadier General stationed in the city, issued a press release that the debris was not a UFO as first reported. Instead, it was a U.S. Army weather balloon that had crashed.
That only added fuel to the fire, with many people believing the weather balloon story was a cover-up. Ramey posed with tinfoil and sticks for Fort Worth Star-Telegram reporter J. Bond Johnson, which remains one of the most popular lasting images of the incident. The latest explanation is that the wreckage was a top-secret spy balloon, though conspiracy theories live on.
5. The Lubbock Lights (1951)
A geologist, a chemical engineer, and a petroleum engineer walk into a bar…er, were hanging out in a Lubbock backyard. The professors, who taught at Texas Technological College, saw 20 to 30 lights arranged in a crescent shape whizzing overhead on Aug. 25, 1951. Another formation of lights cruised by, and the professors determined it moved through 30 degrees of arc per second.
Five nights later, on Aug. 30, 18-year-old Carl Hart Jr. saw the same formation passing overhead. He used a Kodak 35-mm camera to capture five exposures of the formation. W.L. Ducker, the petroleum engineering head from the professor’s backyard, claimed to see the lights a total of 12 times between August and November of that year.
The U.S. Air Force studied the pictures, but couldn’t prove (or disprove) their authenticity. Officially, they’re categorized as “unidentified,” making the Lubbock Lights one of the more mysterious UFO sightings in Texas history.
The Air Force’s best guess was that the sightings were probably groups of birds cruising by streetlights, with the light reflecting off them causing the crescent-shaped patterns in the sky. Of course, if you subscribe to the theory that birds are actually government drones spying on us, that doesn’t feel like a very comforting explanation, does it?
6. Levelland UFO case (1957)
When a UFO encounter has its own Wikipedia page, you know it’s juicy. Late on the night of Nov. 2 and early on the morning of Nov. 3, 1957, 10 UFO-related incidents were reported in Levelland, fairly close to where the Lubbock Lights encounters happened earlier in the decade. The first call came from farm workers Pedro Saucedo and Joe Salaz, who called police to report seeing a brightly lit object shaped like a cigar heading toward them while driving. When it got close, their engine cut out.
“I jumped out of the truck and hit the dirt because I was afraid. I called out to Joe but he didn’t get out. The thing passed directly over my big truck with a great sound and rush of wind. It sounded like thunder and my truck rocked from the flash…I felt a lot of heat,” Saucedo said.
Additional calls ensued, with similar descriptions of an egg-shaped craft transforming from orange to bluish-green while landing. Other callers said their lights and motors also went out. And in each case, their vehicles began working again as soon as the UFOs they encountered flew away. The Air Force’s official explanation is a quick period of ball lightning. Ufologists continue to dispute that claim, believing the number of people reporting the same occurrence independently only adds fuel to the fire.
7. The Cash-Landrum incident (1980)
Many of the other sightings on this list had fleeting effects on those who encountered them, such as car engines temporarily stopping in Levelland. But on Dec. 29, 1980, three people driving to Dayton in eastern Texas experienced something that stuck with them forever. Betty Cash, Vickie Landrum, and Landrum’s grandson Colby had dined out and were heading back home.
They saw a light in the sky and paid it minimal attention, believing it was an airplane. A few minutes later, they crossed paths with what they thought was the same light, now much closer and shining brightly. They reported the object as a diamond-shaped object the size of a water tower hovering around the tops of the trees, with small blue lights revolving around the center and flames and heat radiating from the base.
The two adults got out of the car to examine what they had come across, but as Colby quickly became scared, his grandma went back to keep him company. Cash stayed by the object, mesmerized by what she was seeing. When she returned to the car, it was too hot to touch with her bare hand. She also left an imprint on her car’s dashboard because the heat had made it malleable. Cash and Landrum then saw 23 helicopters encircling the object. As the road cleared, they drove on and eventually reached their intended destination.
However, the trio soon experienced symptoms including nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, burning in their eyes, and a general feeling of weakness. They also felt like they were experiencing sunburns, and in the next few days, Cash began developing large, painful blisters all over her body. Doctors began treating her for radiation exposure, and she spent many days in the hospital. She was also treated for cancer. The elder Landrum also developed a cataract in one eye a few months after the incident.
Cash and Landrum ultimately sued the U.S. federal government for $20 million, though their case was dismissed on Aug. 21, 1986. Cash died on Dec. 29, 1998, exactly 18 years after this incident. Vickie Landrum died nearly nine years later. While there are plenty of skeptics of this case, it remains one of the most discussed UFO sightings in Texas (and North America).
8. Stephenville Lights (2008)
On Jan. 8, 2008, Stephenville residents reported seeing UFOs in the sky. A dozen people called in at first, and soon, the reports topped over a hundred. The UFO descriptions were a mix of triangle and disc shapes. Some people said they were about as large as a football field; others said they spanned almost a mile long. In some reports, people spotted military aircraft chasing after the UAPs.
Ken Cherry, then the Texas state director of the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON), received multiple calls on his UFO hotline. One of them was from Steve Allen, the owner of a trucking company who’s also a licensed pilot. Allen’s description of what he saw included flashing lights traveling around 3,000 miles per hour at about 3,500 feet in the air. They were totally silent before bursting into burning white flames. That led Cherry to believe the “Stephenville Event” went beyond the typical sighting.
The sightings garnered national attention, with CNN’s Larry King and the History Channel show “UFO Hunters” among the outlets doing stories. Initially, the U.S. Air Force said there were no aircraft flying over the area, but by Jan. 23, it had changed its story to say there were, in fact, 10 fighter jets conducting routine night flying training. Ufologists remain convinced something more happened in January 2008.
9. Irving and Del Rio’s video recordings (2021)
While many UFO sightings in Texas are based on people’s accounts, this one has an accompanying video. While out on a golf course, a man noticed a shiny disc over the horizon. “It’s moving really weird, it’s like spinning and it’s got another disc inside of it that’s spinning,” a man says during the video. He noted there was a “large metallic ring” floating around a “separate metallic sphere within the ring, like a flying armillary sphere.”
Two days later, another alleged sighting occurred in Del Rio. The video featured a glowing UFO with lights inside. The object began descending before completely vanishing from the sky. Even an aerial carpool lane couldn’t get you to your destination that quickly, leaving people wondering what exactly is flying around Texas.
