Talk:Levelland, Texas

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[edit] Not ball lightning

I have removed the claim that the USAF said ball lightning was the cause of the odd reports at Levelland. It makes good reading for UFO conspiracists - but it isn't true. The USAF's Air Technical Intelligence Center said conditions at Levelland at the time were consistent with those associated with ball lighting (storms often are) and that what one witness described was ball lightning. But, ATIC concluded: “It is the opinion of ATIC that ball lightning may have contributed to the overall circumstances of the Levelland sighting, but was not a major factor. It is concluded that the major cause for the Levelland case was a severe electrical storm". That's from The Levelland Sightings Of 1957 by Antonio F. Rullán: Air Force/Blue Book Investigation and Explanation. [1], (which is a reference link given at the bottom of the article). It is unethical for Wikipedia to attribute a false claim to the USAF followed by a Hynek quote which is presented as a rebuttal of the claim the USAF never made. Wikipedia demands more principled standards than that. I have also trimmed some of the stuff because the article is about the town, not the ufo incident.Moriori 00:31, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] It Was Ball Lightning

It isn't just "UFO Conspiracists" who have noted that the US Air Force used ball lightning to explain the Levelland sightings and auto failures. Prominent UFO Critic Dr. Donald Menzel, a Harvard astronomer with access to Project Blue Book's (then) classified files, wrote in his 1963 book The World of Flying Saucers that "After studying the weather reports and descriptions given by various witnesses, the Air Force issued an explanation...stating that the phenomenon observed at Levelland had been ball lightning or St. Elmo's fire." Curtis Peebles, an aviation journalist and another UFO Skeptic, wrote in his 1994 book Watch the Skies: A Chronicle of the Flying Saucer Myth that "in view of the stormy weather conditions...an electrical phenomenon such as Saint Elmo's fire or ball lightning' seemed to be the most probable cause." In his online article, Antonio Rullan also noted that "In the memo [Dr.] Hynek says that a connection between the ball lightning phenomenon and the engine stoppage was possible via ionization of the air and moisture disposition." One wonders why Dr. Hynek would criticize the Air Force explanation for using the ball lightning hypothesis if that was not their main explanation for the incident - especially given that Hynek was one of the primary creators of that hypothesis! Additionally, the ATIC explanation was not given to the public. Instead, the Air Force's public explanation for the incident was provided by Capt. George T. Gregory, the head of Project Blue Book, and he did specifically use ball lightning to explain away the sighting to the public. In fact, in 1958 Capt. Gregory concluded that "all the weather conditions were conducive to a ball lightning manifestation." Capt. Gregory went on to state that Dr. Hynek's theory that ball lightning or lightning discharges were responsible for the auto failures experienced in Levelland that night. One also wonders why Antonio Rullan's online article goes into a detailed analysis of ball lightning, and if it could have stopped the vehicles and caused the UFO sightings, if that was not a major part of the Air Force explanation. Given all of this, and the fact that nearly every written account of the Levelland case (both pro-and-con) describes the Air Force explanation as being ball lightning, it is more than historically accurate (and Wikipedia correct) to refer to the Air Force explanation as being ball lightning or St. Elmo's Fire.