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Alternate Perceptions Magazine, August 2022


1958 - Some Weird Happenings in Texas

by: Rick Hilberg





One of the strangest reports from the year 1958 comes from Lampasas, Texas, a town of some 5,000-population located about 130 miles southwest of Fort Worth. On Saturday night, December 20, Mr. and Mrs. Franklyn Richardson, who had been hunting rabbits about ten miles north of town, were driving along the Spivey-Tapp Road when they saw, hanging 75 feet in the air a quarter-mile from the road, over brushy country, six blue-white lights about four times the size of the headlights of a car. "We didn't pay much attention to them, but after noticing them for a while, they began moving around that sometimes they looked as if they were in a string going up and down, sometimes they would blend into one light, and sometimes they would dance crazily without a pattern. They would jump and race and blink off and on. We watched them for a while and suddenly two of them broke loose from the rest and approached us very rapidly. They came to within 150 feet of our car, and then stopped and sank very slowly into the ground. Shortly afterwards, two lights came through a pasture, skimming the treetops, and although they were out of range of a .22 rifle, they lit up the interior of the car."

On subsequent hunting trips the couple again saw lights coming out of the ground and sinking back in again. They were always observed on clear nights, and always between 12:30 and 2:30 on Sunday mornings. Thus far they had not reported the phenomena; but on the night of January 24 - 25, 1959 they parked their car to see if they could spot the lights again. In just a few minutes "we spotted a huge light about 20 miles north and to the east; it hopscotched across the mountain and in nothing flat it was directly east of us. Without slackening speed the light made a right-angle turn and headed directly for us."

Mrs. Richardson started the car, looked over her shoulder, and saw the light very close. Trying to watch the road and the light at the same time, she took a curve too fast and stepped on the brakes. The car swerved to the right, bounced off a tree, crossed the road, and struck another tree on the left. The car was severely damaged, and Mrs. Richardson was badly cut and bruised. Her husband took her to the local hospital for treatment (she was confined to bed for the next week), then found a highway patrolman and went back to the scene. Two of the lights were visible, but not close enough for a better look.

On January 29, the Lampasas Weekly Record published their story, together with a statement that on the next Saturday night, January 31, the couple, along with their parents and a few friends, were planning a "small excursion" to the spot, and that Richardson would take his deer rifle and try to get a shot and "see what happens," while anyone else who wanted to go was invited.

The results of this publicity could have been prophesied. More than 100 carloads of spectators, some genuinely interested, but most of them noisy and jeering, arrived on the Spivey-Tapp Road. Teenagers drove through honking horns and yelling. Folks brought shovels and dug holes all over the area. Fences were damaged, cattle and sheep were frightened.

Whether or not the noise and confusion kept the lights away cannot be known, of course; in any event, the night was overcast, and the Richardsons repeated that "we have never seen the lights when there were clouds."

Source: A Decade of Flying Saucers 1950 - 1960, Rick Hilberg 2003.


Thursday, March 28, 2024