Mile-long UFO over Stephenville, Texas. Pic credit: via National Geographic/YouTube
Netflix’s new documentary series Encounters sheds new light on a strange mass UFO sighting in Texas in 2007.
At least 300 people resident in Stephenville, Texas, including pilots, police officers, and air traffic controllers, reported sighting a massive UFO sailing overhead.
Stephenville, a city in Erath County, Texas, on the banks of the North Bosque River, lies about 100 miles southwest of Dallas and 78 miles of Fort Worth.
National media covered the Stephenville UFO sightings
Media outlets, including the National Public Radio and the Associated Press (AP), covered the Stephenville UFO sightings.
Reports continued in Stephenville and nearby communities, including Dublin and Gorman, for several months, from late November until early spring (March) in 2008.
People living as far as Fort Worth (Tarrant County) also reported the strange UFO.
Perplexed residents called county authorities to report a four-city-blocks-long aerial object overhead, but no one could explain it.
Engineer Bob Powell analyzed FAA radar data
Bob Powell, an engineer who analyzed radar data related to the incident, shared their experiences on Encounter.
Encounter is a four-part UFO documentary produced for Netflix by Stephen Spielberg.
Descriptions of the length of the spaceship varied from about 300 feet to a mile long. But all agreed it was a gigantic futuristic-looking spaceship.
Some described it as a fleet of crafts flying in a V-shaped formation, flashing with orange and red lights.
In a report submitted to the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON), local businessman and pilot Steve Allen said it was about a mile long and about half a mile wide. It flew silently across the sky at considerable speed, he told MUFON.
A police officer said it was “4 city blocks wide,” and had a pair of bright lights, each about 25 feet in diameter.
FAA later blocked Powell from accessing the data
Powell teamed up with another engineer, Glen Schulze, a former US Army radar engineer, to analyze raw radar data he obtained from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) via the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).
The pair also obtained relevant data from the National Weather Service and 457th Fighter Squadron, Carswell AFB.
But their study, published by the Scientific Coalition for UAP Studies (SCU), was still ongoing when the FAA blocked his access to the data.
He said the FAA has since refused to release radar data to him and other UFO researchers investigating various reported sightings.
Mass sighting in January 2008
A mass sighting occurred on January 8, 2008, amid multiple scattered reports of the UFO across cities and towns in Erath and nearby counties.
About 19 witnesses reported seeing the UFO passing overhead to Stephenville from Dublin. They later saw it flying back from Stephenville with USAF jets on its trail.
The eyewitnesses said the jets were in hot pursuit of the UFO.
Encounter premiered on Netflix on Wednesday, September 27.