What happened
On November 2, 1957, at around 10:50 p.m., Pedro Saucedo and Joe Salaz were driving on a highway west of Levelland when they saw a flash and a luminous, torpedo-shaped object that passed low over their truck. The vehicle’s engine and lights died and came back only after the object had moved away. The police initially dismissed the call, but over the next few hours a dozen or so people called in from various roads around the town. They described an egg-shaped, glowing object several dozen meters long, sitting on the road or flying over it, and sudden car failures. The light was also seen by Sheriff Weir Clem and his deputy. The event came the day after the launch of the Soviet Sputnik 2, so the press quickly publicized the story.
Witnesses
Pedro Saucedo, Joe Salaz, and a dozen or so other drivers from the Levelland area, Sheriff Weir Clem and his deputy.
Explanations and hypotheses
Project Blue Book concluded that the witnesses had seen ball lightning or St. Elmo’s fire during stormy weather and that the cars stalled because of moisture. Critics, including J. Allen Hynek, noted that there was no thunderstorm that night and that the number of independent reports of vehicle failures is hard to explain. Some researchers propose rare electrical phenomena in the atmosphere, but the case remains disputed.
Disputed A likely explanation exists, but some of the facts are still disputed.
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