Sixty-eight years ago on Nov. 2, 1957, there was a confirmed unidentified flying object right here in Levelland, Texas.
This came to the attention of our newspaper when Dennis Spring, 72-year-old man and Charlotte, North Carolina resident, stopped the office by during his family’s road trip.
Spring is fascinated by UFO’s and has spent his life trying to find answers surrounding the topic, which brought him here to Levelland.
He referenced that National Geographic notes Levelland as one of the top five “hot spots” for UFO sightings in the American Southwest, based on the fact that there were confirmed sightings by countless witnesses back in 1957. (nationalgeographic.com/ travel/article/five-ufo-hotspots- in-the-southwest-u-s) Intrigued by this, Spring asked if we had any historical records around Nov. 2, 1957, so we took him through our historical archive and pulled our records for that specific month.
It turns out that our paper, then called the Levelland Daily Sun News, didn’t just cover it once, but in four consecutive issues with a bunch of articles surrounding the topic of the UFO sightings in 1957.
The phenomenon was dubbed the “whatnik” and “Levellandnik,” and it didn’t just grab attention from West Texas, but the entire nation.
Reporters from Tennessee, California, Louisiana, Alabama, Oregon and LIFE Magazine inquired about the story, and even the United States Air Force got involved.
It sounds absurd, but when observing the facts, you’ll come to understand why.
Countless eyewitnesses gave account of seeing what was described as a 200-footlong egg-shaped object that was flat on the bottom, saying it was as “bright as neon.”
It was confirmed by every eyewitness that the “whatnik” had no portholes, propellors, engines or signs of life, but that it was certainly maneuvering through the air at unimaginable speeds.
These eyewitnesses didn’t just include civilians, but also many police officers who spoke on the record of having the same experiences.
Several witnesses spoke of the UFO landing as close as 400 yards from them, and any person that was in a vehicle near the object reported that their cars stopped working.
The engines and lights on their vehicles all just went dead within the presence of the object, and then when it was gone, the vehicles ran as if nothing had happened.
Witnesses also spoke of unimaginable details on the UFO’s maneuvering through the air as one citizen said “the thing passed directly over my truck with a great sound and rush of wind. It sounded like thunder and my truck rocked from the blast. It felt like a lot of heat.”
Another described the streak that it left behind after taking off as a bright beam of light that was 50 yards wide and 400 yards long.
Following all the accounts of these people, the Air Force sent an undercover man disguised as a casual civilian to gather all the information surrounding what happened, and he evaded every bit of press except for the Levelland Daily Sun News.
He wouldn’t give them identification or information, and all he was allowed to say was he was sent to investigate by the Air Force.
Around the time of his appearance an astronomer referenced the object as a flying saucer and simply a natural phenomenon, even disregarding the car troubles of the locals by saying it was user error with their vehicles.
And not long after that, the Air Force issued a statement debunking the idea that the object or UFO was real and that the people really saw that.
Which is ironic because days later, the object returned to Levelland and not only the local police chased it for 30 plus minutes, but the Air Force itself sent aircrafts to chase it. It was to no avail of course, but the three policeman that chased the object described it to be a glowing red and white/bluish color.
Our newspaper also reported similar experiences in both Amarillo and New Orleans in the same time frame.
All these things spanned across a week in November of 1957, reported by our very own newspaper at the time of occurrence, which we were made aware of thanks to Dennis Spring and his intrigue.
Spring himself speaks of an instance when he was a kid in Detroit, Michigan where he and his brother saw the same UFO on two different nights, as well as hearing similar claims from other local friends with even closer encounters.
He claimed he used to be a skeptic until his encounter and hearing from others about theirs, but ever since then he’s been gathering as much information as possible surrounding the topic.
Spring acknowledged there was a lot of garbage and illegitimate information surrounding UFOs, but he also noted there’s a lot of proven truth as well.
Based on his talks with Naval pilots, the descriptions of these objects and how they move, at the speeds they do it, are impossible for any known man-made aircraft.
Spring also believes there’s something to be said about the government being so heavily controlling of the topic and censoring things.
While it’s truly impossible to know the truth of what the UFOs are, the eyewitness accounts and why the government cares so much, it’s certainly still interesting. And the coolest part of it all is that it briefly brought Levelland to the attention of the whole United States 68 years ago.