Case · C-010
The “Lubbock Lights” and the photographs of Carl Hart Jr.
Lubbock, Texas · United States · Aug 25, 1951
In flight Civilian witnesses Photos
Disputed explanation
- What happened
- On the evening of August 25, 1951, three Texas Tech professors saw an arc of blue-green lights pass silently overhead, which reappeared several times in the following weeks and was reported by hundreds of residents. On August 31 the student Carl Hart Jr. took five photographs of V-shaped formations of lights; a Project Grudge status report notes that Air Force technical intelligence (ATIC) had four of the negatives and that some witnesses suspected birds lit by the city lights. Ruppelt investigated on the spot in late September.
- Proposed explanation
- Ruppelt first thought of birds (plovers) reflecting the new mercury-vapor streetlights, a hypothesis shared by some witnesses, but later wrote that he had been mistaken and attributed the lights to a “common” natural phenomenon identified by a scientist whose name and explanation he did not reveal. As for Hart's photos, examined by the Air Force laboratory, Ruppelt wrote that it was never proved either that they were a fake or that they were genuine.
- Official investigation
- U.S. Air Force (Project Grudge/Blue Book, Edward Ruppelt; Wright-Patterson laboratory)
- Words of the document
The photographs show a V-shaped formation of lights.
Official documents
- Project Grudge Status Report No. 2 (pagina 12, sezione su Lubbock) · U.S. Air Force – Project Grudge (transcription on Patrick Gross's site) · 1951
Sources
On this site
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