Events began at 21:30, when Mr and Mrs Elmer Sharp saw an object, shaped like a spinning top, changing color from red to yellow to blue, with a fiery tail, hover for 20 minutes with whistling sound, then fly away on a NNW course, in three minutes. The same or similar object returned one hour later, repeating the maneuvers.

At 23:00 Patrolman A. J. Fowler, officer on duty at Levelland, received a phone call from Pedro Saucedo and Joe Salaz. They had been driving four miles west of Levelland, when they saw a torpedo-shaped, brilliantly illuminated object rapidly approach the car. As the object passed over the car, the truck headlights went out, and the engine died. As the UFO moved into the distance, the truck lights came on by themselves, and Saucedo found that his truck started easily. Saucedo declared:

To whom it may concern: on the date of November 2, 1957, I was traveling north and west on route 116, driving my truck. At about four miles out of Levelland, I saw a big flame, to my right front. ... I thought it was lightning. But when this object had reach to my position it was different, because it put my truck motor out and lights. Then I stop, got out, and took a look, but it was so rapid and quite some heat that I had to hit the ground. It also had colors --- yellow, white --- and it looked like a torpedo, about 200 feet long, moving at about 600 to 800 miles an hour.

A short time later Fowler received another report, from another Whitharral man. 11 miles north of Levelland he saw glowing object sitting on the road. As he approached it, his car engine stopped, and his headlights went out. The object left shortly thereafter, and the car operated again.

At 12:05 A.M, Newell H. Wright, a 19-year-old Texas Tech freshman from Texas Tech, was driving 9 miles east of Levelland. He found that his car engine began to sputter, the ammeter on the dash jumped to discharge then back to normal, and the motor "started cutting out like it was out of gas." The car rolled to a stop; then the headlights dimmed and several seconds later went out. He got out of his car and looked under the hood but found nothing wrong.

Closing the hood, he turned away and then noticed for the first time, an oval-shaped object, flat on the bottom, sitting on the road ahead. He estimated it to be about 125 feet long, glowing with a bluish-green light. He stated that the object seemed to be made of an aluminum-like material, but no markings or other details were apparent. Frightened, he got hack into the car and tried frantically but in vain to restart the car.

He sat and watched the object sitting in front of him on the road for several minutes, hoping that another car would drive by. The UFO finally rose into the air, "almost straight up," and disappeared "in a split instant." Afterward, die car was again fully operable. "I then proceeded home very slowly, and told no one of my sighting until my parents returned home from a weekend trip ... for fear of public ridicule. They did convince me that I should report this, and I did so to the sheriff around 1:30 P.M. Sunday, November 3."

At 12:15 A.M. Fowler got another call, from a booth near Whitharral. This man reported his encounter with the strange object at a point some nine miles north of Levelland. The glowing object was sitting on a dirt road. As his car approached it, its lights went out and its motor stopped. The object rose vertically rapidly. At an altitude of about 300 feet, its lights went off and it disappeared. The car lights came back on and the car could be started.

Fowler notified the sheriff. Two policemen reported bright light for a few seconds, but no near encounters or automotive problems were encountered..

At 12:45 A.M. a single witness, just west of Levelland, saw what looked like a big orange ball of fire over a mile away. The ball came closer and landed on the highway a quarter of a mile ahead, extending across the paved road. The motor of the truck "conked out" and its headlights died. After a minute, the object made a vertical ascent, and the truck returned to normal.

At 1:15 A.M. Fowler received a call from a Waco truck driver (Long and/or Pracht). Just northeast of Levelland, on the "Oklahoma flat road", his engine and headlights failed as he approached within 200 feet of a brilliant, glowing egg-shaped object. It glowed "intermittently like a neon sign" and was about 200 feet long. As he got out of the truck, the UFO quickly shot straight up with a roar and streaked away. The truck engine and lights worked after the object left.

By now local police and sheriff patrols were looking for the object. At 1:30 A.M Sheriff Clem and Deputy Pat McCulloch were driving along the Oklahoma Flat Road, between four and five miles from Levelland. They spotted an oval-shaped light, "looking like a brilliant red sunset across the highway," 300 to 400 yards south of their patrol car. "It lit up the whole pavement in front of us for about two seconds," said Clem. Several miles behind Patrolmen Lee Hargrove and Floyd Gavin were following. Hargrove declared:

Was driving south on the unmarked roadway known as the Oklahoma Flat Highway and was attempting to search for an unidentified object reported to the Levelland Police Department. ... I saw a strange-looking flash, which looked to be down the roadway approximately a mile to a mile and a half. . . . The flash went from east to west and appeared to be close to the ground.

In all Fowler received 15 phone calls reporting UFO sightings.

The Blue Book investigator, a single man in civilian clothes, appeared at the sheriff's office at 11:45 A.M. on November 5. He made two motor excursions during the day, then left. Blue Book's Captain Gregory evaluated the sightings as "ball lightning." However the weather that night was overcast, with no lightning.

The press found this laughable, and on 4 December 1957 Captain Gregory reopened the case, "... as a result of pressure from both the press and public . . . Assistant Secretary of Defense requested that ATIC immediately submit a preliminary analysis to the press ... a most difficult requirement in view of the limited data." However no further conclusions were reached.

One blue-green saucer, , around 300 feet away, was observed by four male experienced witnesses two of them independent (as reported to the police) on a highway for 2.5 minutes (Alvarez, J; Clem; Fowler, A. J.; Long; Sala, Joe; Saucedo, Pedro; Sharp, Elmer; Wheeler, J; Wright, N). A rushing sound was heard.

Ruppelt's account:

On November 3, 1957, a rash of sightings broke out in Texas and they had a brand new twist. To do things up right the powers that guide the UFO picked the town of Levelland only 27 miles west of Lubbock, the home of the now traditional "Lubbock Lights."

It was with a tug of nostalgia that I read about these reports because five years before, almost to the day, Lubbock had plunged the Air Force, and me, into the UFO mystery on a grand scale.

According to the best interpretation of the maze of conflicting stories, facts and rumors about these famous sightings the only positive fact is that there were scattered storm clouds across West Texas on the night of November 4, 1957. This was unusual for November and everyone in the community was just a little edgy.

It was early in the evening, at least early for West Texas on a Saturday night, when Pedro Saucedo, a farm worker, and his friend Joe Salaz, started out in Saucedo's truck toward Pettit, ten miles northwest of Level-land. They had just turned off State Highway 116 and were heading north on a country road when the two men saw a flash of light in an adjacent field. Saucedo, a Korean War Veteran, and Salaz didn't pay much attention to the light at first. They only noticed that it was coming closer. "It seemed to be paralleling us and edging a little closer all the time," Saucedo later recalled. Still neither man paid any attention to the light. They drove on, Saucedo watching the road and Salaz talking.

Then it hit.

The first signal of something wrong was when the truck's headlights went out; then the engine stopped. Before Saucedo could hit the starter again he glanced over his left shoulder. A huge ball of fire was "rapidly drifting" toward the truck. Without a second's hesitation Saucedo did what the Korean War had taught him to do when in doubt, he shoved open the car door and hit the dirt.

Salaz just sat.

"The 'Thing' passed directly over my truck with a great sound and rush of wind," Saucedo later told County Sheriff Weir Clem, after he'd started his truck and had driven back to Levelland. "It sounded like thunder and my truck rocked from the blast. I felt a lot of heat."

The "Thing," which disappeared across the prairie, looked like a "fiery tornado."

Five years before and a little east of where Saucedo and Salaz were "buzzed" I had talked to two women who described almost an identical UFO. And it remains "unknown" to this day.

In Levelland, the two men's story would have been enough to keep Sheriff Clem busy for the rest of the night but between the hours of 8:15P.M. and midnight on the 2nd the "Levelland Thing" struck five more times.

James D. Long, a Waco truck driver, came upon "it" four miles west of Levelland and fainted as it roared over his truck. Ronald Martin, another truck driver, was stopped east of Levelland, as was Newell Wright, a Texas Tech student. Jim Wheeler, Jose Alvarez and Frank Williams added their stories to the melee.

All of those who had been attacked told Sheriff Clem a similar story: "The 'Thing' was shaped something like an egg standing on end. It was fiery red, more like a red neon light. It was about 200 feet long and was about 200 feet in the air. When it came close to cars the engines would stop and the lights would go out."

"Everyone," Sheriff Clem said, "seemed very excited."

That night everyone in West Texas saw UFO's. Sheriff Clem saw a brilliant light in the distance. Highway patrolmen Lee Hargrove and Floyd Cavin reported similar brilliant lights at the same time but from a different location. The control tower operators at the Amarillo Airport, to the north, saw a "blue, gaseous object which moved swiftly and left an amber trail."

There were dozens more. It was a memorable Saturday night in Levelland.

Google map of this location.