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Levelland, 1957: The Night the Cars Stalled One After Another

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During the night of November 2–3, 1957, within a few hours, several car and truck drivers near Levelland, Texas, reported that their engines stalled and their lights went out near a glowing, egg-shaped object. The Air Force attributed the case to ball lightning. According to critics, there was not even a thunderstorm nearby that night.

When: November 2, 1957
Where: United States
Witnesses: Car and truck drivers on the roads around town, Sheriff Weir Clem and one of his deputies, Fire Chief Ray Jones.
Official position: The Air Force's UFO investigation program, Project Blue Book, classified the phenomenon as ball lightning or St. Elmo's fire, which it said was caused by the stormy weather. It attributed the vehicle malfunctions to wet electrical circuits.

A Small Town in West Texas

In 1957, Levelland was a town of roughly ten thousand people in the western part of Texas, about 50 kilometers west of Lubbock. As the seat of Hockley County, it served the surrounding farms and highways.

Four weeks earlier, on October 4, the Soviet Union had put the first satellite, Sputnik 1, into orbit. On the same weekend that strange things happened in Levelland, Sputnik 2 was also launched, with the dog Laika on board.

The First Call

Late in the evening of November 2, truck driver Pedro Saucedo and his passenger, Joe Salaz, called the Levelland police. They said that about 6 kilometers west of town, a blue-lit, torpedo- or rocket-shaped object had risen from a nearby field and passed low over their truck with a thunder-like sound. According to Saucedo, the engine stalled and the lights went out in the meantime. When the object disappeared, the lights came back on and he was able to start the engine.

The officer on duty, A. J. Fowler, at first thought the call was a prank. Over the course of the night, however, according to the sources, about 15 similar reports came in to him.

One Witness After Another

Over the following hours, reports arrived from the west, north and east sides of town:

Jim Wheeler saw a glowing, egg-shaped object about 60 meters long on the road. His car stalled and only started again when the object rose and flew away.
A married couple northeast of town saw a bright flash of light sweep across the sky. Their headlights went out for a few seconds and their radio went silent.
José Alvarez saw a glowing object about 18 kilometers north of town, and his car also stalled until the object left.
Newell Wright, a student at Texas Technological College, was about 16 kilometers from town after midnight, around 12:05 a.m. His car's lights went out and the engine stalled. When he got out to see what was wrong, he saw a bluish-green, flat-bottomed, oval, luminous object on the road. He watched it for four to five minutes, then the object rose vertically and disappeared. The car worked flawlessly afterward.
Frank Williams saw a pulsating, glowing, egg-shaped object on the road or just above it. His lights and engine did not work until the object rose.
Ronald Martin's truck stalled around 12:45 a.m. A round, glowing object descended in front of him, and its color changed from orange to bluish-green, then back to orange, before it rose.
James Long saw an elliptical object on the road ahead of him around 1:15 a.m. When he got closer, his truck stalled, and the object took off vertically with a thunder-like sound.

The Sheriff Goes Out Too

Because of the many reports, Weir Clem, the sheriff of Hockley County, went out on the roads himself with one of his deputies. Around 1:30 a.m. they saw a large, oval, red light. Their car did not malfunction.

Fire Chief Ray Jones saw a streak of light north of town, and at the same time his headlights dimmed and his engine nearly stalled.

By dawn, the reports had stopped.

National News

Within a few hours, the case became national news. CBS Radio's November 3 newscast, citing Sheriff Clem, reported an egg-shaped object about 60 meters long that turned off lights and engines when it came near them. The next day the Washington Post, and on November 18 Time magazine, also wrote about the case.

The Air Force Sent One Man

A few days later, Project Blue Book, the U.S. Air Force's UFO investigation program, sent a single investigator to Levelland, Staff Sergeant Norman P. Barth. Barth spent about seven hours on site. The Air Force later stated that he had found only three people who had seen the big light up close. The provost marshal of nearby Reese Air Force Base also went to the scene with local authorities.

According to the Air Force statement issued less than two weeks after the incident, the phenomenon was caused by ball lightning or St. Elmo's fire, linked to the stormy weather in the area. According to the Blue Book summary, the main cause of the case was a severe electrical storm that stirred up public excitement, which led some witnesses to exaggerate their experiences. The vehicle stalls were attributed to wet electrical circuits. The cars were not examined.

What Was the Weather Like?

According to the meteorological data in the Blue Book file, that evening there was overcast, low cloud cover, drizzle or light rain, and thunderstorms had passed through the area not long before. Donald Menzel, the Harvard astronomer and one of the best-known UFO skeptics of the era, accepted the ball lightning explanation, although he acknowledged that it could not be proven, because ball lightning leaves no trace.

Atmospheric physicist James McDonald reinvestigated the case ten years later. According to him, the engines of nine or ten vehicles stalled during the two hours in question, but there was no thunderstorm nearby, and no rain fell that could have wetted the ignition. He also contacted Sheriff Clem and a local journalist, who had themselves looked into the reports that night, and according to them there was neither lightning nor rain. In 1968, before the science committee of the U.S. House of Representatives, McDonald also stated that the case could not be considered explained.

Hynek Changes His Mind

Astronomer J. Allen Hynek, Blue Book's scientific consultant, initially agreed with the Air Force's explanation. He later admitted that he had done so hastily, because at the time he was busy with observing the Soviet satellites. In a later book, he wrote that ball lightning does not stall cars or put out headlights.

Part of a Wave

Levelland was not an isolated case. In the first week of November 1957, a wave of UFO reports swept across the United States, and at least thirty reports came in in which electrical equipment temporarily failed during a UFO sighting. Around Levelland, however, more such reports accumulated within a few hours than anywhere else.

The sober take

What is certain: During the night of November 2–3, 1957, several independent witnesses around Levelland reported a glowing object, and many said that at the same time their vehicle's engine stalled and their lights went out. The reports were recorded by the police. Sheriff Clem himself saw a light, and the case was national news by the next day.

What is disputed: The Air Force investigation was brief. A single investigator interviewed only a fraction of the witnesses in a few hours, and no one examined the cars. The sources differ on the weather: according to the Blue Book file, it was overcast with drizzle, with thunderstorms earlier, while according to McDonald and local eyewitnesses there was no lightning at the time of the sightings.

Strengths and weaknesses of the explanations:

Ball lightning: The stormy period and the luminous, ball-like phenomenon fit it. However, ball lightning is a rare and poorly understood phenomenon, it has not been proven that it could stall a car engine, and many witnesses described not a small ball but a large, egg-shaped object.
Wet ignition: This can happen in drizzle, but it does not explain why the engines restarted precisely when the light disappeared.
Panic and exaggeration: Sputnik fever, police radio traffic and the news may have influenced the witnesses' interpretation. The Air Force also raised this explanation, but it cannot account for the independent, similar reports.

Open question: A detailed analysis of the exact weather data and the police log could still settle today whether there was lightning at the time of the reports. To this day, there is no definitive explanation for the case.