man wearing a Stetson hat and cowboy boots. I soon
found out he was a retired rancher from Lubbock.

On the front page of the paper was an account of a large meteor that
had flashed across New Mexico, west Texas, and Oklahoma the night
before. According to the newspaper account, it was very spectacular
and had startled a good many people in Lubbock. I was interested in
the story because I had seen this meteor. It was a spectacular sight
and I could easily understand how such things could be called UFO's.
My seat partner must have noticed that I was reading the story of the
meteor because he commented that a friend of his, the man who had
brought him to the airport, had seen it. We talked about the meteor.
This led to a discussion of other odd happenings and left a perfect
opening for him to bring up the Lubbock Lights. He asked me if I'd
heard about them. I said that I had heard a few vague stories. I
hoped that this would stave off any detailed accounts of stories I
had been saturated with during the past five days, but it didn't. I
heard all the details all over again.

As he talked on, I settled back in my seat waiting for a certain
thing to happen. Pretty soon it came. The rancher hesitated and the
tone of his voice changed to a half-proud, half-apologetic tone. I'd
heard this transition many times in the past few months; he was going
to tell about the UFO that he had seen. He was going to tell how he
had seen the bluish-green lights. I was wrong; what he said knocked
me out of my boredom.

The same night that the college professors had seen their formation
of lights his wife had seen something. Nobody in Lubbock knew about
the story, not even their friends. He didn't want anyone to think he
and his wife were "crazy." He was telling me only because I was a
stranger. Just after dark his wife had gone outdoors to take some
sheets off the clothesline. He was inside the house reading the
paper. Suddenly his wife had rushed into the house, as he told the
story, "as white as the sheets she was carrying." As close as he
could remember, he said, this was about ten minutes before the
professors made their first sighting. He stopped at this point to
tell me about his wife, she wasn't prone to be "flighty" and she
"never made up tales." This character qualification was also standard
for UFO storytellers. The reason his wife was so upset was that she
had seen a large object glide swiftly and silently over the house.
She sai