Date:
September 3, 1965
Location: Damon, Texas, United States
Purple
and blue lights were attached to opposite ends of an enormous
object, hovering about 150 feet from witnesses at about
a 100-foot altitude. Object appeared to be triangular
shaped, about 200 feet wide and 40-50 feet thick in the
middle, tapering off toward both ends.
Deputy
sheriffs Bob Goode and Billy McCoy make sketches of the
UFO they saw
while on patrol ('Look' UFO Special 1967).
Source:
FUFOR, U.S. Air Force-Project Blue Book, Donald Keyhoe
'UFOs A New Look'
About
11:00 p.m. on a Friday night, Deputy Sheriff Bob Goode,
50, was driving his patrol car south out of Damon toward
West Columbia on Highway 36. Since he had suffered a bite
on his left index finger earlier that day from a baby
alligator, he had asked Chief Deputy Billy McCoy, 38,
to ride with him in the event the pain flared up and interfered
with his driving. It was a sparkling clear moonlit Texas
night, and Goode rested his arm in the open window of
the door as they drove through the prairie. Suddenly,
McCoy spotted a bright purple light on the horizon to
the southwest which appeared to be about five to six miles
distant. At first they thought it might be something in
the nearby oil fields, perhaps an oil-drilling rig. But
then a blue light, smaller in diameter than the purple
light, emerged from it and moved to the right before stopping.
Both lights remained in this orientation for a while before
beginning to drift upward. This upward floating motion
continued until the objects reached an elevation of 5-10
degrees above the horizon.
Goode
then studied the lights through a pair of binoculars,
but could not make out any additional features. As their
curiosity mounted, the officers began to look for back
roads that might take them closer to the lights. They
stopped again, and this time the lights suddenly swooped
toward them, covering the intervening distance in 1-2
seconds, abruptly stopping practically overhead. Their
patrol car and the surrounding terrain were brightly illuminated
in purple light. They could now see that the purple and
blue lights were attached to opposite ends of an enormous
object, hovering about 150 feet from them at about a 100-foot
altitude.
In
his later statement to the Air Force, McCoy described
what he saw:
"The
bulk of the object was plainly visible at this time and
appeared to be triangular shaped with a bright purple
light on the left end and the smaller, less bright, blue
light on the right end. The bulk of the object appeared
to be dark gray in color with no other distinguishing
features. It appeared to be about 200 feet wide and 40-50
feet thick in the middle, tapering off toward both ends.
There was no noise or any trail. The bright purple light
illuminated the ground directly underneath it and the
area in front of it, including the highway and the interior
of our patrol car. The tall grass under the object did
not appear to be disturbed. There was a bright moon out
and it cast a shadow of the object on the ground immediately
below it in the grass."
To
both men, the object seemed to be "as big as a
football field." Goode could feel strong heat
emanating from the object onto his left arm, through his
shirt-sleeve.
After
a few seconds, with the strange object hovering almost
directly overhead, they fled the scene and headed toward
Damon "as fast as we could go," making speeds
of up to 110 miles per hour. McCoy kept watching the object
out the rear window of the car. For 10 to 15 seconds,
the UFO continued to hover above the pasture. Then it
abruptly shot back in the direction from which it had
come. "After arriving at approximately its original
position," McCoy reported, "it went straight
up in the air and disappeared at 25-30 degrees above the
horizon."
Back
at Damon, the shaken officers calmed themselves, and then
decided to go back and investigate again. This time they
drove down the Damon-West Columbia road, but saw nothing.
Finally, they returned to the area where they had first
seen the lights, and once again, spied the purple light
on the horizon, and again saw the smaller blue light emerge
with a strange two-step motion and float upward. Fearing
another close encounter, they again fled the area.
Goode
and McCoy continued on their shift until three or four
in the morning, then stopped for breakfast at a cafe.
Goode noted that his alligator bite was no longer sore,
and when he unwrapped the bandage, he discovered that
the swelling had gone down and that the wound was nearly
healed. Next day, the wound showed virtually no scarring.
The
deputies reported the sighting to Ellington Air Force
Base, and Major Laurence Leach, Jr., arrived on September
8, 1965, to interview McCoy and Goode and take a statement.
Leach's report to Project Blue Book headquarters at Wright-Patterson
Air Force Base reflected his puzzlement. "There
is no doubt in my mind," he said, "that
they definitely saw some unusual object or phenomenon....Both
officers appeared to be intelligent, mature, level-headed
persons capable of sound judgment and reasoning."
(Air
Force unidentified case, Project Blue Book files, National
Archives. For more detailed information, see Donald E.
Keyhoe and Gordon I.R. Lore, Jr., UFOs: A New Look, NICAP,
Washington, D.C., 1969, pp. 7-8; McCoy statement, Brazoria
County Sheriff's Department, Sept. 8, 1965; "Ellington
[AFB] Probes UFO Seen by Local Deputies," Brazosport
Facts, Sept. 6, 1965; Rhonda Moran, "The Night of
the UFO," Brazosport Facts, Sept. 13, 1995.)
Source:
http://www.ufoevidence.org/cases/case38.htm