STEPHENVILLE, TEXAS — Constable Lee Roy Gaitan saw the brilliant red orbs hovering in the sky and hollered for his family to come out.
It's probably an airplane, said his wife, Wendy, who didn't budge from the couch. Only 8-year-old Ryan went to the front yard.
That's a UFO, the boy said.
Gaitan, a stocky, 44-year-old lawman who has spent 16 years patrolling the Texas scrubland, faced a bit of a dilemma. With an election coming up, he could tell the world of this incredible sight -- and look like an idiot -- or keep his mouth shut.
"People would say, 'Hey, this guy is nuts. He's crazy,' " said Gaitan of his sighting Jan. 8.
In the morning, there were no unusual police reports, leaving him to wonder whether anyone else had seen the lights. But the next day, the Stephenville Empire-Tribune came out with a front-page story: "Possible UFO Sighting -- Four area residents witness mysterious objects."
Soon, scores more said they had seen the same thing. Stephenville, a ranch town 70 miles southwest of Fort Worth, became home to the biggest mass UFO sighting since the 1997 Phoenix Lights, in which thousands of people, including then-Gov. Fife Symington, reported seeing a boomerang-shaped formation in the sky.
With so many reports from so many people pouring in, there was no easy way to dismiss it all as a hoax. A town that had called itself "The Cowboy Capital of the World" now found itself riding an emotional bronco. Things changed.
The night sky above Stephenville is a jet black canvas that seems the perfect backdrop for the sharp white specks of stars and any imaginings of strange glowing lights.
Stephenville, the largest town in Erath County, is in the heart of Texas dairy country, which means lots of open land and few towns to interrupt the flow of grazing.
Cows easily outnumber the 34,000 humans in the county and, in honor of the dairy industry, there is a Holstein statue nicknamed Moo-la in Stephenville's town square.
After football season ends in the winter, life slows. The green fields turn a dreary brown, punctuated by leafless oaks that reach into the endless Texas sky.
It was a cool, clear January night when Steve Allen, 50, and a group of friends were warming themselves around a fire of brush and debris in nearby Selden, just south of Stephenville.
They first saw a set of brilliant white lights heading from the east that looked like they were at the corners of something a mile long and a half-mile wide. The lights were quicker and quieter than anything Allen had ever seen.
