Encounter with an alien in Oklahoma

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23 March 1966, Temple, Oklahoma. Encounter with an alien in Oklahoma

At about 5.30 on the afternoon of 23 March 1966, fifty-six-year-old electronics engineer William "Eddie" Laxton was driving alone on an isolated section of Highway 70 near the Oklahoma-Texas to his place of work. The Sheppard Air Force Base near Witchita Falls, Texas, where he taught electronics. Suddenly a massive – 75-foot (22-m) long and 8-foot (25-m) high - "fish-shaped" object appeared directly in front of him. Jamming on his brakes, his car finally came to a stop about 50 yards (45m) from the object, which was now lying across the road at a 45-degree angle.

There we four very brilliant lights on my side, bright enough so that a man could read a newspaper by the light a mile away.
Eddie Lexton said later that:

He also recalled that it appeared to be illuminated inside and had "a plastic bubble in front which was about three feet in diameter, and you could see light through it." With his technician's eye – and what his friends call a "phenomenal memory", he noted that the object had a tail with stabilizers that were about 2 feet (750 cm) long.

The UFO, Eddie noted, bore recognizably terrestrial black letters and numbers in a vertical line on its side, which read either: TL4768 or TL4168. It also had a single porthole about 2 feet (600 cm) wide, which was split into four, and a small open doorway underneath about 4 foot (1.3m) high and 2 foot (750 cm) wide, which was emitting white light, The occupant, however, was busy outside the craft, using something like a flashlight to examine the underside. When he became aware of Eddie getting out of his car, the entity turned and retreated up a metal ladder into the craft.

I'm sure it was aluminum. When the door snapped shut, it sounded like when a door closes.
Eddi said later:

(This is reminiscent of officer Lonnie Zamora's observation of the sound like a "car door closing".)

The being was, apparently, human-like, being about 5 foot 9 inches (1.7 m) tall, weighing an estimated 180 (81 kg) pounds, with a "light complexion". Eddie recalled that he "got the impression due to his stooped shoulders he was about thirty to thirty-five years old. He wore either coveralls or a two-piece suit that looked like green-colored fatigues". I got the idea that he had three stripes above and three below [on his sleeve]. The above stripes were in an arch and the below stripes were in a wide V shape." Eddie also reported that the "man" wore a "mechanic's cap" with the peak turned up.

Almost immediately "the craft started up... it sounded like a high-speed drill. It lifted off the ground about fifty feet [15m] high and headed toward the Red River. In about five seconds it was a mile [1.6 km] away."

23 March 1966, Temple, Oklahoma. Encounter with an alien in Oklahoma

As the UFO rose into the air, Eddie admitted, "The hair on the back of my hands and neck stod up" - although whether this was through fear, awe, or some physiological reaction to an electrostatic field, is unknown.

Wound up by the experience, the witness climbed back in his car and drove on until he came to a massive tanker truck parked by the roadside and talked to the driver, C.W. Anderson, who said he, too, had seen something apparently keeping pace with him that had eventually flown off towards the Red River. But Mr. Anderson was not the only witness to the UFO that night. Later, after the story came out in the local newspapers, several other truckers went on record as having seen similar UFOs along that particular stretch of road – but a few months previously.

A man of integrity, Eddie reported his experience to the Air Force, and as a result, as he said, "a colonel and other officers wanted to see the spot where the object had been". I went out with them and showed them the place. They asked me a lot of questions while their men searched the place with all kinds of instruments. They seemed to know just what they were doing."

He looked just like you or me. If I met him tomorrow in a bar, I would know him instantly.
Later Eddie said of the "alien" he had encountered:

Clearly, this was no towering Venusian or spindly Gray, but someone wearing prosaic overalls and a workman's cap – almost disappointingly human-like. But was he human? Was he tinkering with some kind of secret terrestrial craft? If so, why did the Air Force personnel not swear Eddie to secrecy or put pressure on him not to go public with his story? Interestingly, it seems that the authorities were almost as perplexed as he was.

Conspiracy theorists may become excited by the Air Force's interest in the UFO – does it reveal a covert agenda of some sort? - but considering that an unknown craft had apparently come and gone as it pleased within the United States air space, surely it would have been curious, not to say alarming, if they hadn't shown an interest.