Third Texas officer comes forward on UFO sightings

A third peace officer in the Erath County, Texas, area has gone on the record publicly.

In the early morning hours of Jan. 31, he saw something very unusual from his bedroom window.

In a Feb. 28 report, Stephenville journalist and radio station news director Angelia Joiner writes on the new Web site StephenvilleLights.com that Mike Zimmerman saw something in the sky that he cannot explain.

Zimmerman, 62, is a veteran officer of 25 years with the Texas Department of Public Safety. He served on the protective detail for five Texas governors over a period of 19 years, including former governor George W. Bush.

Now retired from the DPS, Zimmerman works as an officer at nearby Tarleton State University, Joiner reported on StephenvilleLights.com.

WAKE UP CALL

At about 6 a.m. on Jan. 31, Zimmerman saw from his bedroom window, in generally an eastern or southeasterly direction, something he had never seen before.

In Joiner's report, Zimmerman is quoted as saying, "I saw three bright lights. Two white lights were grouped closer together and higher and the third one was closer to the horizon. That one was a was a reddish orange color."

Zimmerman showed Joiner a sketch and notes he had made. In her article, she wrote that "the two white lights were shooting out beams of white light in a pulsating strobe light effect. The reddish orange light closer to the horizon did not have beams shooting from it."

Joiner quoted Zimmerman as saying, "At first I thought it might be three helicopters with really bright search lights until I noticed the beams of white lights shooting out to the side of the bright lights."

Zimmerman woke up his fiancé and they both continued to watch for approximately three minutes, he said. "What I saw is completely different from what Lee Roy (Gaitan) saw," Zimmerman told Joiner.

Zimmerman said, "The beams from the side weren't as obvious as the bright big lights and they were just real quick. The whole beam would just shoot out there and just disappear. If anyone had taken a picture with a timed exposure they would have caught all of them (shooting beams) at one time. It was strange. I have never seen anything like this before at all."

Suddenly, as the sun was starting to rise, the lights seemed to disappear, Zimmerman stated.

He told Joiner, "I hope it's military. I know they've got things. I could go either way (opinion of military or alien) but it was out of the ordinary and I have never seen anything like it before."

Zimmerman said that at the time of his sighting, he had wondered if the shooting beams he was seeing had something to do with nearby Army Fort Hood. "That's the first thought I had, but that's a long way off and it appeared to be closer than that," stated Zimmerman.

Other witnesses who claimed to have observed military jets chasing UFOs in the region thought that the aircraft could be from Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base Fort Worth (NAS JRB Fort Worth) or the adjoining Carswell Field, used by defense contractors.

HONEST OFFICERS

Zimmerman follows two other local peace officers in coming forward about what they have witnessed.

First, Erath County Constable Lee Roy Gaitan was one of dozens of people who reported very unusual lights and solid objects over the Stephenville and Erath County region in early and mid-January.

Gaitan and other local citizens spoke to representatives of the local, national and international media who covered the Stephenville UFO sightings.

By mid-February, Gaitan was reporting that several other local law enforcement and public safety officers had seen the same kinds of strange things in the sky there.

He indicated that some of this activity in the sky was caught on patrol car dash-mounted video cameras.

Gaitan also indicated that additional local officers were hesitant about going on the record publicly about what they had witnessed. Whether officers filed official police reports about what they have seen is unclear.

By late February, another local officer was stepping forward. In a Feb. 22 report by Joiner on StephenvilleLights.com, Erath County Sheriff's Department Sgt. Jim Clifton said that he, too, had seen very strange lights doing unusual things in the night sky.

(See Feb. 24 article "Texas deputy says UFO caught on patrol car video" and Feb. 13 article "Texas peace officers describe UFOs; firefighters also have role".)

Clifton told Joiner that he and Gaitan had responded to an alarm at a local restaurant on Feb. 2. After responding to the scene, they also observed an unusual object in the sky.

By looking through a patrol car "dash cam" and using the zoom feature, Clifton told Joiner, "What it looked like is difficult to describe because there is nothing to compare it to."

Clifton said the object was a transparent or translucent appearance, Joiner reported. He also noted that the object had "a fog or vapor or cloud around it" and he saw red, white and blue colors.

Now, Zimmerman joins Gaitan and Clifton as officers who feel comfortable in honestly reporting publicly what they have seen.

Will other officers, and citizens, now feel that they can safely step forward without risking their jobs and credibility?

The straightforward statements by Gaitan, Clifton and Zimmerman should give other people confidence about honestly informing the public, even in unusual, sensitive and complex circumstances.

NOTE TO READERS: Readers interested in responses of peace officers and public safety personnel to unusual circumstances may also want to read the Jan. 28 piece: "Special research team targets emerging phenomena". By clicking the link in the author background box at top right, readers can see Hammons' many articles on unconventional and conventional topics. Hammons is a former newspaper reporter in the San Diego area. He covered public health and safety, the "police beat," U.S. Navy and Marine Corps topics, Pacific Ocean and beach area stories and other subjects. He held press credentials from the U.S. Navy in San Diego and the San Diego Police Department. In a previous position, Hammons carried a badge as a California county peace officer in the field of juvenile probation. He also worked closely with local public safety personnel as an urgent reponse specialist covering the Phoenix, Arizona, region. Hammons studied communications and journalism at Ohio University, Athens, Ohio, home of the prestigious Scripps College of Communications and E.W. Scripps School of Journalism, recognized as two of the top such programs in the United States. Please visit his Joint Recon Study Group blog.