As UFOs 'Arrive' In News, See Latest Texas Sightings

AUSTIN, TX — By all accounts, there's not much to do in the East Texas town of Larue in Henderson County — a little unincorporated community in Henderson County with a population of some 200 people. And yet, a recent UFO sighting there is the latest entry into official annals of close encounters with unknown (perhaps extraterrestial?) aircraft in the Lone Star State.

The June 13 sighting is described as a bright orange, rectangular light in the southeastern sky near New York, Texas, that hung in the air for a full five minutes. The report from the humid expanse of East Texas was seemingly credible enough to make it onto the National UFO Reporting Center, and yes, that is a thing that exists.

The Larue listing is just the latest in a steady stream of reports of UFO sightings in the database. Patch was prompted to visit these real-life X Files after this week's news that a group of U.S. senators — including the vice chair of the Senate Intelligence committee — received a classified briefing Wednesday related to a string of U.S. Navy encounters with unidentified aircraft, as CNN and numerous other media outlets reported. The UFO sightings briefing was first reported by Politico.

Which brings us back to Texas. According to the National UFO Reporting Center, the U.S. Navy ain't got nothing on Texas, where just shy of 5,000 UFO sightings have been reported. That makes Texas the fourth in terms of sightings among the states after California (13,616 sightings), Florida (6,591) and Washington ( 5,938).

In June alone, there have been 14 sightings in Texas. In recent months, several recent sightings have been added to the database from the capital city of Austin:

• At around 7:30 p.m. on April 27, a triangular-shaped object was reporting hovering in the sky for about 15 minutes. More precisely, the celestial object was described as a "brown, boomerang-shape glided across the sky with no light or sound."
• On April 10, another triangular shape was reported in the sky. This one stuck around for a mere 30 seconds, according to the witness. "I was walking my dogs outside in South Austin around 9:20 p.m.," the eyewitness said, according to filed report. "I caught something in the corner of my eye and was able to identify a triangle."
• On April 4, an anonymously filed sighting described a cigar-shaped craft in the sky: "Bright light split into 2 flying from NE to NW. High above normal aircraft which we observed flying below," the account reads.
• A sphere was reported floating in the Austin sky for some 10 minutes on Feb. 15, more precisely: "Two glowing spheres that changed direction at different times," the witness reported.
• Jan. 20 proved a fruitful day for UFO sightings in Austin. No less than three unidentified objects were reported floating in the capital city heavens, two spheres and a triangle. "This is the second time I have witnessed such a craft hovering generally above my house," the sphere-watcher reported in what could double as a neighborhood complaint.
• One eyewitness was on the road upon encountering a circular-shaped object on Jan. 4. The witness wrote of driving along U.S. 183 before encountering the mysterious circle that hung in the sky for 10 minutes before accelerating. Here's the palpably breathless account as recorded verbatim on the official UFO database: "Driving on rt 183 north west saw very very bright light in circle in night sky was clear sky jan 4 1226 am it was moving in same direction and got very big stopped moving then shot up and gone OMG fast."

And so it goes. Over the past 70 years, more than ten thousand similar reports have been made, according to the National Archives. While many accounts have been easily debunked — as benign weather balloons, oddly shaped cloud formations and even the planet Venus minding its business in its perennial rotation routine.

One easily explained sighting came on Jan. 1 from Bryan, Texas, a town located halfway between Dallas and Houston. It's unknown if the eyewitness was nursing a New Year's Eve hangover, but this is what the person wrote: "Leaving Bryan, Tx about 4 am, I saw this bright light appearing as if hanging from the moon." The database administrator wrote the object described as an oval was a planet (Jupiter maybe?), but somehow the entry stayed in the archives.

And yet other sightings aren't so so readily dismissed. To wit, this from the Central Texas town of Copperas Cove late last year in describing an oval that hovered in the sky for 30 seconds: "The object was still in the sky did not move then disappeared did not fly off or was too fast to see fly off."

All we know in Texas is that the dang truth is out there, dangnabit. We don't know what that truth might be y'all, but it's out there for darn tootin'. Check out the National UFO Reporting Center State Report Index For Texas for yourself by clicking here.