NUFORC Sighting 176729

Occurred: 1955-10-07 21:30 Local
Reported: 2023-07-12 16:39 Pacific
Duration: Three or four minutes
No of observers: 4

Location: Near McCamey, TX, USA
Location details: On the river bank of the Pecos river, 15 miles south of McCamey, Texas

Shape: Light

A bright star like overhead in the dark sky.

This occured in 1955 when I was 13 years old. I went on a camping trip with a church group of 10 boys the same age. We had two adult sponsors with us. We were camped on the banks of the Pecos river. We had laid out bedrolls side-by-side on a grassy section which slowly sloped into the river. As boys that age, we were running all over the area chasing each other, laughing etc. About 9:30p, I got tired and laid down on my bedroll. The other boys kept playing. It was dark and in the west Texas desert 15 miles from a small town, there was little light pollution thus the stars were very bright. In the night skies, there are always a sprinkling of stars brighter than the other stars. As I layed there I happened to be staring a one of those stars which was directly above me, stationary. It was completely still in the sky. I stared at it for quite a while. I cannot say how long but I was staring at it while it remained stationary in the sky. As I was looking at it, it suddenly began moving. It did not flash away. It simply began moving. It did not get brighter or less bright. It did not have a trail such as a comet would have. I stopped some of the other boys and showed it to them. They watched for a while but became bored and started playing again. I continued to watch it until it went out of sight beyond the horizon. It took about two minutes for it to go from a stationary position directly above in the sky to disappearing below the horizon. This was before Sputnik or even any public idea about satellites, etc. At this time, there was a small airport in McCamey but only a very few light, fixed wing aircraft.

Posted 2023-07-29