"I couldn't begin to say what it was, but to me it wasn't planes," Frazor said.
Since the reported sightings two weeks ago, the 17,000-resident city is having fun with the international publicity. Some high-schoolers made T-shirts depicting a flying saucer beaming up a cow with the messages: "Stephenville: the new Roswell" and "They're here for the milk!" Several stores put new messages on their marquees, including "Aliens welcome."
This week Tarleton State University is even hosting a lecture by a UFO researcher on the US government's secret response to UFOs, based on previously classified documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.
The US Air Force says it has not investigated UFO sightings since 1969 when it ended Project Blue Book, which examined more than 12,600 reported UFO sightings, including 700 that were never explained. That program started a few months after the 1947 crash near Roswell, N.M., of an aircraft the government said was a top-secret weather balloon but others have claimed was an alien spacecraft.
"What we want is the government to admit there are UFOs and what they know about them," Cherry said.
