Long before UFO podcasts, Pentagon hearings and viral TikTok conspiracy theories, Texans were already reporting glowing objects over highways, military bases and oil fields, and the federal government was quietly documenting it all.
Newly released UFO files include decades of Texas sightings tied to Fort Worth, Houston, Dallas, Levelland and military installations across the state. The records, released Friday by the Department of War, span from the late 1940s through incidents documented as recently as 2026.
The documents range from Air Force intelligence reports to handwritten letters sent to the FBI, revealing how deeply Texas became tied to the government’s UFO investigations.
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The Fort Worth sighting that stunned investigators
One of the most striking Texas reports came from Fort Worth in 1949.
According to an April 14, 1949 report from Carswell Air Force Base, 1st Lt. Robert A. Francis spotted an unidentified object over Fort Worth and called it to the attention of Capt. Stanley Borowski while the two officers stood near their aircraft on the flight line.
The report described the object as “round and in the shape of a ball, very silver in color.” Officers estimated it was traveling at “over 1000 miles per hour” before suddenly disappearing within seconds.
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“It did not appear to burn out, but suddenly disappeared,” the report states. “The object definitely did not appear to be a jet or meteor.”
An unresolved UAP documented by the U.S. Army over North America in 2026.
U.S. Department of Defense
Elsewhere in the files, Texas repeatedly appears in reports tied to military intelligence channels, including references involving Fort Hood, Brooks Field in San Antonio and FBI communications routed through Houston.
One report also involved Lt. Arch Fulson, whose address was listed as Fort Worth, Texas, though the sighting itself occurred near Fairbanks, Alaska.
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The object was described as silver, round and flat while rapidly oscillating and changing direction.
Flying saucer hysteria sweeps Texas
The files also reveal how quickly UFO hysteria spread across Texas during the original flying saucer craze of 1947.
A lengthy 1947 correspondence sent from San Marcos included claims about a device that could “conceivably catapult a disc,” along with rambling references to “Texas flying fire” and strange activity in Texas City during the early flying-saucer panic.
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The telegram stated that “possible leakage of information has resulted my device or variation there from could conceivably catapult a disc and in silence for several miles.”
A newspaper clipping included in the newly released UFO files bears the headline “Mysterious Sky Objects Move Texans in Dither” during the early flying saucer wave of the late 1940s.
U.S. Department of Defense
One of the most famous Texas UFO incidents also appears throughout the files: the 1957 Levelland sightings.
According to archived newspaper clippings and FBI materials, multiple drivers near Levelland reported encountering a glowing egg-shaped object hovering over roads late at night. Several witnesses claimed their vehicle engines stalled as the object approached before restarting once it disappeared.
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Another newspaper clipping included in the archive declared that “mysterious sky objects have Texans in dither.”
The files also include a 1948 report out of Memphis, Texas, where rural residents described cigar-shaped objects falling from the sky. Witnesses claimed one object caught fire after landing, while another man reportedly recovered a four-foot strip of material resembling tin and aluminum.
“It was big enough to carry a man, and I got the feeling that it did,” one witness recalled, according to the archived report.
Another report from Memphis described witnesses seeing “50 or 60 shiny objects” moving “faster than any aircraft witness had ever seen.”
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Houston mission control and the Gemini “bogey”
The newly released material also includes reports tied to Houston and the Gulf Coast.
One document references radar sightings and unexplained aerial objects tracked over the Gulf of Mexico for roughly 27 minutes.
A newspaper clipping included in the newly released UFO files reports sightings of a mysterious object over the Gulf during the early flying saucer era.
U.S. Department of Defense
Another file contains what may be the most cinematic moment in the archive: a Gemini-era NASA transcript involving Houston mission control.
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The document, labeled “P.A.O. RELEASE COMMENTARY OF THE GT-7/6 FLIGHT,” captures astronauts describing an unidentified object while communicating with Houston during the Gemini program.
At one point, an astronaut tells mission control, “We have a bogey at ten o’clock high.” Houston responds by asking, “Is that the booster or is that a natural sighting?” The astronauts answer, “This is an actual sighting.”
The transcript later describes “hundreds of little particles” floating nearby, while another astronaut called it “a brilliant body in the sun against a black background with trillions of particles on it.”
Archival imagery from the Apollo 17 mission shows three unexplained lights above the lunar surface in an enlarged section highlighted in yellow.
U.S. Department of Defense
The files also include a 1967 FBI memo documenting a visit from an anonymous woman to the Dallas FBI office. According to the memo, the woman claimed she had met “a being from another planet” earlier that year and had since received messages from “non-earthly sources.”
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Another 1967 memo included a lengthy letter sent from Harlingen, Texas, by W.R. Hanawalt, who described what he called “laser ray, or cobalt ray” technology capable of manipulating people’s senses and thoughts. In the letter, Hanawalt also claimed he had seen unidentified flying objects during combat missions in 1945.
“I saw unidentified flying objects in 1945 on combat missions,” the letter states. “They were not the enemy.”