ARTESIA WELLS Strange things are afoot in the South Texas oil patch and in the sky above. In a region that's seen its tax rolls and traffic problems swell from the scores of new residents, could extraterrestrials be the next wave?
Roughnecks working at a fracturing well in the Eagle Ford Shale drilling region say they saw unidentified lights in the night sky on consecutive days in October and captured blurry video of at least one of them.
Three months earlier, a security camera captured a blurry, black-and-white image of what appears to be a flying saucer hovering ominously at another well site.
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The cellphone video, taken by worker Xavier Garza, shows a reddish-orange orb in the northern sky. Roughnecks can be heard off-camera cursing as they are wont to do in amazement.
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And last week, a photo surfaced on the website of the Mutual UFO (Unidentified Flying Object) Network, a volunteer group that investigates UFO claims, purportedly taken at a well site in the same stretch of the Eagle Ford.
Allegedly taken from a security camera, it appears to show a large saucer-like object, with an array of four lights, hovering over the caliche pad of a La Salle County well site. Other odd orbs can be seen in the background.
That photo, with a July 5 time stamp, already has passed two authenticity tests, says Charles Stansburge, a veteran MUFON investigator.
If it's a prank, Stansburge said, someone spent a lot of money to stage it. It's not a doctored photo. It's a 60-foot-diameter saucer that's hovering.
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