by Charles Lear, author of “The Flying Saucer Investigators.”
In 1965, two Brazoria County, Texas, law enforcement officers, Chief Deputy Sheriff Billy E. McCoy and Deputy Sheriff Robert W. Goode, gave a report describing an encounter with a UFO to a major at a nearby Air Force base, and their case is included in the Project Blue Book files. While their report has some strange elements in it, what didn’t make it into the case file is even stranger.
According to McCoy in his written statement, at around 11:00 p.m. on Friday September 3, 1965, he and Goode were driving south from Damon to West Columbia, Texas, on Highway 36. When they were about 3 miles south of Damon, McCoy saw a stationary, bright purple light on the horizon to the southwest 5 to 6 miles away. A smaller, blue light came out of the purple light and moved to the right, stopping twice before becoming stationary as well. Then, both lights moved upward until they were 5º to 10º above the horizon. The men were unable to make out any details besides the lights from their position.
They turned around and headed back toward Damon to look for a back road that could get them closer to the lights. As they drove, Goode looked at the lights through binoculars. They travelled for about 3/4 of a mile and then pulled over to the edge of the road and slowed to almost a stop. Goode was looking through the binoculars through his open window as the lights moved towards them “at a rapid speed.”
What is at this point described as an object, came up and stopped over a pasture next to the highway. It was 150 feet away and 100 feet high. It was triangular shaped, with the purple light on its left side and the blue light on its right. It was dull gray with no distinguishing features, 200 feet wide, 40 to 50 feet in the middle and tapered down at both ends. There was no noise, and the purple light lit up the ground beneath it, the sign in front of it, the highway, and the inside of the patrol car. The moon was bright, and the object cast a shadow on the grass below. Goode, who was in the driver’s seat with his arm resting on the open window, later said he felt heat through his long sleeve and coat that seemed to be coming from the object.
According to McCoy, “We immediately put the car in motion and headed toward Damon as fast as we could go.” As they hit speeds of 110 mph, McCoy continued watching the object through the back window. It stayed in its position for about 10 seconds and then moved “at a very high speed” back to where it was when they first saw it. It then “went straight up in the air and disappeared at 25º to 30º above the horizon.”
When they were back in Damon, they drove along slowly and discussed what they had seen. Even though they were scared, they decided to go back and look for the object because they wanted to find out what it was.
They took “the old Damon-West Columbia road” which would put them closer to the object’s original position. They drove the length of the road and didn’t see the object. They turned off and headed back to Damon on Highway 36. When they got to where they were when they first saw the lights, they, again, saw the purple light. The blue light came out of it and acted just as it did before, and they decided to leave because “we figured the object would start coming towards us again.”
They went to West Columbia and told City Judge Jim Scott what they had seen. Scott went to the area with his family, stayed there for an hour and a half, and left without seeing anything.
Major Laurence R. Leach, Jr., who took the report at Ellington AFB, wrote this in his report under “Conclusions:”
After talking with the officers involved in the sighting there is no doubt in my mind that they definitely saw some unusual object or phenomenon. However, my investigation failed to uncover any facts that permitted me, with my meager knowledge of such things, to arrive at any explanation for the unusual sighting. Both officers appeared to be intelligent, mature, level-headed persons capable of sound judgement and reasoning. Chief Deputy Sheriff McCoy holds a responsible position in the department requiring the supervision of over 42 personnel. Both officers have been subjected to considerable friendly ridicule from their contemporaries and the local townspeople but have continued to profess the facts of their sighting. Furthermore, the sighting has stirred up considerable interest in the local newspapers, radio, and television causing them considerable embarrassment and inconvenience.
The conclusion on the Project Blue Book Record Card is, “Unidentified.”Damon Project Card
McCoy told his story 30 years later during an interview with Colleen Kenyon for the Brazoria County Historical Museum Oral History Collection, and Rhonda Moran wrote an article about McCoy’s interview and what he and Goode said they experienced that night and afterwards in an article headlined “The Night of the UFO,” published in the September 13, 1995 Brazosport Facts.
Goode told his side of the story, and it turns out that an incident with a baby alligator was the reason he and McCoy were patrolling together that night. Goode had brought the creature home to show his kids and wound up getting bit when he went to pick it up by its tail while releasing it into the wild. According to him, “It nearly took my finger off.”
He bandaged his left index finger and headed for a football game he was scheduled to work that night before going on patrol. He didn’t seek medical attention because, according to him, “There wasn’t but one doctor in town, and he was going to be at that game.” When it was time to go on patrol, he asked McCoy to come with him because he was worried that his finger might start hurting enough to affect his driving.
Moran continues the story from McCoy’s interview with Kenyon, and it’s similar to the version in his statement. He adds the detail that there was a lot of excitement in the car during the incident, “quite a bit of hollering and yelling … uh, there was some words that probably shouldn’t be repeated on this tape.” He also describes that the object moved from where they originally saw it to its position over the pasture “in just the blink of an eye.”
McCoy describes them having scrambled eggs and coffee at 3 or 4 in the morning and him saying to Goode, “Well, Bob, you know, one good thing about this. It made you forget about your finger hurting.” Goode realized that his finger wasn’t sore and he took the bandage off. According to McCoy, “The finger looked like it was almost healed – instantly. The next day you couldn’t hardly see the scars on his finger.”
Moran wrote a companion piece headlined “Odd Looking Visitors Leave Deputies Wondering” that was printed just above the other article. It tells of what happened two days after the sighting, after it was reported to the Air Force but before it was reported to the media. According to McCoy on tape, two men came to the Brazoria County Courthouse looking for him and Goode. McCoy was off that day, and the dispatcher called Goode, who met the men at the Twin Oaks Café in West Columbia.
According to McCoy, “Bob said they were two small men wearing dark suits, little derby hats and they introduced themselves as being reporters from Pasadena, but they didn’t give a business card and Bob said he didn’t remember what they said their names were.” They described the sighting to Goode and told him that if he and McCoy hadn’t been afraid and had stopped, the craft would have landed, and they would have been invited to take a ride. According to McCoy, the men said that he and Goode would have been “shown things that humans could only imagine, and we would have been brought back and released unharmed but that we couldn’t have told anyone about it.” If they did tell anyone about it, “they would have returned and made jabbering idiots out of us.”
According to McCoy, Goode called that night worried because they had reported their sighting to the Air Force. McCoy said he told Goode, “Well, Bob, we don’t have anything to worry about, cause we didn’t stop. We didn’t go for a ride on it and some people might say we’re jabbering idiots anyway.”