November 4, 1957 — 8mi S of Orogrande, NM
1:10 p.m. James W. Stokes, electronics technician at Holloman AFB, New Mexico, is driving on US Highway 54 about 8 miles south of Orogrande, New Mexico. The car radio fades, and the car slows as if the battery is failing. Stokes notices 6–12 cars ahead of him have also stopped and drivers are out looking at the sky (looking behind him to the northeast), including a Mr. Duncan and Allan D. Baker.
Stokes stops and gets out, sees a pearl-white oval or egg-shaped object about 500 feet wide with a slight purplish tinge heading south at an estimated speed of 1,500–2,000 mph. It is below the elevation angle of the Sacramento Mountains ridgeline, descending from about 5,000 feet above ground level in a shallow dive to about 1,500–2,500 feet altitude as it swerves to pass to the south of Stokes and the other stopped cars. At its closest it is about 2–5 miles away. It then circles around headed west and disappears. The same or another object appears in the northeast (as if the object has completely circled) and performs the same rounded course but passing farther to the south of the parked cars and disappears in the west. Duncan takes a 35mm film of the object.
Stokes notices a wave of heat from the object at closest approach. Later that evening he is sunburned, but it clears up the next day. The Air Force calls it a hoax based on the Levelland sightings. [Eberhart]
Record Card:
Uncensored Air Force Intelligence Report (AF-112):
Sources:
Brad Sparks, Blue Books Unknowns Catalogue, Case 1264, p. 255;
“Egg-Shaped UFO Stalls Cars on Highway,” Alamogordo (N.Mex.) Daily News, November 5, 1957, pp. 1, 6;
“Flying Object Seen On Desert,” Las Vegas (N.Mex) Daily Optic, November 5, 1957, p. 1;
“Engineer Saw Flying Object A.F. Spokesman Believes,” Gallup (N.Mex) Independent, November 7, 1957;
“The New Mexico Story,” APRO Bulletin, November 1957, pp. 1–2;
Terry Clark, “The Day All Roads Led to Alamogordo,” Writers Digest, December 1957. pp. 24-31;
L. J. Lorenzen, “The Stokes Case,” APRO Bulletin, January 1958, pp. 2, 6;
C. Maney and R. Hall, The Challenge of Unidentified Flying Objects, 1961, pp. 73-74;
Richard Hall, The UFO Evidence, p. 169;
A. Schopick, A Study of Secondary Effects, pp. 39–42;
Coral E. Lorenzen, Flying Saucers: The Startling Evidence of the Invasion From Outer Space, 1966, pp. 94-99;
Michael Swords and Robert Powell, UFOs and Government, pp. 256–259;
Kevin Randle, Levelland, 2021, pp. 32–42, 228;
Jerome Clark, The UFO Encyclopedia, 3rd Ed., pp. 377–378;
Jerome Clark, The UFO Encyclopedia, 4th Ed., pp. 421–422;
Lacatski, James T., Colm A. Kelleher, and George Knapp. Inside the U.S. Government Covert UFO Program: Initial Revelations. RTMA, 2023, pp. 43–44;
NICAP, “Stokes Incident”;