Soon, scores more said they had seen the same thing. Stephenville, a ranch town 70 miles southwest of Fort Worth, became home to the biggest mass UFO sighting since the 1997 Lights Over Phoenix, in which thousands of people, including then Gov. Fife Symington reported seeing a boomerang-shaped object in the sky.
With so many reports from so many people pouring in, there was no easy way to dismiss it all as a hoax. A town that had called itself "The Cowboy Capital of the World" now found itself riding an emotional bronco.