Residents abuzz over reported UFO sightings

Residents abuzz over
reported UFO sightings

STEPHENVILLE, Texas — In this farming community where nightfall usually brings clear, starry skies, residents are abuzz over reported sightings of what many believe is a UFO. Several dozen people — including a pilot, county constable and business owners — insist they have seen a large silent object with bright lights flying low and fast. Some reported seeing fighter jets chasing it. “People wonder what in the world it is because this is the Bible Belt, and everyone is afraid it’s the end of times,” said Steve Allen, a freight company owner and pilot who said the object he saw last week was a mile long and half a mile wide. “It was positively, absolutely nothing from these parts.”

While federal officials insist there’s a logical explanation, locals swear that it was larger, quieter, faster and lower to the ground than an airplane. They also said the object’s lights changed configuration, unlike those of a plane. Fourteen percent of Americans polled last year by The Associated Press and Ipsos say they have seen a UFO. Erath County Constable Lee Roy Gaitan said that he first saw red glowing lights and then white flashing lights moving fast, but that even with binoculars could not see the object to which the lights were attached. “I didn’t see a flying saucer and I don’t know what it was, but it wasn’t an airplane, and I’ve never seen anything like it,” Gaitan said. “I think it must be some kind of military craft — at least I hope it was.”

Missouri mayor charged
in Internet sex sting

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. — A small-town mayor and church pastor was in jail Monday on charges of soliciting sex over the Internet from a police detective posing as a 13-year-old girl. Allen Kauffman, 63, was arrested Friday on four counts of felony enticement of a child in the latest sting orchestrated by a police detective in another southwest Missouri town, Diamond.

Prosecutors alleged in court filings that Kauffman believed he was communicating with a 13-year-old girl from the Joplin area in a Yahoo chat room last November and December. In online messages, Kauffman reportedly asked the girl for sex and for nude pictures and encouraged her to have sex with a girlfriend in front of a Webcam so Kauffman could watch. “He very much believed he was talking to a 13-year-old girl,” Diamond Police Chief Keith Brumfield said.

Israel hints at possible
military strike on Iran

JERUSALEM — Prime Minister Ehud Olmert warned Monday that all options are open when it comes to keeping Iran from obtaining atomic weapons, his clearest sign yet that Israel could use force against a nation considered among its most serious threats. Addressing a closed meeting of the parliament’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, Olmert was quoted as saying that Israel would not accept an Iran armed with nuclear weapons.

Iran has always insisted that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes, and a recent report by U.S. intelligence agencies concluded that Iran suspended its nuclear weapons program in 2003. However, Israel continues to warn that Iran’s goal is to acquire nuclear weapons.

Bomb kills 9 in Pakistan

KARACHI, Pakistan — A bomb planted on a motorbike killed at least nine people and wounded 52 others Monday evening in Pakistan’s largest city, Karachi, officials said. It was not immediately clear who was behind the blast. Islamic militants have been blamed for a growing number of bloody attacks in Pakistan, but violent crime also plagues this volatile city of 15 million people.

The explosives-rigged motorcycle was parked among fruit in an industrial district. “I went to deliver a pot of tea to the fruit vendors then suddenly a huge bang pushed me to the wall and things hit me,” said Abdul Sattar, 24-year-old waiter at a roadside restaurant.

Montana avalanche kills 2

HELENA, Mont. — Rescuers searched Monday through the remnants of a deadly avalanche, unsure whether more back-country skiers were caught up in the slide in northwestern Montana. Sunday’s avalanche tore down trees and left snow 20 to 25 feet deep. Two skiers were killed, and rescuers pursued reports that two others might have been caught.

But by midday Monday, no one had been reported missing. “So far we haven’t found anything,” Flathead County Sheriff Mike Meehan said. “We are waiting to hear of anyone else missing, or exactly what we’ve got.” Dangerous conditions delayed the start of Monday’s search on Fiberglass Hill, a popular area on the other side of the mountain from Whitefish Mountain Resort. Authorities had to blast away an “unsafe snow mass” near the avalanche site, Meehan said.

Associated Press