'Project Blue Book' UFO files reveal strange San Antonio sightings from the 1940s-50s

Enlarged image of a bright light seen at Crystal Beach in December. Photo provided by Larry Nash. Enlarged image of a bright light seen at Crystal Beach in December. Photo provided by Larry Nash. Image 1 of / 33 Caption Close 'Project Blue Book' UFO files reveal strange San Antonio sightings from the 1940s-50s 1 / 33 Back to Gallery

With wide open spaces and imaginations the size of the state itself, perhaps it's no wonder Texas is home to such a high number of UFO sightings.

Just last week a Texas oil field worker reported to have escaped an abduction by a horned alien, and recently a construction worker in Crystal Beach said he saw a "giant bubble" in the sky.

Good thing for us that worker grabbed pictures, which you can see above, along with some of the declassified San Antonio UFO sighting reports from the 1940s and 50s.

But those are the modern-day sightings. Thanks to the efforts of John Greenewald, Jr., whose website The Black Vault has cataloged over 1 million declassified goverment documents, we have access to the reports in the once-secret Project Blue Book.

Project Blue Book is the U.S. Air Force program that investigated UFOs from 1947 to 1969. During that time the Air Force logged over 12,000 sightings, of which, according to an Air Force fact sheet on the program, 701 remain "unidentified."

RELATED: Where San Antonians are reporting UFO sightings

The biggest takeaway from the files isn't the records themselves, which are full of strange lights and fast-moving flying objects, but the fact that the federal government spent so much time and went to such great lengths investigating each case.

There are pages and pages of material for some cases, which includes the initial sighting report, a multi-page follow-up questionnaire, drawings and additional observer information and a full investigation by the Air Force into what each object could be by using weather and flight data from area bases.

Someone would've had to collect and gather this data, which means the Air Force employed investigators to go out to people's houses and interview them about their "sighting," then head back to the office to figure out what this thing was or at least provide a semi-plausible explination that is backed by evidence.

UFO investigator for the U.S. Air Force; now that sounds like an awesome job.

While the files are a bit cumbersome to wade through, thanks to pages of faded print and bizarre report formatting, they are completely worth your time if you have any interest whatsoever in the existence of extraterrestrials.

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