8 November 1957
(The Amarillo Globe-Times, Texas)
Source: NICAP.org
Quote from the article:
“Some viewers said it was a ‘bright, white light.’
Others said it was red, blue and green at times.
The light spotted in Texas Thursday night (7 November
1957) appeared in areas generally to the west of Brownsville, San Antonio,
Waco, Brownwood, Paris—and Amarillo.
Bright, flashing objects hovered for
half an hour over Pantex Atomic Energy Commission ordnance plant, 15 miles east of Amarillo,
Thursday night, according to plant guards.
The brilliant objects were reported
to the State Highway Patrol office by plant guards at 7:46 p.m. A patrolman
dispatched to the plant arrived at 8:15 p.m. and reported that he, too, saw ‘a
strange light.’
‘When I got there,’ the patrolman
said, ‘the guards said one of the objects had landed on Farm Road 2373, three
miles north of Highway 60. We drove to the area but nothing was there. But I’m
convinced that the guards saw something land.’
The patrolman said guards told him
they had tried to slip up on the objects by turning off their lights ‘but the
things would just slip away from them when they got near.’
Guards were unable to estimate size
of the objects. The patrolman also said the guards seem positive ‘they saw more
than just lights—that objects were in the sky.’ ”
Wikipedia article: “Pantex Plant”:
Quote from the Wikipedia article:
“The Pantex Plant is the primary United States nuclear
weapons assembly and disassembly facility that aims to maintain the safety,
security and reliability of the nation’s nuclear weapons stockpile.[1][2] The
facility is located on a 16,000
acre (65 km2) site 17 miles (27 km ) northeast of Amarillo,
in Carson County, Texas in the Panhandle of Texas. The plant is managed and
operated for the United States Department of Energy by Consolidated Nuclear
Security and Sandia National Laboratories. Consolidated Nuclear Security, LLC
(CNS) is composed of member companies Bechtel National, Inc., Leidos, Inc.,
Orbital ATK, Inc, and SOC LLC, with Booz Allen Hamilton, Inc. as a teaming
subcontractor.[3] CNS also operates the Y-12 National Security Complex.[3]
As a major national security site, the plant and its
grounds are strictly controlled and off-limits to all civilians, and the
airspace above and around the plant is prohibited to civilian air traffic by
the FAA (Federal
Aviation Administration) as Prohibited Area P-47.
History
The Pantex Plant was originally constructed as a
conventional bomb plant for the United States Army Air Force during the early
days of World War II. The Pantex Ordnance Plant was authorized February 24,
1942. Construction was completed on November 15, 1942 and workers from all over
the U.S. flocked to Amarillo for jobs.
Pantex was abruptly deactivated when the war ended and
remained vacant until 1949, when Texas Technological College in Lubbock (now
Texas Tech University) purchased the site for $1.[4] Texas Tech used the land
for experimental cattle-feeding operations.
In 1951, at the request of the Atomic Energy Commission
(now the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA)), the Army exercised a
recapture clause in the sale contract and reclaimed the main plant and 10,000 acres (40 km2)
of surrounding land for use as a nuclear weapons production facility. The Atomic
Energy Commission refurbished and expanded the plant at a cost of $25 million.
The remaining 6,000
acres (24 km2) of the original site were leased from
Texas Tech in 1989.
The Pantex Plant was operated by Procter & Gamble
from 1951 to 1956, Mason & Hanger from 1956 to 2001, and Babcock &
Wilcox from 2001 to 2014.[5]
The plant employed about 3,600 people in 2010 and had
a budget of $600 million for fiscal year 2010.[6]”
Related posts:
(wikimedia.org photo)
(tageo.com photo)
