Have you never heard of the 1973 UFO Sighting in Odessa? There is a good reason why, it was one of the most underreported incidents in UFO history until the early 2000s when many witnesses of the incident came forward with their stories.

According to UFO Insight, a UFO was sighted over a radio tower in south Odessa in the summer of 1973 but went largely unreported until the internet came about.

But there were attempts by the government to keep the incident a secret, which if true is the most confusing part of the story.

One of the witnesses was Stanley Wilson who was napping after a hard day at work with the Texas Department of Transportation. His wife Judy answered a phone call and Stanley's grandmother said "a UFO was headed their way."

The grandmother, Stanley, and Judy all lived in the southern part of Odessa during a year that had the most reports of UFO sightings, though the peak of the year would still be a few months away, it had people all over the country looking to the sky on a regular basis. This means it probably was something the government was doing and didn't want the public to know about.

The Sighting

It was the evening of July 7, 1973, just a little after 6:00 in the evening, Stanley and Judy went outside to see what his grandmother was talking about when they saw a shining silver disc hovering over a radio tower about a mile away from their home.

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The radio tower, shown in the photo above, was for at that time KBZB-AM 920 so Stanley tuned in and heard the DJ say that a UFO was causing static on the radio station. Stanley called the radio station and told the DJ he was watching the UFO he was talking about.

Stanley's friend Jim and his wife came over because they saw the strange craft also, so Stanley and Jim drove closer to the tower and watched the craft for a while until it began ascending and moving west. The two would continue to watch it until the craft disappeared from sight.

Government Cover-Up?

When they arrived home they tuned back into the radio station to hear more of what the DJ had to say about the incident, but when they tuned in, the radio station was not talking about it at all.

He called the DJ and asked what happened, and the DJ said a "government request" was made to no longer speak of the incident on air or the station would lose its broadcasting license.

But the DJ in a later conversation with Stanley did say it was very real because their engineer was put in the hospital because he got so "excited and disturbed" after seeing the craft up close and personal when he went to check on the tower because of the reported static.

The DJ also told Stanley that a news crew from KOSA-TV Channel 7 had captured footage of the craft in the downtown area but had their footage confiscated by the government and was also told the station would be shut down if there was any mention of the incident on air.

After the DJ gave that last piece of information, he claimed he could no longer speak of it, even in private, or he could be in trouble.

This is probably the reason that I never heard of the incident, nor did anyone else in the Permian Basin area, but it is definitely something to look into 50 years later.

History of 920 AM

In 1973, 920 AM was KBZB-AM and became KYXX three years later and was one of the top-rated country radio stations in the Odessa/Midland market from the mid-70s to the early 80s. It was most recently KFLB-AM and used to broadcast the Family Life Radio Network but according to Radio-Locator.com, the station is currently off the air.

 

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