Three hundred miles northwest of here - as the crow flies - we have recent UFO sightings around Stephenville, Texas. This is the kind of sighting that occurs every few years, one of those where many reputable witnesses all describe an extremely large, silent, flying object in the skies near them.

The modern UFO era began in 1947 with an aerial sighting of a number of silver discs which appeared to be flying in some kind of formation. Soon after, the famous Roswell incident occurred, with debris first announced as coming from an extra terrestrial craft, then said to be a weather balloon.

As a kid of the 1950s, I grew in a culture which produced many movies and TV shows exploring the possibility of creatures from other places, arriving by various means of travel from far, far away. These extraterrestrials were presented as either far progressed beyond humans and desirous of pointing us in a better direction - as in The Day the Earth Stood Still - or as evil invaders seeking to kill or subjugate humans.

The 1960s brought us the promise of human space travel, and with it a new blend of the two types of UFO adventures mentioned previously. Star Trek emerged as the emblem of this new space adventure, and in its voyages to boldly go where no human had gone before, the Enterprise became a UFO to less developed worlds. It gave us a view of how a more advanced culture from another part of the universe might simply want to observe without altering a less developed world.

There are several theories about UFO sightings, ranging from the view that most of them are delusions or misidentifications, to they're secret military aircraft, to they're really extraterrestrials coming to check us out. There can be little doubt that many, many UFO sightings are merely mistakes - people who think they see something other than what is really there. There can also be little doubt that some really are secret military aircraft. It's no coincidence that Area 51 in Nevada is a locale of "sightings," since experimental aircraft have long been flown and tested in Nevada's desert.

Some UFO sightings cannot be written off as delusions, misidentifications, or as military aircraft. Some sightings involve so many good, reliable, professionally trained witnesses - like pilots and police officers - with so many common factors, that they cannot be dismissed.

UFOs have been around a long, long time, and have been recorded in both historical texts and religious texts, as well paintings from long bygone eras. Paintings from centuries ago clearly show UFOs in the air deep in the background of paintings which appear to have nothing to do with UFOs.

Why do UFOs appear in so many pieces of art that predates the aircraft era? Why do so many texts from ancient times seem to talk about UFO activity? Why are there consistently reliable sightings of gigantic and silent UFOs?

I do not know the answers to those questions, but as our X-Files friend, Fox Mulder, told us, "the truth is out there."

Jim Moore is a member of The Lufkin Daily News Board of Contributors. He can be reached at oaktreefm58@juno.com.