Stephenville UFO Updates & What Netflix’s Encounters Leaves Out

While Netflix’s Encounters comes across as extremely thorough, the story leaves out many details and updates that could provide a more complete picture. The four-part docuseries focuses on first-hand accounts of people interacting with aliens and unidentified flying objects (UFOs). Since the Encounters trailer came out, there’s been a lot of buzz about the approach used in the docuseries. Rather than leaning into conspiracy theories, Encounters is grounded in science and realism, providing a glimpse into the perspective of ufologists.

Encounters uses the Stephenville UFO sightings as an example of documented and well-supported alien encounters. During this section of the first episode, multiple individuals discuss Ricky Sorrells, an important figure in this incident. Despite knowing he’d face vitriol and persecution, Sorrells was one of the first people to come forward about seeing a UFO in Stephenville, Texas. Unfortunately, Sorrells declined to be interviewed for Encounters, meaning the docuseries leaves out some details and updates.

Encounters Leaves Out Witness Ricky Sorrells’ Direct Point Of View

While Ricky Sorrells declined to take part in Netflix’s Encounters docuseries, the first episode does a good job of incorporating his story in a thorough and factual way. Sorrells did see the UFO while on a hunting trip and used his scope to get a better look at the craft. The docuseries was correct when they said he described the object as seamless without nuts or bolts. The biggest elements left out can be found in the book Aliens in America: A UFO Hunter’s Guide to Extraterrestrial Hotspots Across the U.S. by William J. Birnes.

In this book, Birnes explains that Sorrells described the UFO as a piece of sheet iron longer than three football fields with round indentations placed forty feet apart. The indents each went four to six feet deep. He said the UFO looked so big and moved so fast that the United States would be in big trouble if the craft came from another country instead of outer space.

The US Government Still Denies Stephenville’s UFO Sighting

Despite the immense number of witnesses to the Stephenville UFO sightings established in Encounters, the United States government has never acknowledged the incident as real. Instead, they scoffed at the idea that people saw anything. In 2008, the US Air Force decided to finally acknowledge through NPR that something was in the air that night – almost a dozen F-16 aircraft. However, the Air Force at Carswell Field contradicted this by saying no fighter jets flew over Stephenville. The two have since reconciled their stories to the official version that the F-16s flew over the area. They attribute the conflicting stories to an internal communications error.

This story already seems questionable based on the sheer number of times confidential info has later come out exposing the lies of the US government. However, it becomes downright silly when considering the fact that the government has released videos of “unidentified aerial phenomena” and held hearings in front of Congress addressing potential government knowledge of aliens. It wouldn’t be surprising to learn a decade or two from now that the Stephenville UFO sightings explored in Encounters provided another example of the US government knowing about a UFO.

Sources: Aliens in America: A UFO Hunter’s Guide to Extraterrestrial Hotspots Across the U.S., NPR