On the evening of August 30, 1951, Carl Hart, Jr., a freshman at Texas Tech, observed a group of 18-20 white lights in a "v" formation flying overhead. Hart took a 35-mm Kodak camera and walked to the backyard of his parents’ home to see if the lights would return. Two more lights passed overhead, and Hart captured five photos before they disappeared. After having the photos developed Hart took them to the offices of the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal where the newspaper's editor, Jay Harris, told Hart that the photos would be purchased for $10 and published in the paper, but that he would "run him (Hart) out of town" if the photos were fake. The photographs were soon reprinted in newspapers around the nation and in Life magazine. The physics laboratory at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio analyzed the Hart photographs. After an extensive analysis and investigation of the photos, Edward J. Ruppelt, the supervisor of the Air Force's Project Blue Book, released a written statement to the press that "the [Hart] photos were never proven to be a hoax, but neither were they proven to be genuine." The Texas Tech professors claimed that the photos did not represent what they had observed, because their objects had flown in a "u", rather than a "v", formation. Air Force investigation and potential explanations In late September 1951, Ruppelt learned about the Lubbock Lights and investigated them as part of Project Blue Book. Ruppelt traveled to Lubbock and interviewed the professors, Carl Hart, and others who claimed to have witnessed the lights. Ruppelt's conclusion at the time was that the professors had seen a type of bird called a plover. The city of Lubbock had installed new vapor street lights in 1951, and Ruppelt believed migrating plovers were reflecting the new street lights. Witnesses who supported this assertion included T.E. Snider, a local farmer who on August 31, 1951, had observed birds flying over a drive-in movie theater; the birds' undersides were reflected in the light. Another pair of witnesses, Joe Bryant and his wife, on August 25 observed groups of lights flying overhead. When a third group of lights passed overhead they began to circle the Bryants' home, and were identified by sight and sound as plovers. J. Allen Hynek, an astronomer and one of Project Blue Book's scientific consultants, later contacted one of the professors and learned that the