The Damon Deputies

Deputy Robert Goode had an alligator bite on his finger when he and Chief Deputy Billy E. McCoy went out on night patrol on 3 September 1965. By the next day, the story goes, it had nearly healed. The two Brazoria County deputies were on Highway 36 between Damon and West Columbia at about 11 pm. A light near the San Bernard River resolved into a vast object with a pulsing purple light at one end and a blue light at the other. It appeared beside their car and hovered about 100 to 150 feet up, lighting the inside of the car. Goode felt its warmth on his exposed arm. Then it turned and shot straight up.

What is on the record

Here the outside record is strong. Major Laurence Leach Jr. of Ellington Air Force Base interviewed both deputies for Project Blue Book on 8 September 1965. He wrote that they "definitely saw some unusual object". Blue Book filed it as case 9915 and no explanation was officially accepted. NICAP and APRO looked into it as well and Houston papers covered it at the time.

Our tellings get some details wrong. Our transcripts spell his name Good, and it is Goode. Our tellings call the object as long as a football field. The outside sources describe a dark-grey object, triangular or elongated, about 150 to 200 feet long. Several tellings add a visit from two men in dark suits and derby hats two days later. That episode comes from APRO and later retellings rather than from the Blue Book file.

Why it sits where it does

The archive holds six videos across two channels and resolves three claimants: McCoy, Goode under the spelling Good, and an unnamed entry for two sheriff's deputies from Angleton, which describes the same pair without their names. The archive also holds a Blue Book entry for the case. It is classed as reporting rather than primary paperwork, so the case grades L3 for independent witnesses rather than the document tier. Few cases at this tier have an Air Force interviewer on record saying the witnesses saw something unusual. What the deputies saw beside Highway 36 is not resolved here.