Started Out from Texas

Desmond Bragg was born in Port Arthur, Texas, in 1919. An orphan at the age of four, he spent the next ten years of his life in an orphanage in Beaumont, Texas. At the age of fourteen, he was sent to live with a foster family on a dairy farm in Kountze, Texas. Two years later, with the farm going bust and unable to graduate with his class due to his failing grades, Desmond dropped out of high school and left Texas for good. He hopped on a freight train at midnight and headed north to seek his fortune.

With fifty cents and a biscuit in his pocket he journeyed by foot and rail through Oklahoma, Kansas, and Colorado. It was in Denver, Colorado, at the age of seventeen, that Desmond joined the army. Sent to Ft. Warren, Wyoming, he was befriended by a kind and loving missionary family, and this encounter proved to be a turning point in his life. Desmond was determined to leave the army to attend North Park College and Seminary in Chicago, Illinois, to become a minister.

Eventually, he was sent to a small town in Northern Wisconsin as an intern minister. There, he met the love of his life, but he was plagued by serious doubts and found he no longer believed in the fundamentalist teachings of the church. It was his dark night of the soul, and he left the seminary to join the navy near the end of World War II, feeling profoundly disloyal to his North Park friends and mentors and utterly depressed. It was his marriage to Jean that saved him and turned his life around. With her encouragement and support, Desmond went on to get a bachelor, masters, and doctorate in education from the University of Wisconsin.

Eventually, Desmond and Jean and their three children settled in Iowa, where Desmond was a college professor at Drake University for twenty-five years. Also, during this period, Desmond became a marathon runner as well as a noted lecturer and writer on the subject of UFOs, having investigated the subject since his sighting in 1951. In 1987, a tragic accident left him paralyzed and in a wheelchair. He went on to coauthor a comprehensive book on UFOs entitled Science Meets the UFO Enigma. This is the true story of one man's triumph over adversity and a tribute to the steadfast human spirit.