Step back to June 18, 1953, in the Houston Heights. It’s 2:30 a.m., the air thick with mystery on East Third Street. A shadowy terror—the Houston Batman—emerges.
Hilda Walker sits on her porch with neighbors Judy Meyer, only 14, and Howard Phillips. Then, out of nowhere, a tall figure looms, cloaked in black or gray, its cape-like bat wings shimmering with an eerie yellow glow. This shadowy menace slinks across the yard, scaling a pecan tree with unnatural grace. For 30 seconds, they’re paralyzed by its gaze. Judy’s scream shatters the silence, and the Batman vanishes with a thunderous swoosh.
All three were shaken in a collective disbelief. Houston Police were called to the house and a police report was filed describing the shadowy encounter. The Houston Chronicle got wind of the story splashed the tale across its front page.
Hilda told the Chronicle, “We heard a loud swoosh over the housetops across the street. It was like the white flash of a torpedo-shaped object. I’ve heard so much about flying saucer stories. I thought all those people telling the stories were crazy. But now I don’t know what to believe. I sat there, stupefied. I was amazed.” Howard swore, “I could hardly believe it, but I saw it.” Judy declared, “I saw it, and nobody can say I didn’t.” Phillips added, “We looked across the street and saw a flash of light rise from another tree and take off like a jet.”
That haunted spot on East Third Street is gone, swallowed by progress. The street no longer exists, buried beneath the sprawling concrete of Interstate 10, now part of the Katy Freeway’s feeder road. Yet the legend of the Houston Batman endures, a spectral shadow over the Heights.
