The Pheonix Lights

Around 7:00 PM on March 13th, 1997, a string of five lights in V formation appeared in the sky above Phoenix, Arizona. The national UFO reporting centre reported that the first call regarding the lights came in at around 8:16 PM from a retired police officer in Paulden Arizona, which is around 2 hours north of Phoenix.

The officer said that he saw 'a cluster of red-orange lights arranged in a V formation.' After this, the reporting centre received a flood of calls from south of Paulden, suggesting that the lights were moving in a south-eastern direction.

There were allegedly 700 witnesses, including pilots, police officers and military officials, all calling the national UFO reporting centre, looking for an explanation.

Some described the lights as orbs in the sky, while others said they were like triangles, however a large amount of witnesses described the lights as part of a 'singular massive craft' which made no noise.

A witness called Terry Proctor, was one of the only people to capture a video of the event, which appears to show 5 lights in a 'V' like formation in the sky. Around 10:00 PM, a second set of as many as 9 lights appeared in the sky, seaming hovering in the same spot. Whether these lights are the same from the 7:00 PM sighting or not remains unclear, however it is the second sighting which is most talked about, as people were already on high alert after the first sighting of lights.

Another witness, a laser printer technician named Dana Valentine, saw the craft from his yard in Phoenix. He said 'we could see the outline of a mass behind the lights, but you couldn't actually see the mass... it was more like a grey distortion in the night sky. Wavy. I don't know exactly what it was, but I know it's not a technology the public has heard of before.'

Tim Ley, a management consultant, describes the events as 'astonishing and a little frightening. It was so big and so strange. You Couldn't actually see the object, all you could see was the outline, as though something was blotting out the stars... The lights looked like gas. There was a distortion on the surface. Also, the light didn't spill out or shine. I've never seen a light like that.'

According to a USA today article in the Time, 'air traffic controllers could not see the light on radar, despite seeing them with their own eyes in the sky.'

Based off of multiple reports, the spacecraft was enormous, made no sound, moved slowly and on occasion, hover over an area. Phoenix Physician Dr. Lynne Kitei was a witness to the lights and states that it was 'a mile-wide formation of these orbs... and I caught them head on turning into a V.'

Witness Sue Watson describes the craft as 'a shopping mall flying over my home... It had these lights in front and then it was totally illuminated underneath, like a yellowish amber. it was a totally rounded boomerang shape.'

Videos of the second appearance of lights shows the string of nine lights hovering in the sky, and the lights illuminate randomly on and off for a few minutes while floating in what appears to be a loose 'V' formation.

Many other videos were captured of the lights and according to a USA Today article 'computer analysis puts the object 6,000 feet long or, more than a mile.'

While some people believe that the lights were part of one big craft, there are others who believe that the lights were individual crafts.

A truck driver name Bill Greiner states that his truck route took him within a mile of Luke air force base, and that he witnessed 2 orbs, one of which was floating above the air force base. At that moment 3 F-16's took off, and the orb pursued one, but then shot up into the sky and disappeared. He said 'before this, if anyone told me they saw a UFO, I would have said yeah, and I believe in the tooth fairy. Now I’ve got a whole new view. I may be just a dumb truck driver, but I’ve seen something that don’t belong here. I wish the government would just admit it. You know what it's like in this city right now? It's like having 50,000 people in a stadium watching a football game, and then having someone tell us we weren't there.'

On May 6th, 1997, during a council meeting, almost 2 months after the events, a city council woman Frances Barwood asked city manager Frank Fairbanks if there was going to be an investigation. She said 'I asked if anybody knew what this object was, and could we check into it... I was met by a whole bunch of stares.'

She claims that after the meeting, a city manager approached her and said, 'you shouldn’t have asked that question.'

Then, the Arizona Republic published a cartoon of Barwood with a light switch on her forehead and a button on her jacket that said, 'I love UFO's.'

Barwood said that 'the Mayor's office put signs of my picture in the hallway... And I found out afterwards they handed out business cards with my name on it that said, "speak into the tin foil, I will hear you."'

Despite being ridiculed, Barwood started receiving phone calls from other witnesses, all describing the same thing. However, the case went unacknowledged until a USA Today article released 3 months later on the 18th of June 1997 described the event, bringing it into the national spotlight.

The article said 'On March 13th, hundreds of people reported an enormous object or objects in the night sky. It's the most confounding UFO report in 50 years. So far there is no explanation, and the government is not investigating. Local and federal agencies disagree over who should purse the report.'

With the general public now focused on the lights, then governor Fife Symington held a press conference where he claimed, he knew who was responsible, and brought out the 'accused.'

He then had a man dressed head to toe in a large alien costume, escorted in by a man in a man in black costume, and despite making a joke of the event, Symington would later admit that he too had seen the craft. He said 'I saw a huge craft come right over Squall Peak. It was just breath-taking. As a pilot and a former Air Force officer, I can definitely say that this craft did not resemble any man-made object that I’d ever seen. It was certainly not high-altitude flares, because I’ve never seen flares fly in formation. Unquestionably it was a UFO.'

Symington’s office actually did enquire about the object, but never received an answer.

One explanation for these lights comes from the Air Force, who said that the lights were simply 'flares dropped in a training exercise from a high altitude that night.'

The military states that the flares were dropped over the Barry M. Goldwater range near Gila Bend, Arizona, However the base that the military claim the exercise was carried out from, previously stated that they had no planes in the air that night.

The flare drops apparently occurred around 10:00 PM, the same time as sightings of the second set of lights were reported, this however does not explain the lights that were seen almost 3 hours earlier.

On the 3rd year anniversary of the lights, another flare demonstration was performed, in an attempt to replicate the lights, carried out by the national guard. People however remained unimpressed and said that the flares 'flickered and moved erratically' and not in the 'bizarre grouped fashion' of the Phoenix lights. A special effects expert, Jim Dilettosa, examined the lights and concluded that he had no idea what they were. He and his team said that they were perfectly uniformed lights with no variation from one edge to the other, and no glow. They ruled out lasers, flares, holograms and aircraft lights as sources.

Despite hundreds of witnesses and dozens of reports, no one can come to a satisfying conclusion, or say for certain what the Phoenix lights were.

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