The Phoenix lights - aliens, hoax or mistaken identity?

That website which you find so unreliable was only quoting the report put out by Peter Davenport of the UFO Reporting Center. There is nothing questionable about that report. For those who want the full scoop of the "first event"--the one the media, skeptics, and the military would like you to confuse with the second flare-dropping event--read this report. The eyewitness reports are clear and credible.

"Saturday, March 13, 1999, marks the second anniversary of the dramatic UFO sighting event that occurred two years ago over both the states of Nevada and Arizona, an event generally referred to as the “Phoenix Lights” case. One unconfirmed sighting report was received from the State of New Mexico, as well.

Many aspects of the case still remain unexplained and controversial, but a considerable body of data and evidence has been collected by many capable investigators, which suggests that the event was extraordinarily dramatic and bizarre. Moreover, it went virtually unreported in the press, save for a handful of short articles printed in local Arizona newspapers. The story finally “broke” with a major, front-page article in USA TODAY on Wednesday, June 18, 1997, some three months after the incident had occurred. Some of the salient features of the case are described below:

1) Perhaps thousands, or tens of thousands, of witnesses on the ground witnessed at least one object pass and/or hover overhead which they described as being huge, gigantic, or unimaginably large. Many of the witnesses reported that they had the impression that a Boeing 747 could land on the back of the object they had just witnessed pass overhead their location.

2) Most witnesses described the object as being generally triangular in shape, with anywhere from five, to “many, innumerable,” lights on the leading edge of the object. Some observers reported that the pattern of lights consisted of three lights clustered near the “nose” of the object, with one light on each of the trailing tips of the triangle. Other individuals reported an object that appeared to have seven large lights equally spaced along its leading edge.

3) The object apparently was capable of very rapid flight, probably even supersonic flight, although few witnesses reported any sound emanating from it. The object was reported heading generally to the southeast over Henderson, NV, at 1855 hrs. (Pacific), and was next reported heading to the south in the vicinity of Paulden, AZ, approximately 22 minutes later at 2017 hrs. (Mountain). Within approximately one minute of the sighting in Paulden, the object was reported from the vicinity of Prescott Valley, AZ, roughly 30 miles to the south. The object then appeared over Phoenix, where it is reported to have hovered for 4-5 minutes in the vicinity of the intersection of Indian School Road and 7th Avenue.

4) The object passed through the airspace of Sky Harbor Airport, where it was witnessed by air traffic controllers in the airport tower, and where it also was reported via radio by at least one commercial flight crew. They reported via radio that the object was passing directly overhead their aircraft, which was on the ground preparing to depart Sky Harbor. The object reportedly did not appear on radar, and it did not communicate via either radio or transponder.

5) From the Phoenix area, the object reportedly proceeded generally south toward South Mountain, continuing southeast toward Tucson, AZ, along Interstate 10. One family, driving northwest toward Phoenix on Interstate 10 near Casa Grande, AZ, reported that the object remained above them for an estimated 1-2 minutes while they were driving at approximately 80 miles per hour. The object was so large above them that the family’s two children in the back seat of their station wagon simultaneously could see the opposite “wing tips” of the object out both the left and right passenger windows.

6) The National UFO Reporting Center received a telephone call approximately seven hours after the incident from a person who identified himself as an airman stationed at Luke Air Force Base, located 20 miles to the west of Phoenix. The individual reported that the U. S. Air Force had launched two F-15c fighter aircraft from Luke AFB, and that one of the aircraft had “intercepted” a gigantic object over the intersection of Indian School Road and 7th Avenue. It was also reported by this individual that the onboard radar of the intercepting fighter had suddenly gone to a condition of “white noise,” and that the lights on the anomalous object simultaneously had suddenly dimmed in unison and disappeared from the pilot’s sight. (See text of conversation with the alleged airman)

7) On March 14, 1997, senior officers from Luke Air Force Base stated that they knew nothing about the incident, and that the base had received no reports from the public regarding the event. Long distance telephone bills, which indicate calls to the base, contradict the statements made by these officers.

8) Some military personnel and UFO investigators have asserted that the entire event was caused by “military flares” that had been released at approximately 2130 hrs. (Mountain) by a flight of USAF A-10 aircraft in the general vicinity of the Gila Bend Bombing Range. The bombing facility is located approximately 60-80 miles to the southwest of Phoenix. This event, if in fact it did take place, occurred at approximately 2130 or 2200 hrs., some 45 minutes after the UFO sighting had already occurred over northern Arizona, Phoenix, and Tucson.

9) The witnesses who reported their sightings of the object over northern Arizona and Phoenix include architects, physicians, law enforcement officers, educators, attorneys, airline pilots, scientists, real estate brokers, and other seemingly reliable citizens. Many are qualified observers, and have reported their sightings in eloquent, written form.

From: Peter B. Davenport

Note: Peter B. Davenport is the Director of the National UFO reporting center.

I would propose inclusion of the events over Phoenix on Thursday, 13MR97. It exceeds the three qualifying criteria cited, as indicated below:

1) The object, or objects, was/were witnessed over Henderson, NV, at 1855 hrs. (Pacific), and were still visible over Tucson, AZ, some 40-50 minutes later. The event may have continued to as late as 2200 hrs. (Mountain), although the later sighting is "clouded" by the issue of possible flares over the Gila Bend Bombing Range. This latter issue is not fully resolved yet to everyone's satisfaction, but it has little bearing on the earlier events that evening.

2) When one of the objects stopped and hovered approximately over the intersection of Indian School Road and 7th Avenue, just a few miles north-northeast of Sky Harbor Airport, it reportedly subtended an arc, as viewed from the ground, of between three and four widths of a clenched fist held at arm's length, i.e. between approximately 30 and 40 degrees. Our estimate of the object's altitude above ground level at that time is from 7,700 to 10,500 feet. These altitudes are reported by either pilots, or in the case of the latter figure, by a USAF airman, who asserts he was personally involved in the sequellae of an alleged intercept by two F-15's, whose pilots estimated the object's altitude at "angels 10," i.e. 10,500 feet.

3) The object, or objects, that passed over Nevada and Arizona that night must have been witnessed by thousands of people, perhaps tens of thousands. Dr. Michael Tanner, Ph.D., of Village Labs reportedly had interviewed approximately 500 witnesses by 29MR98.

In my opinion, the events that occurred over Phoenix almost two years ago are the lead candidate for being the most dramatic UFO sighting in modern ufology.

Another sighting which was reported to us and which satisfies the criteria you cite is the event that occurred over the Pacific Northwest on Friday night, 14NO97. In point of fact, the we have evidence that the cluster of lights seen from the Northwest was one of three separate "waves" of anomalous objects that passed over the western United States that night. Many of the objects reported over Oregon and Nevada were reported to us to have stopped and hovered, in some cases.

What makes this latter case so interesting is film footage of a similar event that was reported and video taped over Mexico City on the same night. We are pursuing details on this case through Jaime Mausson, who recently showed the footage at the 8th Annual International UFO Congress in Laughlin, NV.

I would be happy to answer any questions regarding either of these two events.


Peter B. Davenport,
Director
National UFO Reporting Center
P. O. Box 45623
University Station
Seattle, WA 98145
www.ufocenter.com
Hotline: (206) 722-3000
(0800 to 2400 hrs. preferred, except for emergencies)

 

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Regarding the report by amateur astronomer Mitch Stanley seeing the lights as planes, we have this response from Peter Davenport:

"Mitch is correct that each of the larger lights was, by at least two good observers, reported to consist of two or three individual lights.

However,... They apparently traveled from Henderson, NV, to Paulden, AZ, in approximately 21 minutes--translating to supersonic speed, probably. The lights were totally silent, with only one person dissenting with this view. They hovered in at least four locations for up to approximately 2-5 minutes. The lights were distinctly red over Paulden, AZ, but only the lead light in the cluster was red, or "pinkish," by the time they had gotten down to Prescott Valley.

Also, the object is reported to have "blotted out" the lights of Prescott Valley airport, as viewed from the cockpit of a twin Cessna approaching the airport from the northeast.

Moreover, the object(s) passed through the airspace of at least 3 commercial airports--Prescott, Phoenix, and Tucson--even though the air traffic controllers knew nothing about them.

Does the military either fly, or release 3000 degree flares, over commercial airliners on the tarmac of a major international airport??

I would like to see Mitch's statement in writing.

I could contact the astronomer who contacted us, but I would feel uncomfortable releasing his name without his permission. We did receive a fine written report from him, and he apparently did get a good look at the objects.

Also, his statement seems to confirm that there may have been military aircraft in the vicinity of the lights directly over Phoenix. We have sources in Luke AFB, who have given us a second-by-second account of the intercept by F-15c fighters, each with a LANTIRN II imaging pod on its wing. The lead pilot needed a bit of help to get out of the cockpit of his fighter, upon landing...

All for now. Please let us know what you find.

Cordially,
Peter B. Davenport,
Director National UFO Reporting Center director@ufocenter.com
www.ufocenter.com

http://www.rense.com/ufo/pholightsdav.htm

 

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Here is a military insider's report of Luke AFB scrambling F16's to intercept the Phoenix ufos on the night of March 13th 1997. The report shows familiarity with air traffic control terms and military procedure, which lends much to its credibility.

http://www.examiner.com/article/new-witness-documents-usaf-reaction-to-phoenix-lights-ufos

Question: If the Phoenix lights were merely a squadron of A10s dropping flares, why the mad scramble at the base to intercept something in our airspace? Why indeed. The dropping of the flares look suspiciously like an attempt to distract the public from what was really going on over the skies of Phoenix that night.

 

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You're still confused. You claim the first event "turned out to be individual planes", but also claim that people mistook the A10's of the second event supposedly flying in formation to drop the flares as also a UFO. So are you saying there were TWO formations of planes that night, an earlier one that allegedly occurred from 8:15 - 8:45, and then a later one of A10's after 9:30? Where is your evidence of this supposed first formation of planes? Who has confirmed this? And what possible bearing does these alleged scientists going over "countless images and recordings" of the flare-dropping incident have on the first incident?

You have no idea what those eyewitnesses "wanted". Do normal people "want" there to be unexplainable football-field size boomerang craft gliding silently over their neighborhoods at 1000 feet? I wouldn't. Such prospects are pretty unnerving and troubling. It means there are unknown craft out there from who knows where that could observe and invade us at any time. I don't think anybody "wants" that. I don't think people "want" to think there are such things out there. Give me a formation of planes any day over something like that.

Going by hundreds of eyewitness reports, and the coinciding details of the craft's size, its lights, its silent gliding, and its trajectory, and then the air force's blatant attempt to cover the sighting over with it's clearly staged flare incident, does it really matter what Peter Davenport or ANY of the actual people who interviewed the eyewitnesses wanted? The facts of the case speak for themselves. What I think is that you are part of that group of people, that includes most who have posted in this thread so far, who want so badly for there to NOT be ufos that you'll believe anything, even the military ruse of the flares, over the actual eyewitness accounts collected. That's the only way I can explain why none of you can even admit you just don't know what they saw. It upsets the applecart of your world that UFOs might actually exist, even though there is nothing in science preventing them from doing so. Would it really be so terrible for you if UFO's were real? Would it change anything about what science teaches us at all? No..it wouldn't.

Huge strawman there since I already showed the report was not originated from that website but from Peter Davenport of NUFORC.

You know, what's funny is how these courageous eyewitnesses go from being lying fameseekers one moment, to honestly deceived viewers of lights the next moment. If your going to make sweeping generalizations about them, as least stick to one or the other.

No..as you already said, these alleged scientists went over the footage of the SECOND event, the flare-dropping incident. Since there is no known footage of the first incident, then their opinions on what THAT was are useless. So what do we do? We go by what the hundreds of eyewitnesses reported. That's objective science see. We don't assume all these people are idiots and based on one 21 year old kid seeing some planes in a telescope conclude that's what they all saw instead, especially in light of the fact that what HE saw was probably the A10's of the SECOND event anyway. Again, we GO by the eyewitness reports. That's how we determine what occurred.

These people didn't ask to have this event occur to them. They were just going about their business and then it just happened. And by the reports they give, it was something pretty jolting and extraordinary. You have no right to attack people you don't even know and accuse them of greedy motives to lie and twist the truth. You weren't there. If it had happened to you, wouldn't YOU stand by what you saw? Ofcourse you would, especially in the face of all the media mockery and disinformation put out by Luke AFB.

When you see a giant light-bearing boomerang craft that blacks out the stars glide slowly and silently over your house at night, what plausible explanation is there? There's only one. That's it's an unidentified flying object. End of story. It's what everybody else who DIDN'T see the craft, or who saw the second event of the flares, as well as the media, jumped to that becomes questionable. Weeks after the event it was entirely written off as flares. It was only as investigators started interviewing the witnesses that it was finally learned that the second event was separate from the first event. You have even said as much. And yet you keep repeating the same old lie of the flare story. Why is that?

Note: as already quoted from Wikipedia, a group of private plane pilots decided to take it upon themselves to fly in formation over Phoenix the nights following the night of the UFO sighting. But the sound of their planes could easily be heard. So as you might expect, this has added to confusing the first event with the seeing of planes. One might even call this the THIRD incident, a staged HOAX, of which no doubt many professional debunkers and skeptics, to drum up their own fame and fortune, collected eyewitness reports in an attempt to explain away the FIRST incident. One has only to browse the myriad of bloggers and online articles each arrogantly claiming to the one to debunk the notorious Phoenix Lights to see the fruits of this confusion.

 

Here's the problem with the A10 theory. Sightings of the ufo craft started as early as 8:00 to the north of Phoenix near Paulden. Sightings continued in other cities, including Paulden, Prescott, Dewey, Chino Valley, Tempe, Glendale, Phoenix, Chandler, and Tulsa, as late as 9:00. These A10s would not have been in the air over these cities at that time, They were scheduled to drop their flares at 9:30-10:00 PM. So there's no way the sightings of the ufo over such a wide trajectory c correlate to the flight of the A10s. The craft was long gone by the time the A10's arrived to drop their flares. Here's a detailed description of this timeline:

Paulden, Arizona
Thursday, March 13, 1997
8:16 p.m.

The first reported sighting was by a former police officer who reported that he and his family had witnessed some unusual lights moving very rapidly across the night sky near Paulden, about 30 miles north of Prescott. He described what they saw as a very strange cluster of distinctly red-orange lights, which consisted of 4-5 red lights "in the lead," followed by a single light which appeared to be "standing back from the others." The lights in the lead gave the impression of being in a "V" formation, somewhat like a wedge or boomerang in shape.

Prescott, Arizona
8:17 p.m.

Callers from Prescott and Prescott Valley, approximately 50 miles north of Phoenix, reported that at approximately 8:17 p.m., they witnessed 4 or 5 very bright white lights pass overhead. They reported that what they saw seemed to be a triangular-shaped object with a complex grouping of lights along its sides. One witness was standing outside with his wife and sons in Prescott Valley when they noticed a cluster of lights to in the west-northwest. The lights formed a triangle, but all of them appeared to be red except for a light at the "nose" of the object, which was white. They observed for several minutes as the lights passed directly over their heads, banked to the right, and then disappeared to the southeast. All of the observers described the lights as gliding soundlessly through the night sky. There was absolutely no sound at all coming from them.

Dewey, Arizona

The report came from Dewey, AZ, about ten miles south of Prescott. Six people driving north on Highway 69 towards Prescott witnessed a large cluster of lights in the form of a "V" shape in the sky. They pulled off the road into a grocery store parking lot and got out of their car in order to get a better look at the lights. By then, the lights were directly above them, where they appeared to hover for several minutes. The caller, an experienced flyer, reported that the object defined by the lights was so large that, if he clenched his fist and held it at arm’s length, he could not cover the size of the object with his fist. He estimated the completely silent object to be not over 1,000 feet above the ground and moving at a very slow pace, considerably slower than an aircraft would fly.

The next reports were from Chino Valley, Tempe, Glendale, and Phoenix. Generally, the sightings seemed to move southward from Paulden to Prescott to Phoenix and finally towards Casa Grande and then Tucson.

A report from Chandler, Arizona states that a man and his wife saw the formation of lights at 8:30 p.m.

In Tucson a man watched the formation of lights from 8:45 to after 9:00 p.m. He reported that the lights came from the northwest, flew overhead for 5-10 minutes, and then disappeared to the south as they moved off over the mountains.

One of the later reports was from Kingman, AZ, where a young man, enroute to Los Angeles, called from a phone booth to report having seen a large cluster of lights moving slowly in the northern sky. Note that Kingman is back towards the north, in the direction of Las Vegas.

The next day, March 14, The Air Force disavowed any knowledge of the sightings, even refusing to admit receiving and phone reports of the sightings at Luke AFB (near Phoenix) on March 13. This in spite of a rumor that an operator at Luke had told a caller that she was being flooded with UFO calls that night and in spite of individuals' phone bills, which prove that they called the base that night.

The National UFO Reporting Center reportedly received a telephone call on March 14 from a person who identified himself as an airman stationed at Luke Air Force Base. The caller said two F-15c fighters were scrambled from Luke, and that one of the aircraft had "intercepted" a gigantic object over the intersection of Indian School Road and 7th Avenue. It was also reported by this individual that the onboard radar of the intercepting fighter had suddenly gone to a condition of "white noise," and that the lights on the anomalous object simultaneously had suddenly dimmed in unison and disappeared from the pilot’s sight.

Top Secret Aircraft?
The government says flares...

When later investigations by the Arizona National Guard found that the visiting Maryland Air National Guard was running an exercise called Operation Snowbird along the Barry Goldwater Gunnery Range to the southwest of Tucson on the evening of March 13, the Air Force suddenly found its voice. The Arizona Air National Guard learned that the Maryland force flew eight A-10s and dropped left-over high-intensity flares on the way back to Davis-Monthan Air Force Base at Tucson. A Davis-Monthan flight schedule showed that a squadron of Operation Snowbird planes left at 8:15 p.m. on March 13 and returned at 10:30 p.m. A spokesman for Luke Air Force Base confirmed that the Maryland planes were authorized to use the Goldwater range from 9:30 to 10:00 that night.

An Air Force spokesman said:

It's standard to use flares with the A-10 because it operates very low and very slow over a battlefield, which makes it very susceptible to heat-seeking missiles," he says. "They use them as a decoy for surface to air missiles and they will do that during training. Basically, any missiles that are fired will track after the flares and not the aircraft.... I was speaking with some of our experts here and they said the kind of flares that they use are attached to a parachute and when they are jettisoned from 6,000 feet, you can see them from about 150 miles away.

After their flare exercises at Goldwater, the planes began to fly back toward Tucson but suddenly realized that they had extra flares. According to the story, base rules prohibit planes with flares from landing and so as they were leaving the range the planes jettisoned their flares.

The media jumped on this explanation and declared that the Phoenix UFO mystery had been explained.

What's wrong with this picture?

At 8:17 p.m., as the Operation Snowbird A-10's were just taking off from Davis-Monthan, witnesses in Prescott were seeing the lights come in from the Northwest, fly overhead, and then disappear to the southwest. By 8:30, when the A-10's would just be getting to the Goldwater range near Gila Bend and about sixty miles to the southwest, witnesses in Phoenix were seeing the lights come from the north, pass over Phoenix, and go to the southwest. At 8:45, the lights were being seen from Tucson, again first in the north, although the flare operation wasn't scheduled to begin until 9:30. If the flare operation took place at the correct time, from 9:30 to 10:00, then that is well after the reports from Phoenix and from north of Phoenix. Finally, between 10:00 and 10:30, the A-10's disposed of their excess flares and, at 10:30, they returned to Davis-Monthan AFB. No matter how many videos are run on TV that show flares dropping out of sight behind mountains one-by-one, they can't be what the earlier witnesses saw from 8:15 to 8:45. These witnesses included architects, physicians, law enforcement officers, educators, attorneys, airline pilots, scientists, real estate brokers, and other seemingly reliable witnesses."-----http://www.ufoevidence.org/documents/doc1268.htm

 

Well, according to you the only account to believe is none of them. They ALL saw planes flying in formation/flares, which were dropped 60 miles southeast of Phoenix an hour AFTER the sightings. So how do we explain the variations in the accounts? The most logical explanation is that there were several craft flying that night, some triangular shaped and one boomerang shaped. Some with 3 lights others with 5 lights. Here's a summary of what was seen based on all the eyewitness accounts:

From: Bill Hamilton

Let me add this report to what Peter Davenport has released on his website. I will be on KTAR radio along with Peter this afternoon in Phoenix.

These are the events that occurred on March 13, 1997 as uncovered by Michael Tanner and myself:

1. FORMATION OF HOVERING ORBS - First observed in a hexagram pattern at about 7:30 p.m. over the Superstition Mountains area east of Phoenix in the characteristic 8+1(or 2) formation of amber orbs and was next seen in two separate arc patterns with "trailing lights" over Gila River area at about 9:50 and again at 10:00 at the southern edge of Phoenix where they were seen by thousands and videotaped by a handful who had camcorders close enough at hand to catch the fleeting minutes of their displays. These amateur videos have immortalized the orb formations, becoming known around the world as The Phoenix Lights. These are the very same lights that started the controversy over "flares" and that will be taken up in the next chapter. The last appearance of the hovering orbs of the night was made over a now recognized "hot-spot" of Rainbow Valley arrayed in a "V" formation at about 2:00 a.m. on March 14th (and again appeared on January 14, 1998).

2. "V" FORMATION OF FLYING ORBS - First seen leaving the Henderson-Las Vegas area and entering Arizona at high speed, a V-formation of five to seven orbs, variously seen as bright blue-white to a yellow-white, came through the Prescott Valley area at low altitude by 7:50 p.m., turning south, where by 8:28, were videotaped (displaying their characteristic movement within the formation) at the north end of the valley that comprises the Phoenix metro area. In an apparent slower mode of flight, the orbs appeared at that point as amber in color as the formation moved along Interstate 10 angling toward Tucson after having been visually seen (not on radar) to intersect air traffic coming in on approach to Sky Harbor International Airport. After hovering for several minutes over a car full of witnesses driving north on I-10 at 65 mph, the formation was then picked up by observers in the Oracle area who reported the orbs' color as red to red-orange before the formation split up, going in separate directions while skirting the edges of the Tucson metropolitan area. At various points independent of this very specific formation, individual orbs were seen to shoot across the metro Phoenix valley with some moving away from and then re-docking with one or more of the Very Large Objects (VLOs) which came through later in the night.

3. CHEVRON VLO (narrow angle) - Observed first as a "V" formation of five white lights moving slowly and silently toward Prescott Valley from the northwest at about 8:15 p.m., the "chevron" was soon clearly seen as a single object. The huge craft made a pivot turn over the witnesses' home there while the lights shifted into an arc formation while the lights turned red and then it shot off at blinding speed toward Phoenix. At that time the next set of witnesses in central Phoenix saw the object coming directly toward them (estimated at Mach 2 or 3) while still in the "turbo" mode arc configuration, and then, as if to slow back down again, was seen to change back into a "V" whereupon it cruised silently and slowly right over their heads (only 100 to 200 feet above at 10 or 15 mph). The craft was later seen to zigzag through the valley, even changing altitude at various points and hovering for five minutes at the edge of Sky Harbor before proceeding south (right over the Village Lab building) to Interstate-10. After following I-10 several miles to Picacho Peak, the enormous craft (estimated at 900 feet or more on each leading edge and more than a mile in length to its "taillights") hovered once again for 10 to 15 minutes until there was no further track of it. According to Michael, this is a possible docking point for this craft and the giant triangle that followed it down I-10 some fifteen minutes later. This same "chevron" or similar craft was seen traveling east to west over north Phoenix at about 10:50 p.m.

4. BOOMERANG VLO (wide angle) - This "V" formation, consisting of five groups of three lights, was confirmed to be a single huge object by various Prescott-area witnesses, being equivalent to a formation of five 747s flying absolutely lock-step in formation toward Phoenix. The craft was seen to make a southerly turn at about 8:25, once again, in the Prescott Valley area, after first approaching from the northwest. This VLO was later seen (although not clearly enough to identify) by an America West pilot who called Sky Harbor tower wondering what "those nine lights were", and an amateur astronomer in Phoenix who wrote it off as a formation of conventional airplanes. It is possible that this craft was the same as the giant triangle(wide angle) described below.

5. TRIANGULAR VLO (narrow angle) - This is the one seen by the family in Chandler. It may be the same Triangle or Deltoid craft seen by others as a wide angle craft. It had definite structure complete with panels in a grid along with lights at each of the three corners and a larger center light. Multiple witnesses confirm its northwest to southeast flight path through the eastern part of the valley with some observers seeing one or more orbs leaving and then re-docking with this VLO at various points. This particular craft was seen to "split in two" by a resident in Gilbert, south of Chandler.

6. BIG BLACK TRIANGLE (wide angle) - By all accounts the largest of the VLOs in the March 13th parade of craft, this gigantic craft was first seen at close range over north Phoenix between 8:30 and 8:45 where the key witnesses (real estate people who subdivided the area) estimated its size to be as much as two miles wide as its wingtip lights fell over two parallel streets that are 1.8 miles apart. Its flight path brought it low to the ground at this point (less than 2,000 feet) where it was seen to not only have dozens of lights along its leading edges, but also a row of windows wherein the silhouettes of "people" were observed! At some point further south, other witnesses reported that they saw nothing but the row of windows with beings (also in silhouette) as all of the lights were turned off at that point. By the time the VLO was seen over I-10 south of Casa Grande, however, three large lights were seen to be turned on, one at each corner, with smaller lights on along with the leading headlight. The witnesses here reported that it took them one to two minutes to drive under this immense ship while they were driving at 80 mph! They estimated the width of this VLO to be at least two, possibly three miles wide and big enough for a C5-A Galaxy or "Condor" troop transport (the largest conventional aircraft known) to land upon it! The craft had definite structure to it and the family of witnesses described its color as a flat blue-black like the color of a shotgun barrel. They also reported seeing rectangular "panel-like" structures on the underside of this craft.

Another large triangle was seen moving just north of Thunderbird Road at around 10:45 p.m., but the configuration of the triangle was different. That triangle had a V-cut into its trailing edge to give it a very distinctive look.

7. GIANT DISCOID VLO - Witnessed first by a retired airline pilot, his sons and a friend, and seen coming down Scottsdale Road at about 10:20 p.m., this huge circular craft, featuring amber lights around its perimeter (at an estimated one mile in diameter) was seen to make a purposeful turn toward Sky Harbor at about Camelback Road where it also intersected air traffic before disappearing from view over South Mountain. The corroborating central Phoenix witness, also a former pilot (Vietnam) and retired U.S. Marshal, described how the craft both reflected the city lights on its underbelly and blocked out the stars with its upper half, attesting to its being a single craft of spectacular "mile-wide" proportions. This witness also claimed to have videotaped what he saw from the roof of his apartment building, but his tapes mysteriously disappeared in what may amount to a genuine "men-in-black (MIB)" episode. This craft may also have docked with the "chevron" craft and cloaked in "visual stealth" mode in its earlier pass through Phoenix at about 8:20 to 8:30, but this is purest speculation. The two craft reappeared (or two similar ones) in June and were photographed together at high altitude over Phoenix by the same witnesses with a 35mm camera while also viewing them with binoculars. A separate set of unconnected witnesses also reported the sighting of a huge discoid craft (bigger than Sun Devil Stadium at ASU) hovering at treetop level right off of the west end of the Sky Harbor runways at between 2:00 and 3:00 a.m. one morning about two weeks before March 13th.

 

Continued from above:


8. MILITARY JET/UFO INTERCEPTION ATTEMPTS - We have to date identified four such events (there may be more) that clearly point to the conclusion that the Phoenix Lights UFO incident of March 13, 1997 was certainly no secret "black ops" or classified military exercise as many people would like to believe. A woman who lives next to Luke Air Force Base in the west part of the valley surfaced to report that at least 6 pairs of jets and as many as 8 were "scrambled" out of the base on the night of March 13th, something she could never recall witnessing before. One researcher called Luke AFB and asked someone who was out on the flight line if anything was seen by base personnel, and, unofficially, he answered that "they" were all over the place. The response from Luke spokesmen and their response to FOIA requests indicate that they were receiving phone calls about the lights, but never scrambled any jets to pursue them. Witnesses say different. Here are the witness reports:

A) Crown King at 5:30 p.m. - A formation of 3 huge "Vs" were seen hovering over this pine-topped mountain and were soon joined by a diamond-shaped or triangular craft which appeared "out of thin air" (at first seen as an amber light). As the four objects were hovering together, two jets were seen to come low from the south (from the direction of Luke AFB) at which point the UFOs went into a "stack", collapsed upon each other while going "into a ball", then totally disappeared! This would be called a case of high strangeness. Finding nothing there, the two jets circled the Crown King area and returned in the direction of the base. Similar disappearing acts of formations of "Vs", one over Lake Mead that afternoon and on March 27th over Elmont, New York were reported to Village Labs after seeing the article published in USA Today.

B) Central Phoenix at 8:15 p.m. - A pair of F-15s were dispatched from Luke AFB to attempt an interception of one or more of the Vs approaching or entering the valley at that time. This was reported to NUFORC by a ground crewman at Luke who stated that the aircraft were equipped with gun cameras and that one of the pilots had to be helped out of his plane because he was so shaken by his encounter. A cursory check revealed that Luke AFB no longer has F-15s in its inventory and only has the F-16 aircraft. However, at one time both were maintained at Luke. Could these F-15s have been visiting aircraft? There is still some attempt to locate the civilian witness who corroborated this story.

C) North Phoenix at 9:30 p.m. - One of the witnesses who had earlier witnesses with his wife the giant wide-angle triangle reported that when he was later at home, he saw in the distance what appeared to be the return of the triangle, this time with only three lights on, one at each corner. As the UFO hovered near the Deer Valley Airport in northwest Phoenix, he saw two military jets approach the triangle, with one jet seen to pass one side of it and the other seen to fly up under it, veering down at the last moment to avoid midair collision.

D) Luke AFB at 10:00 p.m. - (The original Event 4 - the first aircraft/UFO encounter to be reported). A truck driver who had been watching two unusual amber lights move ahead of him to the south for fully two hours as he drove down I-17 from Camp Verde, reported that as he neared his destination, a materials plant near Luke AFB, the two UFOs seemed to have stopped their movement and were hovering. Once at the plant, while waiting for his truck to be unloaded, he stood on a pile of materials to watch what were now seen as two identical, toy-top like amber orbs (like hot air balloons without hanging baskets) having a white iridescent sheen and a band of red pulsating light, with the nearest to him being one to two miles distant right near the runway at Luke. Suddenly, two F-16s, followed by a third, "blasted out of Luke with their afterburners on full", made a steep bank directly over the witness and headed straight for the nearest UFO. At the moment the lead jets were about to close on the UFO, it shot straight up and disappeared "in an instant" as the jets passed right through the very spot where the object had been hovering. The second UFO also vanished, as it was no longer hovering in the northwest.

As you can see by Michael Tanner's event analysis and my own event analysis, there was a lot of activity on March 13th, yet the media chose to cover only 2 of these events. The Big Black Triangle has been virtually ignored by the journalists and is considered significant since these triangles have been reported more frequently throughout most of the world."===

Bill Hamilton Executive Director Skywatch International, Inc.
March 1999

 

Actually UFO investigators have everything to gain from debunking accounts as mundane explanations. They readily admit that 90% of ufo accounts can be explained as aircraft/balloons/meteors. So it avails them to sift these out in order to obtain that 10% of actual unidentified craft. What about professional debunkers and skeptics though? Does the same objectivity benefit them? No. In every case they MUST attribute the sighting to a mundane explain because their reputations and careers as debunkers is always at stake. God knows how these people must lose sleep every night worrying that some new sighting of ufos will occur that will put them out of a job and invalidate their premise that ufos simply don't exist. So they do everything they can to prove that ufos don't exist because they stand for the belief that ufos can't possibly exist. IOW they seek to prove what they have already concluded. And that's not science by any stretch.

 

In other words, you got nothin. When you're done here, you might go and check a map of the Phoenix Tuscon area. There you will see that the Goldwater Bombing Range is about 60 miles southwest of Phoenix over a mountain range. That's where the flares were dropped. There you will also see that Tuscon, which is where the National Guard A10s are reported to have flown from, is about 130 miles southeast of there. THAT's where the squadron flew from. A straight shot to drop the flares over the Bombing Range, and then back to Tuscon. At NO time did they even come close to Phoenix or any of the other cities northwest of Phoenix where the UFO was sighted. NO flyover ever took place along the route of the UFO's sighting. The planes were flying 60-110 miles SOUTH of Phoenix between 8:15 and 10:00. Tell me which of the accounts given matches THAT. They don't. They all report the triangular objects directly overhead, not 60-110 miles south of Phoenix. Could YOU tell the difference between a football field sized craft gliding slowly about 1000 feet above your house in Phoenix and a squadron of planes flying 60 miles to the southwest of your house dropping flares over a mountain range? I bet you could. I bet most people could. Except maybe for skeptics desperate to find anything to explain away UFOs.

Oh lookie! Here's that map now!

https://www.google.com/maps/place/B...761,7z/data=!4m2!3m1!1s0x0:0x2704e87cf26dbb1b

 

LOL! You have failed miserably in proving what those people saw were planes. You discount their own testimony in favor of an event that took place 60 miles away over a bombing range. You say "scientists" explained it. All they could explain was the flares that were dropped in the second event. They had no footage of the first event in which hundreds saw triangular craft fly over Phoenix. You say pilots claim they flew planes. Yes..the pilots who flew the A10s 60 miles south of Phoenix. At no time has any pilot come forward claiming to have flown over Phoenix that night. You claim the accounts vary, but have no explanation for the many that describe the same triangular craft with lights that blacked out the stars. Why don't you tell me how anyone can mistake planes 60 miles south of Phoenix for a craft flying directly overhead? You can't. You just repeat the same bullshit story that was put out by the military in the hopes of making this all go away. It hasn't. See account below...

You still have yet to address the inconsistencies of your own story. How do people see a squadron of planes flying 60-110 miles south of Phoenix as a craft flying over head as big as a football field? How does a squadron of planes flying from Tuscon to Goldwater Bombing Range and back account for the craft that was seen from Prescott down thru Phoenix to Chandler that night?

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Yep..all the SECOND event which occurred around an hour after the FIRST event where people saw triangular craft flying in a southeast trajectory from Paulden to Prescott to Phoenix to Chandler to Tucson.

I go by what the witnesses say they saw, not what some armchair skeptic running an online blog says is the case. Have you even read the reports of the actual eyewitnesses? No, you wouldn't want to do that would you? It might shatter your little world where ufos can't possible exist.

And I'll give YOU an example where numerous police officers and civilians witnessed an illuminated triangular craft over Illinois one night:

It doesn't suit the accounts of the eyewitnesses. You can come up with all the crackpot explanations you want, but until you address what the eyewitnesses saw that night you've not really accomplished anything.
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"The 5 -10:00 PM., MST., videos are of distant lights. No one knows for sure just what they are, or aren't. But it's basically all the video evidence there is. This is where the term, "Phoenix Lights" began. The truth is the distant lights aren't in Phoenix and probably aren't even in Maricopa county! But like I said, it's all they have. So every time a witness speaks of their sighting during a tv or documentary video...the distant lights video is shown in the background. And yes, the lights are more than likely flares. Or as I call it, the perfect diversion. This is one issue that will never be resolved. As of nine years and seven months after the fact...there are no witnesses that were close enough to the lights to accurately describe just what "they" were. (The sad part...99% of all the so-called investigation was on these lights videos...nearly all witnesses to the March 13, 1997 UFO Flyover were in the 8 o'clock hour!)

As I said earlier we all met at Village Labs Sunday, March 16 and were filmed by Strange Universe. There the videos were played before several witnesses and several MUFONAZ representatives. That's when I first spoke up to them and said, "that's not what we saw!" I described in front of all present and on film, for the very first time just what we saw at 8:30 PM., MST., not at 10 PM. Nannette and I saw a solid V shaped craft, not distant lights. We had no problem determining it was one object as it came thru the grey background of the city lights, the enormous black craft stuck out like a sore thumb. It was low and slow and it did not make any noise. And as I exclaimed during the sighting, "that son-of-a-bitch is a mile long!"

It was at that time the thoughts of multiple events first were considered. After the meeting at Village Labs ended, the entire film crew came to our home in Chandler and interviewed us and filmed from our vantage point. Clearly seeing that the city lights to the north west of our location did indeed give a grey background from the city lights.

What witnesses viewed in the 8 o'clock hour thru out Arizona on March 13, 1997, were not flares. The 5- 10 PM videos, more than likely are."===http://www.sott.net/article/140976-...tson-II-Eye-Witness-to-the-Phoenix-Lights-UFO

 

Here's an account from Prescott, which is around 60 miles northwest of Phoenix. Note this is over 120 miles north of where the A10 flare drop happened over an hour later.

"The lights first appeared over Granite Mountain. I thought they were stars in alignment, but which stars I thought? The view from the glass door in my living room is Northwest in direction. The second time I glanced up from my TV directly below and in front of the door (that door isn't used) the lights were much closer, so I quickly walked outside to the NW patio through the laundry room to get a better view of the approaching lights. I quickly realized they were part of a huge spaceship.

I very clearly saw the ships shape and outline of its fuselage illuminated by its "low speed navigation lights" (which did not blink). The lights were located toward the front lower portion of the ships leading edge and it's "flying wing" design. It had a boomerang shape and was quite sleek and heavily rounded all over, no sharp or protruding appendages.

My house is situated atop the predominant rocky hill about 1/2 mile from downtown Prescott. As it passed directly over my house I estimate it was no more than 500 to 800 feet above ground level. It was totally silent and traveling at about 25 to 35 mph. There was something like a connected grid of low intensity light that was very close to pulsating, but it's illumination was not like anything I'd ever seen, even in a movie special effect. The best I can describe it is, that it had depth and a definite pattern that was almost creating an illusion of the underbelly of the ship, rather than the actual exterior being visible (like a cloaking device).

The most interesting part of the whole experience was the appearance of the exhaust emitted by the ships engines. It was quite long extending perhaps 300 to 500 feet behind each of the six engines. It had a linear depth that was at a right angle (up and down) as opposed to the ships shape and configuration. It appeared to look like a fish swimming as it tapered off into the darkness behind the ship (which the Air Traffic Controllers also describe as a trail in the opposite direction of the wind). The multi-colored fumes were all colors of the rainbow and very brilliant and seemed to be actually swimming out of its engines. The exhaust had an appearance of "fish scales" separate blasts all contained in the exhaust plume each multi-colored and all together with a shimmering appearance and swimming at the same time within the plume.

As the ship passed over out of view I quickly ran through the house to the front deck that commands perhaps the best view of downtown Prescott to get another look. As the exhaust faded into darkness, I could clearly see the craft was approximately the size of downtown Prescott about 1 mile across in size I'd estimate."===http://www.thephoenixlights.net/Share.htm

 

Typical non-response. I'll take this as proof you have no answer to the questions I asked you. Do you even read my posts? You sound like a stuck record repeating the same old discounted story. TWO separate events: the 8:00-8:45 triangle ufo/orange orbs. Then the 9:30-10:00 flares dropped over Goldwater Bombing Range, of which there are plenty of videos. Nothing you said addresses what happened in the first event. Nothing. So go push your bullshit story somewhere else, cuz it ain't gonna fly here.

For those interested in the truth, here's a file of about 25 eyewitness accounts of the flying orange orbs AND the boomerang craft seen over Phoenix the night of March 13, 1997 from 8:00 to 8:45. Note there were other sightings in the area on the night of the 12th as well. This totally debunks any claims they were the flares that were dropped at 10:00 pm on the 13th by the A10s of the National Guard.

http://www.academia.edu/3540726/Com...ix_and_Norfolk_Incidents_Virginia_and_Phoenix

 

How do you explain what the officers saw from the video in post #74? Multiple officers reporting the same object. There was something in the sky that night. Those officers didn't get together and decide to make that stuff up.

 

Triangle ufo footage taken in Bristol:

 

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I'm going to have to step in here and ask a simple question, and dammit, I want an answer...

How is what Bells posted a "non response"? She gave you quotes of the people who were in the aircraft... the fact that eye-witness reports are inconsistent at best (and generally simply contradictory)

Sorry, but no - the bullshit isn't coming from Bells - this entire crazy thread stinks of desperation and insanity.