The Unexplained Phoenix Lights Phenomenon

- Something strange happened in the skies over Arizona tonight that has not yet been fully explained. - An event now known as the Phoenix

lights

. - It's extraordinary. - No one knows for sure what happened that night in the skies over Arizona in March, but thousands of people saw something. - This week on Buzzfeed Unsolved, we investigate the Phoenix Lights, a possible UFO sighting in Phoenix, Arizona. This case is considered by many to be one of the most important UFO cases of all time, primarily due to the number of witnesses. ^It already seems like you're excited. - I love it, I love it. (laughs) A lot of times it's like, ooh, this person saw minions kidnapping a lady, but no one had a camera. - Well, not today, buddy, not today, because spoiler alert, just take a look in there.

It's hot. - You didn't even look. Oh, there you have it. - It's very hot here. Let's get into it. - Well. - (laughs) Okay. ^On March 13, 1997, around 7 p.m., ^a string of about five

lights

in a V formation ^appeared in the sky over Phoenix, Arizona. The National UFO Reporting Center reported that the first call about the lights came at 8:16 p.m. from a retired police officer in Paulden, Arizona, which is about two hours north of Phoenix. The retired police officer reported that he saw, quote, ^ a group of red-orange lights ^ arranged in a V formation, end of quote.

The National UFO Reporting Center reportedly began receiving a flood of calls from south of Paulden, suggesting that the lights were moving in a southeast direction. There were supposedly more than 700 witnesses, including pilots, police and military officers, who turned on the switchboards of the National UFO Reporting Center in search of an explanation. Some describe the lights as orbs, others say they are triangles. ^A large number of witnesses describe the lights ^as part of a singular and massive ship, ^a ship that made no noise. - So some people saw a ship, I have a bubble, I have an air bubble in my throat right now, do you understand?

Did you ever understand that? This is scary, I don't look like myself. - Oh, you sound... - I sound like an alien. - You sound alien. - Yes, I'm like a group person. (grunts) Okay. Yeah, you know, that's it, if you look in the dark long enough, you'll see something. - Yes, 700 people are going to hallucinate at the same time. - Yes, good. - I mean, some did, some didn't. I mean, it's not a hallucination, I'm saying some people looked up and said... - Misidentified. - Oh, I see something, I'm looking into the darkness, are they all connected, what is my mind doing? - Here's a crazy point... - In March? - Although this may be, I may be going too far, but if 700 people say they saw something, what if they really saw something? - No doubt they saw something, but what is that thing? - No what? - That is the question. - A man named Terry Proctor captured ^one of the only videos of this event. ^The grainy, low-quality video, which we can't show you ^due to copyright, apparently shows five lights in a V-shaped pattern in the sky. ^Around 10 p.m., a second set of up to nine lights ^appeared in the sky, apparently hovering in the same location. ^It is unclear if these lights are related or are in fact the same ^lights from the 7pm sighting.

However, it is this set of lights that comprises most of the eyewitness testimony, as it was later in the night after the buzzing of the first sighting put people on alert. - It seems that it is not the usual modus operandi. for aliens, right? To make some kind of appetizer? - This is a strange case because there is a possibility that one was legitimate and the other was actually something normal, but it was misidentified, so it confuses things. - Curious. - Or they were the same. I think either thing is equally likely. I think it's possible that the aliens knew they were going to be seen, or didn't know they were going to be seen, that one of them was screwed, was asleep at the wheel, forgot to turn on the cloaking device, or something crazy like that. . - It's just a button. -And now he is fired and is looking for work.

His wife divorced him, his little alien children have no income to live on, it's a really bad situation for that alien father. - I don't think aliens have money. -A laser printer technician named Dana Valentine witnessed the ship from his garden in Phoenix. ^Quote, we could see the outline of a mass ^behind the lights, but you couldn't actually see the mass. ^It was more of a gray, wavy distortion of the night sky. ^I don't know exactly what it was, ^but I know it's not a technology the public ^has heard of before, end quote. ^Tim Ley, a management consultant, described the event by saying: "It was surprising and a little scary." ^It was so big and so strange. ^You couldn't actually see the object, all you could see was the outline, ^as if something was blocking the stars. ^The lights looked like gas. ^There was a distortion on the surface. ^Furthermore, the light did not spill or shine. ^I have never seen a light like that, end of quote.

According to a USA Today article at the time, air traffic controllers could not see the lights on radar, despite seeing them with their own eyes in the sky. That's pretty significant. - Yes. - If there are planes, you would see them on the radar. - Yes. - Then it's not a plane. - Unless it was stealthy. - We'll talk about that later. According to reports, it appears that the mysterious spacecraft was huge, made no sound, moved slowly, and sometimes hovered over an area. Dr. Lynne Kitei, a doctor from Phoenix, witnessed these lights and states, quote, ^it was a formation of these mile-wide orbs ^and I saw them from the front turning into a V, end of quotes. ^Witness Sue Watson described the craft as, quote, ^a shopping mall flying over my house. ^It had these lights in front and then it was ^fully lit underneath, like a yellowish amber. ^It was a fully rounded boomerang shape, end of quote.

Videos of this second event showed the string of nine lights floating in the sky. The lights randomly turn on and off over the course of a couple of minutes as they float in what could be described as a loose V-shaped formation. Other videos captured the events of March 13, 1997 and, according to a USA Today article , quote, ^computer analysis of the tapes places the object ^at 6,000 feet long, or more than a mile, end of quote. - With these things, I tend to, you know, I tend to prioritize the creepy military activity more than the aliens. Seems like a big gamble for the aliens, I mean, if they come down at night in the first place, you know, clearly, and they're trying to hide, well, cool.

Maybe hang out outside a few miles out of town. - I mean, it's really not a big bet. What's the bet? They are clearly more advanced than us, what is going to happen? Okay, we see them, we saw them. We will not attack them. - Then come in the afternoon. - Because maybe they... - Let's look at that ship. - Maybe they saw us and said, mmm, they weren't interested. Swipe right, swipe left, whatever Twitter is. Not Twitter, Tinder, he just sounded like an 80 year old man right there. (laughs) - Whatever Twinder. - Whatever Twinder is. -Twinder. - Oh yeah.

I think maybe they saw, they came to check resources. They didn't like what they saw so they just left. While there are people who say that the lights were part of a giant ship, there are others who believe that the lights themselves were the ships. ^The recollection of the event by a truck driver named Bill Greiner seems to suggest the latter. ^ Greiner said the route of his truck took him ^ within a mile of Luke Air Force Base. ^ He claims that he witnessed two orbs, one of which floated above the air force base. At that moment, three F-16s took off, after which the orb pursued one, but then shot into the sky and disappeared. ^Quote, before this, if someone had told me ^that they saw a UFO, I would have said "yes, ^"and I believe in the Tooth Fairy." Now I have a whole new view.

Maybe I'm just a dumb Trucker, but I've seen something that doesn't belong here. I wish the government would admit it. Do you know what it's like in this city now? It's like having 50,000 people in a stadium watching a football game and then someone telling us we weren't there, end of day. the quote. - I love this guy - Yeah, I love it. It's like he realizes that the first thing a skeptic is going to say is "oh, he's a fucking trucker." - Yeah. I was going to say. , oh, he's a fucking trucker. He understood me perfectly. - And then he gave a solid analogy of people watching a sporting event and then making people say "hey, you didn't see that." I saw this defense, which is cool.

Oh yeah, and I believe in the Tooth Fairy, fuck you. - It was a triple attack. - That's pretty good. - This guy is a savant when it comes to rhetoric. - Yes. ^- On May 6, during a council meeting, ^City Councilwoman Frances Barwood asks City Manager ^Frank Fairbanks if there was going to be an investigation. ^Quote, I asked if anyone knew what this object was ^and if we could investigate it. ^I met a lot of stares, end of quote. ^ She claims that after the meeting, a city manager approached her and said, quote, you shouldn't have asked that question, end of quote.

Then the Arizona Republic published a cartoon of City Councilwoman Barwood with a light switch on her forehead and a button on her jacket saying, quote, I love UFOs, end of quote. Barwood continues, the mayor's office put signs on my photo in the hallway and then I found out they handed out business cards with my name on them that said "speak in the foil." I'll listen to you, end of quote. Despite being ridiculed, Barwood began receiving phone calls from other witnesses describing the same thing. However, for a time, the case went unrecognized until a USA Today article published three months later, on June 18, 1997, described the event, effectively bringing the story into the national spotlight.

According to the article, cited, on March 13, hundreds of people reported a huge object or objects in the night sky. It is the most confusing UFO report in 50 years. So far there is no explanation, but the government is not investigating. Local and federal agencies disagree over who should handle the report, end quote. - Yes, I guess it wasn't, so there has been almost no coverage about it until now. - No, and this is three months after the sighting. - Because this is before YouTube or... - Yeah, no one on Twitter says "shit." - Yeah. - Because, you know, I mean, for example, remember, what happened a couple of months ago when the SpaceX launch happened and it looked like the sky was breaking?

If that happened in 1997 and we didn't have Twitter. -Everyone would think he was an alien. - Everyone would think he was an alien, they would lose their minds. - Yes. - Of course, it must be recognized that the government was able to provide an explanation. They even announced that this was going to happen. They said this ship was not a covert operation, so in that case, I don't know if it's very similar, but the Internet is a tool of knowledge, I guess. - In some ways. - Yes, or it could be a means of destruction, our end. - Hold on everyone. -With the country hungry for answers, then-Governor Fife Symington held a press conference ^ where he claimed he knew who was responsible ^ and exposed the accused. -And now I will ask Officer Stein and his colleagues to escort the defendant to the room so we can all see the culprit.

Don't bring him too close to me, please. (audience laughs) - And this is where this story becomes interesting, because despite making a joke about the event, Governor Symington would later publicly admit that he had also seen the ship. Quote, I saw a huge ship pass over Squall Peak. It was simply impressive. As a pilot and former Air Force officer, I can definitively say that this craft was unlike any man-made object I have ever seen. ^They certainly weren't high altitude flares, ^because I've never seen flares fly in formation. ^Without a doubt, it was a UFO, end of quote.

Another interesting fact about Governor Symington ^ was the fact that his office did ask about the object, ^ but never received a response, ^ and if a governor can't get an explanation from the powers that be, what could they be hiding? - There are probably many things that they don't tell the governors. - Sure, but not when the governor in question has a state full of people pressuring him for answers. You'd think they'd say, "Hey, I know a lot of people are attacking you right now." You are under a lot of pressure. "This is what you do," but instead they ostracize him, keep him outside to think, "Oh, I wonder what he's going to do." Maybe I speak badly. - I would be more worried if I knew something. - I'm just saying that if they had talked to him, he would never have said anything, I think.

Because he would have had the fear of God in him. -But then he is still, he is still like a loose weapon. - Not necessarily. - They can't be sure that if they tell yousomething, he could go crazy, they don't know. - Yes you can, because it's your job. I'm just saying that by keeping someone in the dark, you're giving them the freedom to say whatever they really want. - However, without any foundation. So if anyone listens to it, don't... - It has a bit of a basis. He's a governor saying something, so that already inherently has some basis. - But he doesn't know more than anyone else in the city. - I know. - Is the thing. -But that makes him seem more suspicious. - I do not think it is like that. - I think so. -Well, he agrees to disagree here. - Alright.

With that, let's get into the theories, of which there are only two. The first theory is the official Air Force explanation that the lights seen in the sky were simply flares dropped in a high-altitude training exercise that night. ^The Army claims that the flares were launched ^over Barry M. Goldwater Field near Gila Bend, Arizona, ^although it is worth noting that Tuscon's Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, the base that allegedly carried out The training exercise originally stated that there were no planes in the air at the time. Former F-16 pilot Ty Groh believes the lights could well have been military flares.

He says flares go where the wind takes them. It is possible that a breeze could have carried them all the same distance. In June of that year, a local news anchor recorded another flare launched by the military, and skeptics suggest it bore a striking resemblance to the Phoenix lights. An important detail is what time the military reportedly dropped flares on the night of the Phoenix lights. The fall of the flare apparently occurred around 10 p.m., ^that is, at the same time that sightings of the second set of lights were reported, ^but while that possibly explains those lights, ^that still offers no explanation for the first set of lights seen. almost three hours before. ^ A man named Mitch Stanley claims that during the time ^ of the first sighting, he was using ^ a high-powered telescope capable of seeing ^ 1,500 times more light than the human eye.

When he looked at the first set of lights, he claimed they were airplanes. While compelling, this story seems strange ^when you consider the fact that no aircraft were reported in the air during the time of the first sighting, ^and given that it was not just one light, but five lights, ^it seems strange that there would be five missing planes flying in tight formation. - My gut tells me it's just some shady military activity. They could have been flares, they could have been sigils. You know, who knows? - They have only given me an explanation for the second set of lights, and even that explanation is bullshit for me, I would say. (laughs) I think that's a shitty explanation. - This one is bullshit. - I just think that the flares, even if you buy them, of course, the first set of lights is still

unexplained

, except for a guy with a telescope competing against 700 witnesses.

And why the hell is this guy with a telescope? It turns out that he is using a telescope at the exact moment of one of the craziest events of all time. - You have to be honest, telescope people are weird. - (laughs) Yes, I know, because he's actually... - We don't want to be one of those. - He's a favorite among skeptics, they say "look, this guy is using a high-powered telescope with his mom," who was, was using, was back... - No, I don't doubt that it was him and His mother was outside with her telescope.

I'm just saying telescope people, I mean how much are they spending on these telescopes? They'll be out there every night with a margarita like, let's see what I find. - Yes that's true. - Oh, empty sky again, what a night. Well, it's been eight hours, I guess I'll go to sleep because the sun is coming up. They are basically vampires. -Then he tells his mother "good reach." She says "good reach, son" and then they go back to bed. - When are you going to move? (laughs) - Which brings us to our next theory, that the lights were not flares, but actual UFOs, and perhaps proof of extraterrestrial life. ^On the third anniversary of the lights, ^another flare demonstration was held ^to try to imitate the lights, ^this time by the National Guard, ^but people were not convinced ^that this was what they witnessed three years before. ^The flares, quote, flickered and moved erratically, ^end quote, and not in the strange clustered manner ^of the Phoenix lights.

Jim Dilettosa, a special effects expert, analyzed videos of the lights and said, quote, I have no idea what they were, end of quote. ^ He and his team describe the orbs as, quote, ^ a perfectly uniform light with no variation ^ from one edge to the other and without brightness. ^They have ruled out lasers, flares, holograms ^and aircraft lights as sources, end of quote. To learn more about this case, we sat down with former alien expert Giorgio A. Tsoukalos. What do you think is the plausibility of this event actually happening? - Well, we know what happened. (laughs) - We know what happened.

Ryan and I agree, we don't know what exactly it was. - What was, yes, correct, and what I find fascinating is that something similar happened seven years earlier in Belgium, which was also seen by thousands and thousands of people. The same triangle formation and then also the individual lights. So I think it's fascinating. - Have you seen anything that could be an early version of what we saw in the Phoenix lights? - Of course, the interesting thing is that Alexander the Great and also in some accounts of ancient Constantinople, there are references to giant flying shields.

Giant shields that shine in the sky and just cruise, you know, over the lands. So when you have these accounts of ancient flying shields in the sky witnessed by armies, you have to wonder, well, were they all drunk? (laughs) Were they all smoking or did they actually see something? - Even if the lights were flares or misidentified aircraft, this still does not explain why numerous witnesses described a massive ship to which the lights were attached. ^Taking advantage of that, on March 14, 1997, ^the morning after the Phoenix lights, ^an airman from Luke Air Force Base ^detailed a disturbing story from the previous day. ^ He stated that the base received a call from ^ Prescott Valley Airport, quote, reporting an object that nearly collided with a small Cessna, end of quote.

He stated that this call occurred at approximately 8:32 p.m. m. and that they found something about Phoenix, Arizona, end of quote. ^As a result, the airman says Luke Air Force Base ^sent two F-15s to investigate. Upon his return to base, this is how the aviator described the pilot of one of the F-15s. Cita, the pilot in command of this particular flight, had never seen this man scared, and he was scared to death. He's not sure what he was. His statement was that they followed this plane, which was following a straight course. He saw five distinct lights in a triangular pattern.

How often would this happen when the military has stealth planes that they don't report to Air Force bases? - It's possible. - That seems tremendously counterproductive to me. You don't want to send a bunch of planes to investigate things when you could easily say "oh yeah, that's one of ours." - Yes, I feel like I'm military, you know, it's hard to pin down. It's hard to pinpoint what they could do. - I think I just said something good. - I mean, certainly, certainly a good point for you. - After this revelation, the airman stated that ^the Air Force base, quote, was completely closed. ^Basically all hell broke loose ^and the facility was closed, end of quote.

It should be noted that this meeting occurred around 8:30 p.m. at the time of the first sighting, about an hour and a half before the military claimed they dropped flares. In response, the Air Force has denied that this encounter took place. Classic. - I love it, yes. - Classic, do you think they simply have a target that they throw, whether they want to or not, are they going to deny? - Simply turn a wheel. - What do we tell them this time? - Yes. - I think it would be a fun job to be the person who makes up false stories that the military leaks. - Spin doctor. - Oh, an advertising expert. - Yes. - And then he spins his wheel... - Oh, he spins a wheel! - That has themes... - It's all very literal. - And it has themes about it. - We are going with flares, unfortunately. - And everyone in the office who had sparklers in their pool says "yes!" - They drown Alf a little more. (Ryan laughs) - It makes sense for the Air Force to deny this story, since denying interest in UFOs is something the government has already done. ^In December 2017, the nation's defense department was found to have used $22 million of its $600 billion annual budget for an advanced aerospace threat identification program. ^Defense Department officials admitted that for years ^the program had been investigating ^unidentified flying objects. ^Here is a quote from a New York Times article about a 60-minute documentary on this topic that details the documents provided in the documentary.

Quote, documents describing sightings of aircraft that appear to be moving at very high speeds without visible signs of propulsion, or that were floating with no apparent means of support, end of quote. Why do you think the government approaches the issue of UFOs with such concern? Why do you think they are so against it? - That's a great question because, as we now know, since the '50s and '60s, you know, open-minded people like the three of us and our large audience, they've always laughed at us and, oh, you know. , those are the crazy ones, those are the crazy ones.

And then reports come out, well, we've been studying this, you know, files and files with hundreds of thousands of documents, all over the world, not just from the United States government, but from governments in Brazil, England, everywhere. the place, that ultimately this has been investigated and the fact that the Pentagon in December 2017 issued a statement saying "hey, we are investigating UFOs," that to me indicates that we have passed, or that we are experiencing a change paradigm, which is great. - In the end, neither skeptics nor believers can concretely prove what happened that night. Despite hundreds of witnesses across an entire state, the world seems content to leave what happened that night a mystery.

Maybe one day we will have an answer, but for now the case remains unsolved. (mysterious music)