In news:1173404305.406370.263040@c51g2000cwc.googlegroups.com,
mitchell_leary@yahoo.com <mitchell_leary@yahoo.com> typed:

So friends, go on beLIEving the Phoenix Lights are from another planet
and traveled untold light years to visit that hell-hole in the desert,
Phoenix.

A good try,

However hot air balloons use some form of flame to heat air. These flames
invariably burn yellow orange for example Chinese lanterns use tea light
candle flames. This yellow-orange would be particularly noticeable in
photographs or video footage. Because although video and digital cameras
have a means to alter the white-balance apart from being something which
often has to be performed manually, the colour temperature of a flame is far
more yellow orange than even normal artificial lighting.

Considering many of these lights were white and incandescent, some form of
hot air balloon can therefore be ruled out.

Of course flares burn with an incandescent white light. Which explains why
flares have been cited as an explanation. However generally parachute flares
tend to burn for a fairly relatively short period and also tend to give off
smoke trails. This isn't consistent with witness reports or photographic
evidence.

Had you said you had used helium or hydrogen filled party balloons with high
intensity halogen or LED torch lights attached your claims might have had
some credibility. But even then given the intensity of these lights which in
photographs and videos clearly show up and compete with the street lights on
the ground you would need a fair amount of electrical power to create
omni-directional light sources of this intensity. That power would either
have to be carries aloft in the form of batteries or the whole thing would
need to be tethered to the ground and plugged into a mains supply.

But none of these explanations are consistent with witness reports or the
video and photographic evidence.

Whilst I don't think it would be entirely impossible to hoax something of
this kind using helium or hydrogen filled balloons with high intensity
lights attached for example LEDs and stringing them together in some way.
This does seem somewhat unlikely. Particularly when you consider the first
Phoenix lights happened over a decade ago and some of the lighting
technology readily and cheaply available today wasn't so readily available
back then.
-- 
Amanda