Former Ariz. governor says he saw UFO
Fri Mar 23, 7:00 PM ET 
 


PHOENIX - Former Arizona Gov. Fife Symington trotted out an aide dressed 
as an alien 10 years ago to spoof the frenzy surrounding mysterious 
lights in the Phoenix sky. Now he says he saw the lights himself, and 
believed from the start that they were extraterrestrial. 

 
Now a pastry chef and business consultant, Symington said he didn't 
acknowledge his own encounter at first because he didn't want people to 
panic. The former governor, who faced fraud charges at the time, also 
said he didn't need the additional problems such an admission would have 
created.

Symington discussed the sighting with a UFO investigator making a 
documentary, and in media interviews this week.

"I'm a pilot and I know just about every machine that flies," Symington, 
a former Air Force captain, told the Arizona Daily Star on Thursday. "It 
was bigger than anything that I've ever seen. It remains a great mystery. 
Other people saw it, responsible people. I don't know why people would 
ridicule it."

Symington told CNN the craft he saw March 13, 1997, was "enormous. It 
just felt otherworldly. In your gut, you could just tell it was 
otherworldly."

Symington said he initially told no one but his wife that he had seen the 
lights.

During a news conference that June, Symington, in his second term as 
governor, told reporters that an alien had been captured. He then ushered 
out his chief of staff, Jay Heiler, dressed in a costume complete with 
oversized head and eyes.

"This just goes to show that you guys are entirely too serious," 
Symington said then.

Later in 1997, Symington was convicted of bank fraud charges stemming 
from his bankrupt real estate empire. The conviction later was overturned 
and he was pardoned by        President Clinton in 2001 before federal 
prosecutors decided whether they would retry the case.

Heiler, who says Symington is one of his closest friends, said he isn't 
surprised he believes in UFOs. He described his former boss as a 
"Trekkie" who believes earthlings will travel to distant solar systems at 
above the speed of light "in our lifetimes."

The Phoenix lights, which appeared in a V shape as they moved across the 
sky, were widely explained as flares dumped by a military training 
flight, though many still doubted the government was telling all it knew.

Tucson astronomer and retired Air Force pilot James McGaha said he 
investigated two sightings over Phoenix that March night and traced both 
to A-10 aircraft flying in formation at high altitude.

"It was clearly aircraft in formation, flying at two different times and 
then dropping flares and it's clear to any rational person that's what it 
was," McGaha said.

McGaha said Symington "is not a trained observer and what he feels in his 
gut doesn't make any difference."

The Video:
http://cosmos.bcst.yahoo.com/up/player/popup/?rn=49750&cl=2249043&ch=
61492&src=news
-- 
http://www.writingup.com/blog/jim_the_hermit