1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:09,460 Tonight, a shocking event sends the city of Phoenix into a panic. 2 00:00:09,460 --> 00:00:12,760 More than 100 witnesses called the UFO hotline. 3 00:00:12,760 --> 00:00:17,240 Some believe it's one of the largest scale UFO sightings in history. 4 00:00:17,240 --> 00:00:19,680 They're about 3,000 feet high, out approximately. 5 00:00:19,680 --> 00:00:23,360 They looked as though they were kind of hovering. 6 00:00:23,360 --> 00:00:28,280 But the question is, what the heck is it? 7 00:00:28,280 --> 00:00:32,760 Now we reveal the top theories behind this phenomenon. 8 00:00:32,760 --> 00:00:35,720 What we find out is this isn't an isolated incident. 9 00:00:35,720 --> 00:00:38,240 These phenomena happen all the time. 10 00:00:38,240 --> 00:00:40,840 Is the government covering something up? 11 00:00:40,840 --> 00:00:45,240 Is Phoenix in the crosshairs of an possible interstellar war? 12 00:00:45,240 --> 00:00:49,560 Are we being targeted for some reason? 13 00:00:49,560 --> 00:00:52,320 What could possibly account for? 14 00:00:52,320 --> 00:00:55,320 The Mysterious Phoenix Lights. 15 00:01:22,320 --> 00:01:25,320 Also known as UFOs. 16 00:01:25,320 --> 00:01:28,320 The New York Times publishes a bombshell report 17 00:01:28,320 --> 00:01:33,320 that details the work of the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program. 18 00:01:33,320 --> 00:01:38,320 A shadowy government group that has spent 10 years investigating military encounters 19 00:01:38,320 --> 00:01:41,320 with strange unknown objects in the sky. 20 00:01:41,320 --> 00:01:44,320 Here is another UFO bulletin. 21 00:01:44,320 --> 00:01:47,320 For years, people have reported encounters with UFOs. 22 00:01:47,320 --> 00:01:50,320 Roswell, Lubbock, Belgium, the list goes on and on, 23 00:01:50,320 --> 00:01:53,320 and stretches as far back as antiquity. 24 00:01:53,320 --> 00:01:56,320 Acknowledging this program's existence is huge 25 00:01:56,320 --> 00:02:01,320 because up to this point, the government's position has been denied, denied, denied. 26 00:02:01,320 --> 00:02:05,320 And now they're not only admitting that these lights in the sky really are something, 27 00:02:05,320 --> 00:02:09,320 but that they are in fact unidentified. 28 00:02:09,320 --> 00:02:14,320 Within months, the government declassifies videos of some of these encounters. 29 00:02:18,320 --> 00:02:25,320 Including one captured by the Navy in 2004, known as the Tic Tac video. 30 00:02:25,320 --> 00:02:27,320 My gosh! 31 00:02:27,320 --> 00:02:31,320 100 miles off the coast of San Diego, radar tracks the object 32 00:02:31,320 --> 00:02:37,320 descending from 15 miles high down to 50 feet in about one second. 33 00:02:37,320 --> 00:02:40,320 Oh my god! 34 00:02:40,320 --> 00:02:44,320 No known object can fly that fast. 35 00:02:44,320 --> 00:02:46,320 Oh my gosh, dude! 36 00:02:46,320 --> 00:02:48,320 Wow! 37 00:02:48,320 --> 00:02:56,320 When jets intercept it, the cylindrical craft drops down below the water, 38 00:02:56,320 --> 00:03:01,320 then flies up into the air, and then disappears. 39 00:03:01,320 --> 00:03:05,320 When radar detects the object, it's already 60 miles away. 40 00:03:05,320 --> 00:03:08,320 The video causes a sensation when it's released. 41 00:03:08,320 --> 00:03:13,320 It's not only massive international news, it's also vindication. 42 00:03:13,320 --> 00:03:21,320 Vindication for people who have seen these craft and have spent years swearing that they exist. 43 00:03:21,320 --> 00:03:30,320 Perhaps none feel more vindicated than the citizens who witnessed a strange event on March 13, 1997. 44 00:03:30,320 --> 00:03:40,320 On the night of March 13, reports come in from Phoenix as well as California, Nevada and New Mexico. 45 00:03:40,320 --> 00:03:49,320 People are describing a huge V-shaped craft moving southeast along the region. 46 00:03:49,320 --> 00:04:01,320 Around sunset, a man in Henderson, Nevada observed and reported a triangular shaped aircraft with lights underneath it hovering over the desert. 47 00:04:01,320 --> 00:04:06,320 He moves in closer to get a better look, and the object starts to move. 48 00:04:06,320 --> 00:04:12,320 Now, he doesn't know what he's looking at, but he does know this is not an airplane. 49 00:04:12,320 --> 00:04:17,320 The sighting of the unidentified craft is quickly confirmed by others. 50 00:04:17,320 --> 00:04:28,320 Twenty minutes later, a retired police officer calls to report that he's seeing the same object 200 miles south of Henderson. 51 00:04:28,320 --> 00:04:35,320 He follows it with his car, and he's never closer to it than about a mile, and yet even from there he can tell it's gigantic. 52 00:04:35,320 --> 00:04:42,320 Reports continue to flood in at 820 Pruscott Valley, 20 minutes later downtown Phoenix. 53 00:04:42,320 --> 00:04:50,320 I was kind of surprised to see it on the news, but at the same time I was excited because I thought I would get some answers to explain the strange thing that I just seen. 54 00:04:50,320 --> 00:04:59,320 These were incredibly bright lights. They were completely motionless, made no sound, and these lights just hung there directly over me. 55 00:04:59,320 --> 00:05:12,320 And I was awestruck. I observed these lights for a period of about 30 minutes, went inside, came back out later, and 45 minutes later, this string of lights is still in the sky. 56 00:05:12,320 --> 00:05:16,320 Among the eyewitnesses, Dr. Lynn Keetai. 57 00:05:16,320 --> 00:05:26,320 On March 13, 1997, the Halobov comet was in clear view on a beautiful spring night in the northwest sky. 58 00:05:26,320 --> 00:05:30,320 Thousands of people went outside to catch a glimpse of it. 59 00:05:30,320 --> 00:05:35,320 And I go outside, and suddenly I noticed three amber orbs. 60 00:05:35,320 --> 00:05:42,320 Every other light out there glared. These did not. So light did not extend outside the edge. It was self-contained. 61 00:05:42,320 --> 00:05:45,320 They were very soothing, very mesmerizing. 62 00:05:45,320 --> 00:05:56,320 And then the top orb started to shrink very, very slowly until it was pea-sized and then disappeared. But it felt like it was still there. 63 00:05:56,320 --> 00:06:03,320 As Dr. Keetai watches the sky, calls pour into local police and news stations. 64 00:06:03,320 --> 00:06:07,320 It starts tonight with those strange dots of light that were the top of the town. 65 00:06:07,320 --> 00:06:11,320 More than 100 witnesses called the UFO hotline. 66 00:06:11,320 --> 00:06:18,320 For answers, authorities immediately reach out to Luke Air Force Base. 67 00:06:18,320 --> 00:06:26,320 Luke Air Force Base is a base right in the heart of Phoenix, and they fly a lot of advanced aircraft. 68 00:06:26,320 --> 00:06:33,320 So obviously, if anybody knows what's going on, they would be someone you would call to find out what the heck this is. 69 00:06:33,320 --> 00:06:39,320 So police, reporters, and even the governor are calling the base to find out what's going on. 70 00:06:39,320 --> 00:06:46,320 Luke Air Force Base indicated that they had no planes up in there at the time and they didn't know anything about it. 71 00:06:46,320 --> 00:06:50,320 It was basically nothing to see here move along. 72 00:06:50,320 --> 00:06:55,320 But four months later, the base offers an explanation. 73 00:06:55,320 --> 00:07:08,320 They indicated that a team of A-10 Warthogs from the Maryland National Guard had deployed flares over the Astrea Mountains at that time. 74 00:07:08,320 --> 00:07:13,320 Footage from that night seems to support this theory at first. 75 00:07:13,320 --> 00:07:17,320 It's getting closer and closer, we're seeing, you know, that thing's coming right at us. 76 00:07:17,320 --> 00:07:26,320 When you look at the witness video, I guess it's possible they do kind of look like flares, and military activity is pretty prevalent in the area. 77 00:07:26,320 --> 00:07:35,320 In addition to Luke, there's Davis-Montham Base also in Arizona, and then there's Kirtland and the Holloman bases not too far away in New Mexico. 78 00:07:35,320 --> 00:07:38,320 But eyewitnesses quickly raised doubts. 79 00:07:38,320 --> 00:07:42,320 So the Phoenix Light event really had two phases. 80 00:07:42,320 --> 00:07:50,320 One was the large V-shaped craft flying across the state, and the other was the lights over the Astrea Mountains. 81 00:07:50,320 --> 00:08:00,320 However, when you look at the flare theory, the flares might explain the lights over the mountains, but it doesn't explain the V-shaped aircraft witnessed by thousands of people. 82 00:08:00,320 --> 00:08:05,320 It was so awesome and so mind-boggling. 83 00:08:05,320 --> 00:08:11,320 Massive, massive craft right over people's heads, it was silent. 84 00:08:11,320 --> 00:08:14,320 It took off at blink speed without even dispersing the air. 85 00:08:14,320 --> 00:08:27,320 Did you're trying to tell me that flares that are dropped from an aircraft on a parachute, that drop haphazardly with the wind, have huge smoke trails that are illuminated by the flare itself, 86 00:08:27,320 --> 00:08:29,320 and illuminate the area around it. 87 00:08:29,320 --> 00:08:35,320 There are heat seeking for missiles that are coming towards aircraft, and not one person described any of that. 88 00:08:35,320 --> 00:08:38,320 And there are other red flags. 89 00:08:38,320 --> 00:08:50,320 The Air Force claims that the A-10 Warthogs deployed the flares over the Astrea Mountains around 10 p.m., which is not typically standard operating procedure. 90 00:08:50,320 --> 00:09:07,320 In addition to that, those flares, the L-U-U-2-B-B flare, falls at a rate of about 8 feet per second, and from the time the first flare was dropped to the last flare, those flares would have dropped some 1500 feet. 91 00:09:07,320 --> 00:09:12,320 Yet the video shows those lights in a stationary position for about 30 minutes. 92 00:09:13,320 --> 00:09:23,320 These amazing amber orbs were just mind boggling, so different than anything you've ever seen, different from any other light out there. 93 00:09:23,320 --> 00:09:25,320 It definitely wasn't flares. 94 00:09:25,320 --> 00:09:29,320 The massive craft also leaves no trace on radar. 95 00:09:29,320 --> 00:09:38,320 Air traffic controllers at Sky Harbor International Airport checked their call logs and their radar and found no indication of these aircraft. 96 00:09:38,320 --> 00:09:42,320 And if that's not the definition of a UFO, I don't know what is. 97 00:09:42,320 --> 00:09:49,320 To silence the skeptics, the Air Force decides to conduct a flare drop demonstration for the public. 98 00:09:49,320 --> 00:09:58,320 We get a very public announcement that three Air National Guards were coming into town to show everyone the Phoenix lights, and we were ready. 99 00:09:58,320 --> 00:10:06,320 And a lot of people felt that exercise didn't look similar to what they had seen on March 13th. 100 00:10:06,320 --> 00:10:08,320 Talk about a joke. 101 00:10:08,320 --> 00:10:12,320 They tried to make a triangle that was upside down and fell apart immediately. 102 00:10:12,320 --> 00:10:16,320 One of them just fizzled out as huge smoke trails. 103 00:10:16,320 --> 00:10:21,320 Just what flares do, really put the nail in the coffin. 104 00:10:21,320 --> 00:10:22,320 They had their shot. 105 00:10:22,320 --> 00:10:29,320 To date, the Phoenix lights have never been recreated or explained. 106 00:10:29,320 --> 00:10:32,320 It's almost comical that this is what they expect us to believe. 107 00:10:32,320 --> 00:10:39,320 Unfortunately, I and many others in Phoenix who saw the Phoenix lights that night weren't about to take the Air Force's word at face value. 108 00:10:39,320 --> 00:10:42,320 We were ready to dig in and get answers. 109 00:10:48,320 --> 00:10:57,320 After thousands witnessed unexplained lights in the sky above Phoenix, Arizona in 1997, the city is desperate for answers. 110 00:10:57,320 --> 00:11:06,320 The March 13, 1997 Phoenix lights incident was probably the largest UFO mass sighting in UFO history. 111 00:11:06,320 --> 00:11:10,320 But the question is, what the heck is it? 112 00:11:10,320 --> 00:11:15,320 The military says it's flares, but almost nobody in Phoenix believes it. 113 00:11:15,320 --> 00:11:16,320 They know what they saw. 114 00:11:16,320 --> 00:11:20,320 They know what flares look like, and these weren't flares. 115 00:11:20,320 --> 00:11:28,320 One of the things that I think bothers people the most is the behavior of our military. 116 00:11:28,320 --> 00:11:37,320 Initially, the Air Force denies having any involvement with the event, but four months later, they come out with this flair story. 117 00:11:37,320 --> 00:11:39,320 Why is that? 118 00:11:39,320 --> 00:11:48,320 Even Governor Fife Simington himself, a former Air Force pilot, tried to make inquiries to the military as to the identification of this object. 119 00:11:48,320 --> 00:11:52,320 And he himself got the run around, and he's the governor of the state of Arizona. 120 00:11:52,320 --> 00:11:56,320 Simington was also skeptical of the flair explanation. 121 00:11:56,320 --> 00:12:00,320 He claimed that flares don't fly in formation. 122 00:12:00,320 --> 00:12:04,320 Is it possible the military has something to hide? 123 00:12:04,320 --> 00:12:09,320 So many people feel that Luke Air Force Base is not letting on everything they know. 124 00:12:09,320 --> 00:12:15,320 And the reason they could be doing that is because they're protecting some secret military technology. 125 00:12:18,320 --> 00:12:28,320 Located 20 miles northwest of downtown Phoenix, Luke Air Force Base is home to the most advanced aircraft in the U.S. 126 00:12:28,320 --> 00:12:33,320 Luke Air Force Base is affectionately called the home of the fighter pilot. 127 00:12:33,320 --> 00:12:36,320 It's where the 56th Fighter Wing is based. 128 00:12:36,320 --> 00:12:41,320 And this is the Air Force's version of what the Navy famously calls Top Gun. 129 00:12:41,320 --> 00:12:46,320 Back in the 97, it was the F-15, the F-16s were coming out. 130 00:12:46,320 --> 00:12:54,320 There were a whole bunch of other kinds of aircraft that could potentially be seen being flown out of Luke Air Force Base. 131 00:12:54,320 --> 00:12:59,320 Basically, any fixed wing aircraft in the U.S. arsenal has flown at Luke. 132 00:12:59,320 --> 00:13:03,320 Plus a few that we don't know about because they're top secret. 133 00:13:03,320 --> 00:13:09,320 We know for certain that the U.S. military has tested top secret weapons and aircraft in this area for decades. 134 00:13:09,320 --> 00:13:17,320 Among the state-of-the-art aircraft initially flown here, the X-1, the X-15, and the Blackbird, 135 00:13:17,320 --> 00:13:21,320 each test is classified and top secret. 136 00:13:21,320 --> 00:13:24,320 And for some, that's a clue. 137 00:13:24,320 --> 00:13:30,320 These are all aircraft that were developed and tested in total secrecy up over the deserts here. 138 00:13:30,320 --> 00:13:34,320 If you had asked the military about any of these back when they were still being developed, 139 00:13:34,320 --> 00:13:40,320 you would have heard the same kind of subterfuge and denial that we heard with the Phoenix Lights incident. 140 00:13:40,320 --> 00:13:47,320 There's a high presence of the military in the state of Arizona, and perhaps they were testing some secret technology. 141 00:13:47,320 --> 00:13:54,320 So it makes sense that people might have mistaken what they saw on the night of March 13th, 97, for a UFO. 142 00:13:54,320 --> 00:13:58,320 It wouldn't be the first time that's happened. 143 00:13:58,320 --> 00:14:03,320 In the 1980s, there were many UFO reports in the state of Arizona. 144 00:14:03,320 --> 00:14:13,320 However, those reports ended up being identified as the F-1-17A and the B-2 bomber that were in development at the time. 145 00:14:13,320 --> 00:14:20,320 When you look at these aircraft, what do you see? You see V-shaped aircraft that look similar with what they reported in the Phoenix Lights, 146 00:14:20,320 --> 00:14:22,320 albeit smaller. 147 00:14:22,320 --> 00:14:32,320 More recently, we've had some UFO sightings that actually turned out to be advanced spy drones, like the Air Force's RQ-170 and RQ-180. 148 00:14:32,320 --> 00:14:41,320 Engineers contracted by the government are currently at work on a new stealth bomber, the B-21, which is scheduled to be operational in the mid-2020s. 149 00:14:41,320 --> 00:14:49,320 That project wasn't greenlit until 2015, so it's not responsible for the Phoenix Lights, but it just goes to show they're always working on something. 150 00:14:49,320 --> 00:14:57,320 If anything else, we know that the Southwest is a hotbed for innovation for aerospace in the public and private sector. 151 00:14:57,320 --> 00:15:06,320 Even so, some doubt the military has the advanced technology witnesses say they observed in Phoenix in 1997. 152 00:15:06,320 --> 00:15:16,320 Witnesses describe something out of a sci-fi movie. They see this giant V-shaped craft, which was hundreds and hundreds of yards across. 153 00:15:16,320 --> 00:15:26,320 By comparison, known aircrafts such as the B-2 bomber, the wingspan is only 172 feet, or the largest plane known to be flown, the Stratolange, 154 00:15:26,320 --> 00:15:30,320 only had a wingspan of 385 feet. 155 00:15:30,320 --> 00:15:34,320 Our government has never flown anything this big. 156 00:15:34,320 --> 00:15:41,320 The Phoenix Lights craft also moved slowly. Estimates place it at about 15 to 30 miles an hour, 157 00:15:41,320 --> 00:15:46,320 and it was maybe one to 200 feet off the ground at times. 158 00:15:46,320 --> 00:15:53,320 He thinks that he said if he had a tennis ball, he could have hit it. He could have thrown a tennis ball at it. It was that close. 159 00:15:53,320 --> 00:15:55,320 It was very close. He just kind of nailed it. 160 00:15:55,320 --> 00:16:00,320 Others report seeing the object come to a stop and hover in place. 161 00:16:00,320 --> 00:16:06,320 Airplanes can't do that. There's not enough airflow to produce loft with their wings. 162 00:16:06,320 --> 00:16:11,320 Helicopters can, but the Phoenix Lights craft moved silently. 163 00:16:11,320 --> 00:16:16,320 The flight characteristics that they describe are unlike any other machine we have in the air today. 164 00:16:16,320 --> 00:16:26,320 And keep in mind, this is back in 1997. So 25 years ago, they had something this incredible, and it still hasn't ever seen the light of day. 165 00:16:26,320 --> 00:16:35,320 But John Powell, a private defense contractor for JP Aerospace, believes this capability exists and will soon be made public. 166 00:16:35,320 --> 00:16:45,320 Powell and JP Aerospace were awarded a grant in 2014 to develop slow-moving, top-secret, classified, triangular aircraft. 167 00:16:45,320 --> 00:16:50,320 So Powell believes that perhaps what they saw during the Phoenix Lights was something similar to what he's been developing. 168 00:16:50,320 --> 00:16:57,320 The specs of these are highly classified, but JP Aerospace was able to get a prototype of this thing going. 169 00:16:57,320 --> 00:17:03,320 Meanwhile, Arizona lawmakers continue to press the military for more answers. 170 00:17:03,320 --> 00:17:08,320 So Frances Emma Barwood was a city of Phoenix Council person. 171 00:17:08,320 --> 00:17:14,320 She launched an investigation into the Phoenix Lights because no one else would. 172 00:17:14,320 --> 00:17:23,320 She interviewed over 700 witnesses. She offered to let the military talk to those witnesses, and they chose not to interview a single person. 173 00:17:23,320 --> 00:17:29,320 Then Senator John McCain put in a formal request for more information, but that request was denied. 174 00:17:29,320 --> 00:17:42,320 If it's military, show me. We have not seen anything technologically, even close to what thousands saw on March 13, 1997, right above their heads. 175 00:17:42,320 --> 00:17:50,320 The technology has never been seen. If it was military, experimental, aircraft, show me. 176 00:17:50,320 --> 00:18:01,320 Until really the government comes out and says this was them and it is some sort of classified project, people just still aren't going to know what to believe in, and it'll remain a mystery. 177 00:18:01,320 --> 00:18:16,320 Phoenix, Arizona, April 21, 2008. Nearly 11 years after an entire city witnesses a strange UFO event, it happens again. 178 00:18:16,320 --> 00:18:27,320 So on Monday at about 8.05 p.m., again, you know, the police, the Air Force, authorities are being inundated with reports that there's another set of lights hovering over the city. 179 00:18:27,320 --> 00:18:33,320 It's unbelievable, or maybe it's totally believable. If it happened once, why couldn't it happen again? 180 00:18:33,320 --> 00:18:40,320 Live in late breaking right now, they're back. Did you see them tonight? Many people called our newsroom about lights in the sky. 181 00:18:40,320 --> 00:18:53,320 People reported that there was a series of four or five orange-red lights over the North Valley. It's like a repeat of the 1997 incident. People come running out and they see a V-shaped formation of lights. 182 00:18:53,320 --> 00:19:02,320 Initially, there was four lights. They're about 3,000 feet high, approximately. They looked as though they were kind of hovering or floating. 183 00:19:02,320 --> 00:19:08,320 But as it progresses, this event plays out differently from the 1997 sighting. 184 00:19:08,320 --> 00:19:17,320 As this 2008 formation hovers, the shape changes from a triangle into a square. The previous lights just remained uniform in their V-shape. 185 00:19:17,320 --> 00:19:27,320 Lights in the sky. Did you see them tonight? Many people were calling our newsroom, and if you missed it, take a look. One man in North Phoenix caught the lights on home video 15 minutes worth. 186 00:19:27,320 --> 00:19:38,320 Whatever you believe happened back in 1997, people are convinced that it's happening again. This time, they won't have to wait long for answers. 187 00:19:38,320 --> 00:19:53,320 Unlike the Phoenix lights, the mystery to this event only lasted about 12 hours because the next day, April 22nd, a man called Dan, admitting that he was responsible, it was all a hoax. 188 00:19:53,320 --> 00:20:00,320 The whole thing was staged. The man tied flares to helium balloons and then let them go one minute apart. 189 00:20:00,320 --> 00:20:15,320 Is this a relief? Is it disappointing? Does it make people angry? It's hard to know how to feel. But one thing it does is it makes people look back at the real Phoenix lights event 11 years prior and think, wait, what if that was a hoax too? 190 00:20:15,320 --> 00:20:22,320 Back in 1997, while they're looking for answers and people are going to the government, there are a lot of people that think the whole thing was just a gag. 191 00:20:22,320 --> 00:20:30,320 On 1997 press conference, held by Arizona's then governor, Pfeif Simeington, seems to bolster that theory. 192 00:20:30,320 --> 00:20:37,320 We're initially excited and think we're finally going to get a real investigation and Pfeif Simeington saw it and he's one of us. 193 00:20:37,320 --> 00:20:44,320 And now I'll ask Officer Stein and his colleagues to escort the accused into the room so that we may all look upon the guilty party. 194 00:20:44,320 --> 00:20:50,320 Don't get him too close to me, please. 195 00:20:50,320 --> 00:21:02,320 In walks, Governor Simeington's Chief of Staff, Jay Heiler, dressed in an alien suit and handcuffs. 196 00:21:02,320 --> 00:21:07,320 It's met with laughter and applause and really does the whole thing a huge disservice. 197 00:21:07,320 --> 00:21:15,320 The problem with the press conference was it made getting answers so much harder. If you ask any questions about it, you were labeled a crackpot. 198 00:21:15,320 --> 00:21:23,320 Those kinds of things are not helpful and for people who are really interested and they want to find out what's going on. 199 00:21:23,320 --> 00:21:27,320 Thank you. 200 00:21:27,320 --> 00:21:32,320 You can't get to the bottom of anything because no one is taking it seriously. 201 00:21:32,320 --> 00:21:41,320 After that news conference, the national media picked up on that, that it's a joke and not a serious event. And that became the story. 202 00:21:41,320 --> 00:21:44,320 It's a story some refuse to accept. 203 00:21:44,320 --> 00:21:48,320 Most people who thought it was a hoax and laughed at it didn't actually see it happen. 204 00:21:48,320 --> 00:21:55,320 But unfortunately, I think that laughter and skepticism was loud enough that it kept many of us from finding more answers. 205 00:21:55,320 --> 00:22:14,320 It's unlikely that the Phoenix lights could be explained as a hoax because you would need someone to convince people along a 400-mile length of desert that they're seeing an object as large as a cruise ship with lights on it, as large as swimming pools. 206 00:22:14,320 --> 00:22:27,320 Then you would have to pull a second stunt and convince a population of 2.5 million people that this large V-shaped group of lights flew over the city. That would be awfully difficult to hoax. 207 00:22:27,320 --> 00:22:38,320 25 years later, if it was a hoax, I would think that someone would have come forward now that it's become world-renowned that has not happened to date. 208 00:22:38,320 --> 00:22:43,320 The individual responsible for the 2008 prank can't even hold his tongue for 24 hours. 209 00:22:43,320 --> 00:22:51,320 Saying it's a hoax is really saying that all of the witnesses didn't understand what they were seeing. It's saying that they were gullible ruse. 210 00:22:51,320 --> 00:23:01,320 Then, 10 years after the 1997 sighting, Governor Simington changes his story and challenges the hoax theory. 211 00:23:01,320 --> 00:23:12,320 So in 2007, Governor Simington came out to indicate that not only was the Phoenix lights not a hoax, but that he in fact saw the craft himself. 212 00:23:12,320 --> 00:23:23,320 Well, I saw a huge craft just come right over a squirrel peak that was just breathtaking. 213 00:23:23,320 --> 00:23:38,320 At the time, people in the city of Phoenix reported a UFO sighting. Simington was under such political pressure as Governor of the state. He did not want to add to those political woes by claiming to have seen a UFO himself. 214 00:23:38,320 --> 00:23:48,320 Thanks to him, for about a decade, the Phoenix lights is really largely viewed as a hoax. But his abrupt about face creates renewed interest in the case. 215 00:23:48,320 --> 00:23:57,320 It returns to the news cycle and it comes at a time when people are more willing to believe. It's no longer a joke or a source of embarrassment. It's a genuine mystery. 216 00:24:19,320 --> 00:24:36,320 Congress talks to dozens of defense and intelligence officials and collects thousands and thousands of documents. All of that research is compiled into a House committee report about UFO encounters like the one that happened in Phoenix. 217 00:24:36,320 --> 00:24:47,320 And while we know that people have seen UFOs from time to time, what we didn't know is that the military themselves have had hundreds of their own UFO encounters, which they've been keeping quiet until now. 218 00:24:47,320 --> 00:24:56,320 UAPs are unexplained. It's true. But they are real. They need to be investigated and many threats they pose need to be mitigated. 219 00:24:56,320 --> 00:25:02,320 This is huge. This is the U.S. government going on record to say these things are real. 220 00:25:02,320 --> 00:25:12,320 They've collected 144 incidents about these UAPs, 80 of those they have data on, infrared, sensory, and of course video. 221 00:25:12,320 --> 00:25:17,320 We'll describe what we have seen in that. What are we observing? 222 00:25:17,320 --> 00:25:28,320 What you see here is aircraft that is operating in a U.S. Navy training range that has observed spherical object in that area and as they fly by it, they take a video. 223 00:25:32,320 --> 00:25:39,320 Several declassified government videos are released, all seeming proof that extraterrestrial encounters exist. 224 00:25:39,320 --> 00:25:44,320 And suddenly we have all the evidence we need about what happened in Phoenix. 225 00:25:47,320 --> 00:25:53,320 Thanks to the hearings, we find out that these encounters aren't isolated incidents. They happen all the time. 226 00:25:53,320 --> 00:26:06,320 I mean, how else can you reconcile the facts? A silently floating hovering craft the size of several football fields invisible to radar, there's nothing on Earth that fits that description. 227 00:26:07,320 --> 00:26:18,320 Believers like Michael Carter cite a 1997 call made to AM Radio Show coast to coast as further evidence of an alien encounter over Phoenix. 228 00:26:18,320 --> 00:26:23,320 The call is from a corpsman, someone who actually works at Luke Air Force Base. 229 00:26:23,320 --> 00:26:32,320 He has an incredible story about what happened on the base when this object appeared over the sky of Northern Arizona. 230 00:26:32,320 --> 00:26:41,320 The corpsman said the base gets a call about 8.15 about a large object moving out of the sky in the Northwest. 231 00:26:41,320 --> 00:26:45,320 Soon afterwards an alarm goes off and all hell breaks loose. 232 00:26:45,320 --> 00:26:58,320 Luke Air Force Base keeps two F-15s on standby for emergency use and on the evening of March 13, 1997, allegedly they scrambled those two F-15s to intercept the object. 233 00:26:58,320 --> 00:27:03,320 The radio caller doesn't know what it is and to be frank, I don't think the pilots do either. 234 00:27:03,320 --> 00:27:11,320 The caller claims that the event had scared the hell out of the pilots but they had gotten some gun camera footage of the object. 235 00:27:11,320 --> 00:27:17,320 If the caller is telling the truth, the Air Force may have actually recorded the Phoenix Lights UFO. 236 00:27:17,320 --> 00:27:26,320 Which means possibly locked away in some secret vault somewhere, we may actually have footage. 237 00:27:26,320 --> 00:27:32,320 We may have proof of what these pilots actually saw. 238 00:27:32,320 --> 00:27:40,320 Unfortunately, if the video exists, it's never released and the anonymous caller has no additional information. 239 00:27:40,320 --> 00:27:46,320 He isn't one of the pilots sent out, he's just on the base when he hears all the commotion and the base goes into lockdown. 240 00:27:46,320 --> 00:27:51,320 So he can't say exactly what the potential spacecraft was doing in the area. 241 00:27:51,320 --> 00:27:56,320 Some theorists believe it's not there by coincidence. 242 00:27:56,320 --> 00:28:03,320 Within a 500 mile radius of the city of Phoenix, there are several secret military bases. 243 00:28:03,320 --> 00:28:12,320 Area 51 to the north, Edwards Air Force base to the west and White Sands missile base to the east. 244 00:28:12,320 --> 00:28:17,320 If aliens were scouting Earth and its defenses, this would be a perfect place to go. 245 00:28:17,320 --> 00:28:21,320 Arizona is also home to several nuclear sites. 246 00:28:21,320 --> 00:28:26,320 Areas that recent evidence suggests may attract unidentified aircraft. 247 00:28:26,320 --> 00:28:31,320 We're having more and more sightings now and within those sightings there are certain patterns. 248 00:28:31,320 --> 00:28:39,320 And what we're seeing is that there are more events where these UFOs are hovering over our nuclear military installations. 249 00:28:39,320 --> 00:28:43,320 The phenomena isn't limited to the United States. 250 00:28:43,320 --> 00:28:47,320 There are sightings in Mexico, Italy and even Iran. 251 00:28:47,320 --> 00:28:55,320 There's a series of UFO related events that happened in Iran in 2004 and 2005 over one of their secret nuclear sites. 252 00:28:55,320 --> 00:29:09,320 The first time during that two year period, pilots near the Boucher nuclear facility have encounters with large luminous cylinders that look and sound similar to the quote unquote Tic Tac UFO that US Navy pilots saw in San Diego. 253 00:29:09,320 --> 00:29:14,320 And in one of those encounters, an Iranian pilot actually engaged with the object. 254 00:29:26,320 --> 00:29:33,320 Arizona's vast desert has been home to humans for many thousands of years. 255 00:29:33,320 --> 00:29:42,320 And according to some, there are signs in the archaeological record that suggests the Phoenix lights incident is far from unique. 256 00:29:42,320 --> 00:29:52,320 When you look back into the history of this region, it dawns on you that before we even had the technology where we could take pictures of this and videos and what have you, 257 00:29:52,320 --> 00:29:57,320 this part of the country was always having these kinds of sightings. 258 00:29:57,320 --> 00:30:09,320 The Native Americans who live in this part of the Southwestern United States have a very complex mythology in which we see numerous references and stories about the so-called star people. 259 00:30:09,320 --> 00:30:14,320 These are powerful yet benevolent beings arriving from other worlds. 260 00:30:14,320 --> 00:30:27,320 Both the Hopi and the Zuni trace their ancestry back to beings that they believe arrived from the region of the Pleiades, which is a star cluster about 400 light years away near the constellation of Taurus. 261 00:30:28,320 --> 00:30:38,320 We see myths and legends about the star people, a benevolent but powerful people that these tribes have interacted with. 262 00:30:38,320 --> 00:30:47,320 These myths and artworks suggest this area has been a hub for extraterrestrial activity and that the Phoenix lights incident is just part of a repeating pattern. 263 00:30:47,320 --> 00:30:52,320 That these star people have been coming back time and time again. 264 00:30:53,320 --> 00:31:04,320 Some believe the Phoenix lights incident is just one in a series of extraterrestrial encounters that have been going on for a long time but started to increase in 1995. 265 00:31:04,320 --> 00:31:12,320 The March of 97 event was certainly seen by the most people, but some believe there were several previous flybys. 266 00:31:13,320 --> 00:31:15,320 One of them was witnessed by several people. 267 00:31:15,320 --> 00:31:23,320 They stated that on January 21st 1995 they saw a triangular formation of large lights. 268 00:31:23,320 --> 00:31:29,320 They weren't bright necessarily, but they were really big. They looked odd. 269 00:31:29,320 --> 00:31:34,320 I step out on the balcony and immediately notice an eerie silence. 270 00:31:34,320 --> 00:31:47,320 The entire object turned against the wind, elevated slowly and then moved in synchrony behind South Mountain, but it felt like something was watching me. 271 00:31:47,320 --> 00:31:58,320 According to the National UFO Reporting Center, the sightings in Arizona grow increasingly frequent in the two years before the 1997 Phoenix event. 272 00:31:58,320 --> 00:32:07,320 Researchers have found that coming up to the 1997 event that there was an increase of sightings of triangular craft. 273 00:32:07,320 --> 00:32:17,320 In fact, in January and February of 1997, we have multiple reports from multiple locations of the same formation of lights over Arizona. 274 00:32:17,320 --> 00:32:27,320 Air traffic controllers at Sky Harbor International Airport observed five equidistance lights that rose about a thousand feet above the deck. 275 00:32:27,320 --> 00:32:32,320 They floated back behind South Mountain and dropped out of sight. 276 00:32:32,320 --> 00:32:40,320 They had no idea what they saw. It was an on radar and they behaved in a way that was unexplainable. 277 00:32:40,320 --> 00:32:47,320 And right before the Phoenix lights, a tiny Arizona town is treated to an encounter of their own. 278 00:32:47,320 --> 00:32:56,320 On March 12th 1997, the night before the Phoenix lights incident, a group of people made reports of UFOs in a town called Loop. 279 00:32:56,320 --> 00:33:06,320 Loop is 200 miles north of Phoenix, south of the Grand Canyon and the Hopi Indian Reservation, who as we've seen share a rich mythology of alien visitation. 280 00:33:06,320 --> 00:33:18,320 A large V-shaped aircraft appeared in their valley with about a dozen other small craft and they began to float and engage each other almost like an extraterrestrial ballet. 281 00:33:18,320 --> 00:33:24,320 And these people pulled out their lawn chairs and watched it like they were watching the fireworks on the 4th of July. 282 00:33:24,320 --> 00:33:29,320 But why did these possible visits ramp up? And why did they stop? 283 00:33:29,320 --> 00:33:35,320 That's the real question. Let's say Arizona has been getting regular alien visitation for millennia. 284 00:33:35,320 --> 00:33:39,320 What's so special about the mid 90s, we start to get a flurry of activity. 285 00:33:39,320 --> 00:33:50,320 We go from a few visits per century to a few visits per year to several in the same month, then absolutely nothing. Can anybody explain that? 286 00:33:51,320 --> 00:34:00,320 Despite the many thousands of eyewitnesses to the 1997 Phoenix event, the cause of the incident remains a mystery. 287 00:34:00,320 --> 00:34:10,320 It's military flares, it's an experimental aircraft, it's a hoax, it's aliens. Is the government covering something up? Are we being targeted for some reason? 288 00:34:10,320 --> 00:34:16,320 Each theory has some arguments for it and some against it and each by itself leaves a lot of unanswered questions. 289 00:34:16,320 --> 00:34:21,320 Many theorists say, wait a minute, we've had these answers here the whole time. 290 00:34:21,320 --> 00:34:28,320 The events on March 13, 1997 isn't just about just one of these theories. It's about all of them. 291 00:34:35,320 --> 00:34:41,320 This is the period when people actually see the spacecraft. The hull of it and the structure of it is visible. 292 00:34:41,320 --> 00:34:45,320 The silent movements, the anti-gravity technology it seems to exhibit. 293 00:34:45,320 --> 00:34:53,320 Knowing what we now know about the long history of UFO contact in the United States, many are convinced that this is an alien ship. 294 00:34:53,320 --> 00:35:00,320 It does a low, slow pass across Nevada and Arizona, sparking hundreds of reports to authorities. 295 00:35:00,320 --> 00:35:07,320 As we know from the Luke Air Force Base Radio call, these UFO sightings get the attention of the military. 296 00:35:07,320 --> 00:35:14,320 They scramble their jets on the course to intercept. According to that airman, they actually see the craft and perhaps even film it. 297 00:35:14,320 --> 00:35:27,320 Now the airman claims that F-15s were sent out to investigate, but simultaneous reports here, here and here show that that may not have been so. 298 00:35:27,320 --> 00:35:36,320 Many don't believe they sent F-15s next to the alien ship. People didn't see any F-15s, radar didn't pick up any F-15s, nobody heard any F-15s. 299 00:35:36,320 --> 00:35:43,320 These are pretty loud fighter planes. You know when an F-15 is flying overhead. 300 00:35:43,320 --> 00:35:47,320 One thing that characterizes this whole event is how quiet the whole thing was. 301 00:35:47,320 --> 00:35:56,320 The military actually sends out a top secret experimental craft. People over here are seeing an alien ship, while people over here are seeing a top secret military aircraft. 302 00:35:57,320 --> 00:36:12,320 Is it possible that the US scrambled a top secret experimental craft to intercept the alleged alien vessel? One thing is certain. Whatever is in the air doesn't stay around long. 303 00:36:12,320 --> 00:36:17,320 Why it leaves, we don't know. Were they spooked by the military intercept? 304 00:36:17,320 --> 00:36:21,320 Are they trying to gather intelligence on our defense capabilities? 305 00:36:21,320 --> 00:36:23,320 Whatever the reason, they took off. 306 00:36:23,320 --> 00:36:33,320 Now if this theory is correct, the military has a problem on its hands. They know a large amount of the population in the Phoenix area has seen this alien spaceship. 307 00:36:33,320 --> 00:36:40,320 But in 1997, the government's policy on UFOs is very clear. Deny, deny, deny. 308 00:36:40,320 --> 00:36:53,320 Thanks to recent congressional hearings, it's clear the military has a long clandestine history of encounters with UAPs, as well as a history of cover-ups. 309 00:36:57,320 --> 00:37:05,320 Perhaps the Phoenix lights is one of them, and Luke Air Force Base is a possible ground zero. 310 00:37:05,320 --> 00:37:13,320 So the big wigs at Luke Air Force Base speak to their superiors, and they realize they have precious little time to figure out how to deal with the situation. 311 00:37:13,320 --> 00:37:20,320 Within a half hour or so, they come up with a plan, a subterfuge, which is a little hoax of their own. 312 00:37:20,320 --> 00:37:29,320 They send up A-10 Warthogs to drop a series of flares right over Phoenix. They choose a very visible place where everyone will see. 313 00:37:29,320 --> 00:37:41,320 So if they were going to do a secret, quote unquote, training exercise, why would they drop these flares in front of 2.5 million people knowing they were going to freak out about it? 314 00:37:41,320 --> 00:37:48,320 If it was what they say it was, they would have done it in seclusion. They choose to drop the flares in front of the whole city on purpose. 315 00:37:48,320 --> 00:37:52,320 Because it's not a training exercise, it's a distraction. 316 00:37:53,320 --> 00:37:56,320 Their explanation works, initially. 317 00:37:56,320 --> 00:38:03,320 While a thousand people are seeing an alien spaceship, a million plus people are seeing flares in the sky. 318 00:38:03,320 --> 00:38:08,320 That's the story the Air Force releases, and they're able to convince people for a while. 319 00:38:08,320 --> 00:38:18,320 They at least confuse enough people to create doubt. They even convince the governor to ignore what he saw and call the whole thing a joke on national television. 320 00:38:18,320 --> 00:38:24,320 If it is just military flares, and I come out screaming about aliens, I'm going to be a laughingstock. 321 00:38:24,320 --> 00:38:28,320 Once you have people thinking in that way, you've won. 322 00:38:28,320 --> 00:38:39,320 So there's an alien encounter, then it's the sighting of a top secret military aircraft, then it's flares used to create a hoax and then to cover up the truth. 323 00:38:39,320 --> 00:38:46,320 Thanks to new government transparency, believers are optimistic the truth will someday be known. 324 00:38:46,320 --> 00:38:54,320 Now that the armed forces are more open about UFO sightings, there's renewed hope that they might come out with more information about what actually happened in Phoenix. 325 00:38:54,320 --> 00:38:59,320 What did they encounter in 1997? Did they actually capture it on film? 326 00:38:59,320 --> 00:39:04,320 As they continue to declassify these files and videos, maybe we'll find out. 327 00:39:04,320 --> 00:39:12,320 As congressmen, senators, and even presidents have said, the focus of their research is to determine if UFOs pose a threat to America. 328 00:39:12,320 --> 00:39:17,320 Some people are curious, and then there are some people who are really scared. 329 00:39:17,320 --> 00:39:24,320 Is Phoenix in the crosshairs of an possible interstellar war? Well, the public would not get to know that. 330 00:39:24,320 --> 00:39:38,320 It's a hard thing to explain, but a lot of people who experienced this event came away feeling something, wondering if they were meant to see it, meant to feel it, meant to experience some sort of connection with what they saw. 331 00:39:38,320 --> 00:39:42,320 Some even described feeling calm or even being told to not be afraid. 332 00:39:42,320 --> 00:39:52,320 People were in awe and in wonder, curious. So many cars pulled over to watch this amazing extraordinary sight. 333 00:39:52,320 --> 00:40:04,320 In real time and in long term, it affected the experiencers very profoundly. Who are you? What are you? Do you know that I'm here? I'd love to meet you. 334 00:40:05,320 --> 00:40:21,320 Today, the US government's tracking and studying of UFOs continues. Under the authority of the Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon Task Force, there's even a new branch of the military to assist the United States Space Force. 335 00:40:21,320 --> 00:40:27,320 And perhaps together, they'll gain insight into what really happened in Phoenix. 336 00:40:27,320 --> 00:40:33,320 I'm Lawrence Fishburne. Thank you for watching History's Greatest Mysteries.