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It may be the largest mass UFO sighting ever witnessed over America.

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March 13, 1997, the skies above Arizona ignite.

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Major sighting here.

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Fiery globes seen by thousands.

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They started multiplying.

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One light became two lights, a third, a fourth.

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The lights of an ultra-silent aircraft, seemingly as large as a battleship.

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It was so big I could not see the front of the back side to side of this craft.

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Do ancient crews over 1,000 years old show a pattern?

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It looks like a saucer with fire.

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Or could it be a top secret government program?

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There are large vehicles that fit the descriptions you heard.

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What does the state's former governor now say?

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I describe what I saw at Binghouda Worldly.

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This is case number 97202, Arizona Lights.

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Music

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Something is in the sky and something is happening.

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And I'll go to my death knowing that what I saw was true.

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Thousands of people all over Arizona saw something that night.

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I believe the phoenix lights are real and that's a fact.

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Music

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On the evening of March 13, 1997, residents throughout Phoenix, Arizona are outside looking skyward.

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The large number of spectators are there to gaze at the Hail Bob Comet,

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a comet last seen more than 2,000 years ago.

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But instead, something else appears in the darkness.

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Something quite unexpected.

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A mass sighting that came to be known as the Phoenix Lights.

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What people saw on March 13, 1997 put Hail Bob to shame.

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The most famous aspect of the case is the videotape footage of anomalous lights that appeared over Phoenix around 10pm.

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According to eyewitnesses, the lights seen are red or orange in color and appear to blink on.

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Music

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They also very interestingly describe them as hovering or maintaining altitude.

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They don't seem to descend over time.

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But the 10 o'clock lights are only part of a complicated story.

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Earlier that same evening reports flood in from across the state of additional sightings.

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Some describe a V-shaped formation of lights while others claim they see an actual boomerang shaped crack.

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According to the eyewitnesses, what is seen in the skies above Arizona is absolutely enormous.

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Reports describe the craft as being nearly a mile wide.

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At times it hovers silently in the night sky, but it is also capable of achieving incredible speeds.

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Clearly, this massive craft is unlike anything known to exist.

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The people who watched it were actually in shock.

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The boomerang is allegedly spotted as early as 7.55pm in Henderson, Nevada.

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Then in Paulden, Arizona at 8.15pm.

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Peska at 8.70pm.

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Phoenix at 8.30pm.

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And Tucson at 8.45pm.

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No images of this massive craft are known to exist.

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Are these separate sightings or different aspects of the same event?

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The investigation aims to find the answers to the numerous events in Arizona's crowded skies.

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Pat Uskert will uncover local history of UFO sightings in the Phoenix area.

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I think we're really talking about something that is either so top secret that it's decades ahead of what we know,

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or we're looking at a genuine extraterrestrial visitation here.

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Dr. Ted Ackworth will examine the video evidence of the 10 o'clock lights,

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and will conduct an experiment to replicate the event.

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One thing I want to look at closely is the dynamic aspect of these lights,

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how they move or don't move in the night sky.

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And Bill Burns will analyze the nature of the alleged boomerang craft.

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A lot of people say that the craft over Phoenix that night at 8 o'clock was an extraterrestrial spacecraft.

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The investigation has enlisted the help of documentary filmmaker James Fox.

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He has been chasing this mystery since 1997.

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I have been investigating this for quite some time.

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Something very large flew over the state of Arizona, and to this day it remains inexplicable.

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Lights in the sky over Phoenix are nothing new.

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Carved into these mountain rocks are ancient clues that the Hohochum Indians may have seen UFOs more than 1,000 years ago.

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The night skies over Phoenix seem to have a history of strange events that led to the 1997 mass sighting and through to the present day.

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I believe they were not of this world.

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And I thought, wow, I'm just seeing things that most people are never going to see in a lifetime.

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These events occurred over 11 years ago. Why are people still talking about them?

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The eyewitnesses aren't buying the explanation.

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UFO hunters passed for and received an official statement from the Air Force in regard to the 10 o'clock lights over Phoenix on March 13, 1997.

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It states that the lights were caused by LUU-2 illumination flares, dropped by A-10 Thunderbolts.

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The Maryland Air National Guard performed the drop as a training mission over the Berry Goldwater Mountain Range.

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The only explanation is flare from the Maryland National Guard.

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They're saying that their flares dropped from the Air National Guard and I think a lot of the witnesses in the videotaped evidence will suggest otherwise.

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As the initial step in his investigation, Pat checks in with Richard Ruelas, a reporter for the Arizona Republic.

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Ruelas has been covering the Phoenix lights phenomenon since the beginning.

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A lot of times, UFOs are seen in little small rural areas. This was an event over a major city and a lot of people saw it.

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So it's not something that could be easily discounted.

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But apparently there were two events.

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One of the big confusions about the Phoenix lights is that there were two separate incidents that night.

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Around 8 o'clock people see a V formation.

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About 10 o'clock there are hovering orbs on the western part of Phoenix.

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That's not what most people saw.

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Most people who saw the Phoenix lights on the ground saw this V overhead.

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An important figure in the story of the Phoenix lights is Councilwoman Frances Emma Barwood.

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On May 6, 1997, citing public safety concerns, Barwood asks for an official investigation into the incidents of March 13.

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Just the mere mention of a politician that we should spend state government resources on investigating a UFO gets her laughed at.

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Why would people stick their necks out and get burned when there was really nothing going on that night?

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For me to imagine that it was much to do about nothing, I think maybe it was much to do about something.

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All Frances said was, as a matter of public safety, what's hovering over the city of Phoenix?

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The word UFO was never uttered.

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She never said the word ET, extraterrestrial, flying saucer, spacecraft. She never said it.

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I couldn't understand why does anybody want to know the truth?

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The Arizona Republic did cartoons with, you know, I think it was flying saucers going in one ear and out the other.

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And another one with a switch on the side of my head going off.

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Not only do they not want to know, it's like they don't protest too much.

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So Frances, what sort of response was there?

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I started getting phone calls at 7 o'clock in the morning.

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It didn't stop until 11 o'clock that night.

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And over the summer we take a break and I tried to call back everybody. I called over 700 people.

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Did you pursue any investigation on your own to follow up on this?

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I referred all the phone calls to the governor, Governor Simington at the time.

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Arizona's governor, Fife Simington, is pressured to find an answer to the sightings.

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He calls a press conference on the morning of June 19, 1997.

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Simington states that he will look into the issue.

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So we're going to get to the bottom of it. We're going to find out if it was a UFO.

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Later that same afternoon, the governor calls for another unscheduled press conference.

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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.

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He starts talking about the Phoenix lights.

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And we thought, wow, you know, he's really going to check into this.

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Anyway, out walks his chief of staff in this costume and like an extraterrestrial.

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And we realized this was a big joke.

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You know, first of all, not at all like Fife. Doesn't have a sense of humor.

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This just goes to show that you guys are entirely too serious.

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Was it your perception or is it your perception to this day that there was something organized against you because you dared to ask that question once at a city council meeting?

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It seems that way. So many people wanted to know the answers.

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And never did I have anybody negative from my constituents or anybody in the city or anybody in the state.

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The negativity came from government officials.

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But other details emerge.

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Strange video taken in the days, months, even years before the mass sighting may hold clues.

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And the governor, who laughed at first, now makes a stunning reversal.

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What did he see with his own eyes?

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I saw a large, a delta-shaped dark object.

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That night we seen a bunch of lights appear like over towards South Mountain area.

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The March 13, 1997 sightings in Arizona are complicated, combining multiple sightings across the state.

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An immense boomerang-like aircraft, sometimes reported as five lights in a V-shaped formation.

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And perhaps most famously, a series of red-orange orbs above Phoenix.

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Bill and James Fox are meeting with Mike Christen, an eyewitness to the Phoenix lights.

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Hey, go look at this!

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Oh my God!

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On March 13, 1997, Mike is out on his balcony enjoying the cool night air, when he spots a bright orange light in the distance.

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You tell me what it is.

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So I went in to get my video camera to shoot it.

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As I was doing that, it went out, and the light appeared to the right of this thing, a little bit lower.

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That light went on.

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Then another one went on before I knew it, this entire array of lights had gone up.

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Eight or nine lights, and they formed this arc.

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I videotaped that for about two and a half minutes, and then the lights slowly started to go off more in the time, and not in the same order that they went on.

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The Air Force's explanation for the lights is that they were caused by LU-U2 illumination flares.

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According to official documents, the flares were dropped from A-10 Thunderbolts as part of an annual training exercise called Operation Snowbird.

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The flares were ignited over the very Goldwater Gunnery Range, beyond the Estrella Mountains.

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Both are visible from Mike's house.

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Had you ever seen a light like that before in your life?

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I had not. I've always seen maybe one or two lights or so off in the distance.

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This is the first time I've ever seen them this far to the east.

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They were extremely bright compared to any of the lights I've seen before, and I thought it was unusual the way they held their pattern.

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Is that what the flares usually do that you've seen in the past?

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No. Flares will drop in different rates, they will drift because of the wind, and they won't hold the pattern.

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Lights that Mike saw, one, looked nothing like the flares he'd seen before.

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Two, they were preceded by an orange orb that Mike couldn't identify.

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Could they have been different types of flares? Those are the questions we have to answer.

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What do you think you captured on videotape that night?

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Could have been one of three things in my estimation.

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Number one, it could have been a hoax, which I don't think it could have been a hoax because it was pretty elaborate.

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It could have been an alien spacecraft, but I have no proof of that.

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And the only other thing that I can figure out could be some kind of a military experiment.

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Some of the behaviors these lights strike me as strange as described by the witnesses, and therefore they definitely bear further investigation.

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Ted sets his sights on a flare experiment he plans to conduct in California's Long Beach Harbor.

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Using hand-launched maritime parachute flares, he will test the military's explanation.

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Another witness to the 10 o'clock lights over Phoenix is Dr. Lynn Keatay, a physician and documentary filmmaker.

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Dr. Keatay chooses to remain anonymous for seven years after the incident.

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In 2004, at great risk to her professional reputation, she comes forward with the stunning revelation that these lights have appeared before.

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I was experiencing these phenomena for two years prior to the mass lighting. I had a very close lighting to our home.

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I tried to take everything in, the size, the shape, the color. They were about three to six feet each. They were warbs.

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There was a uniform amber color throughout. It didn't glare at all.

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According to Dr. Keatay, another set of lights appeared in January 1997, two months before the mass sightings over Phoenix.

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She sees what she believes to be a massive triangular formation, and she manages to capture the triangle shape on film.

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There were six points of light that seemed to be attached to something, moving slowly in tandem behind South Mountain.

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After seeing strange lights in both February 1995 and January 1997, Dr. Keatay is not surprised when she sees some familiar lights two months later.

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On March 13th.

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I saw the six lights pop on, and I fumbled with my camera and got out there really quick. And by the time I got it focused, that's what I saw.

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And we're looking in the direction of South Mountain?

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Yes, to the airport.

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So Lynn, just to play devil's advocate for a minute, what would you say to someone who suggested that what you saw was a military flare?

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There's no way that it could have been military. Military flares flicker, and they can't keep information. They drift with the wind. These were orbs.

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Another eyewitness who manages to capture his experience on tape is Stephen Blonder, the author of Oracle of the Phoenix.

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And like Dr. Keatay, March 13th was not the first time that Steve and his neighbor, Jaylene Brugman, claimed to have seen something inexplicable in the Phoenix sky.

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March 10th was the first night that I saw strange lights in the sky.

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Did you see it on there?

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Yeah, I got it.

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I got out my video camera, and I started filming this thing, trying to get a close-up of what it was. And it was this orange pulsating light that was unlike anything I've ever seen in my life.

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Jaylene, how did you get involved in this?

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His wife, Susie, came over the next day and just was in shock. He said, we saw him in the UFO last night.

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For the next three nights, Steve's balcony becomes the scene of nightly viewing parties.

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Susie, they're back.

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And each night, they are not disappointed. But it's the sighting on the 13th that captivates Steve and Jaylene as well as the rest of Phoenix.

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Major sighting here.

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That's... No, there's five.

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Another one just showed up.

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Like the other eyewitnesses to the lights, neither Steve nor Jaylene accept the official explanation for what they saw that night.

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I was very upset when I saw the flare story come out, because I knew it wasn't flares.

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The flares at ANG claimed they dropped were LU2 illumination flares.

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The eyewitnesses were surprised that there wasn't any illumination or sky lit up around the flares.

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But it is possible that the environmental conditions that night wouldn't have allowed for that kind of reflection around the flare.

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UFO hunters invites Jaylene and her husband, Jason, also an eyewitness that night, to participate in an experiment spearheaded by Ted in Long Beach, California.

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We're doing the best we can to approximate what would have been the kind of military flares that would have been deployed from aircraft.

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And we'll just see if our witnesses who saw the lights over at Phoenix think that these lights look like the military explanation.

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The team is using standard maritime flares in place of the LU2 military flares.

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Maritime flares are used by ships in distress to visually signal rescuers.

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When launched, they shoot nearly 1,000 feet into the air.

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Both the LU2 and maritime flares are deployed with parachutes, and Ted is primarily interested in the way the flare's flight characteristics are perceived by the witnesses.

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Well, I have no way of predicting what's going to happen. We'll just have to launch these flares and see what they look like.

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We're all ready to shoot. We've got five flares. Make sure they're looking at the trajectory.

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That's one of the most important aspects here in the test. Okay, we're going live in ten seconds.

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The flares are sent aloft. Now it's up to the witnesses to decide.

213
00:21:49,681 --> 00:21:52,680
But could there be another military angle to this case?

214
00:21:53,680 --> 00:22:04,680
The lights over Phoenix could mask one of the largest clandestine government projects ever created, a top secret stealth aircraft that is utterly enormous.

215
00:22:11,680 --> 00:22:18,680
The UFO hunters are in Long Beach, California, conducting a flare experiment with Jaylene and Jason Brugman.

216
00:22:19,680 --> 00:22:24,680
Eye witnesses to the so-called Phoenix Lights event of March 13, 1997.

217
00:22:25,680 --> 00:22:34,680
The official explanation put forward by the Air National Guard is that the lights over Phoenix were flares. LU2 flares dropped from 810 ward hogs.

218
00:22:35,680 --> 00:22:49,679
Because Ted is primarily concerned with the flight characteristics, he'll substitute one parachute flare for another using maritime flares instead of the LU2s.

219
00:22:50,679 --> 00:22:55,679
They are easier to control and the eye witnesses can be closer to the source of light.

220
00:22:56,679 --> 00:22:59,679
Do you have any special instructions for the witnesses?

221
00:22:59,679 --> 00:23:05,679
I want to make sure the witnesses are looking at a few different things, primarily the trajectories of the flares.

222
00:23:06,679 --> 00:23:10,679
As they float down, they follow a similar trajectory to what they had seen in Phoenix.

223
00:23:14,679 --> 00:23:18,679
Okay guys, we are locked and loaded. Eyes in the sky in ten seconds.

224
00:23:19,679 --> 00:23:20,679
I'll take one.

225
00:23:24,679 --> 00:23:25,679
Okay, you ready?

226
00:23:26,679 --> 00:23:29,679
There it is. It's the first one.

227
00:23:52,678 --> 00:23:53,678
Let's call it in.

228
00:23:55,678 --> 00:23:56,678
Check calling Titan Bill.

229
00:23:57,678 --> 00:23:58,678
So how was it?

230
00:23:59,678 --> 00:24:05,678
What I noticed is, even though they were, the other ones came on at different times, but they all were staying in the line.

231
00:24:09,678 --> 00:24:14,678
The ones that we saw were hovering, maintained altitude. They never dropped.

232
00:24:15,678 --> 00:24:17,678
The lights went out at the same altitude.

233
00:24:18,678 --> 00:24:22,677
Would you guys say what you saw that night is totally different from what you just saw right now?

234
00:24:22,677 --> 00:24:26,677
Totally different from what these flares showed here tonight.

235
00:24:30,677 --> 00:24:36,677
We do know there are many other witnesses and some of the things they've described just do not seem possibly consistent with flares.

236
00:24:38,677 --> 00:24:48,677
The hang times, the blinking on and off, the spread over the distance, the velocities just are not consistent with any kind of flare configuration that I could imagine.

237
00:24:48,677 --> 00:24:52,677
So it really leaves me wondering overall whether or not it could have been flares in 97.

238
00:24:58,677 --> 00:25:08,677
With eyewitnesses discounting flares in the field test, Ted turns to the video from that night to see if any other characteristics of the lights could be distinguished.

239
00:25:09,677 --> 00:25:17,676
Ted, an image analyst Terence Masson, study the 10 o'clock footage from both Mike Christen and Steve Blonder.

240
00:25:18,676 --> 00:25:22,676
We have a source for Mike in the northern part of Phoenix and Steve who is in the southern side.

241
00:25:23,676 --> 00:25:26,676
They're about 15 miles apart roughly across the basin.

242
00:25:27,676 --> 00:25:32,676
It seems that they've both taken footage of what appears on initial analysis to be the same thing.

243
00:25:35,676 --> 00:25:39,676
To the naked eye, the lights in the footage seem to be over the city.

244
00:25:40,676 --> 00:25:43,676
After several minutes, the lights appear to blink out.

245
00:25:44,676 --> 00:25:46,676
There are theories that they're flares that are flaming out.

246
00:25:46,676 --> 00:25:49,676
Now the curious thing is that when they go off, they don't go off in order.

247
00:25:50,676 --> 00:25:58,676
If they were flares getting dropped out of an aircraft successively and their burn times are approximately equal, they'd probably flare out in order as well.

248
00:25:59,675 --> 00:26:07,675
Though the behavior of the lights seems to contradict the flare explanation, their physical appearance may back up the Air Force's claims.

249
00:26:09,675 --> 00:26:14,675
So regarding the LUU-2 flare theory from the military, we know chromatically they're pretty white.

250
00:26:14,675 --> 00:26:18,675
What do you think from the footage here? Is that consistent with the military's explanation?

251
00:26:19,675 --> 00:26:28,675
It seems to be, but as we've seen many times, the video quality, most of these lights, if they do have any color in them, that you see with the naked eye, they're still going to show up on video as white.

252
00:26:29,675 --> 00:26:30,675
It's basically over exposed points in the black.

253
00:26:31,675 --> 00:26:34,675
It's not proof that they're flares, but it's consistent.

254
00:26:35,675 --> 00:26:36,675
Possibility is right.

255
00:26:37,675 --> 00:26:39,675
I'm on the fence, I guess I have to say.

256
00:26:40,675 --> 00:26:47,675
It seems pretty unlikely to me that these were a string of flares floating down on parachutes, but then again we're dealing with appearances.

257
00:26:48,675 --> 00:26:50,674
We don't have a lot of quantitative data on this, and I don't really feel that they were flares.

258
00:26:51,674 --> 00:26:53,674
I can't quantitatively prove it one way or another.

259
00:26:56,674 --> 00:27:04,674
Pat and Bill return to Arizona in order to track down witnesses to the other multiple sightings on the night of March 13, 1997.

260
00:27:05,674 --> 00:27:09,674
They are on the trail of an alleged second object seen on the same night.

261
00:27:10,674 --> 00:27:17,674
Witnesses report a boomerang-shaped craft flying over the state of Arizona between 8 and 10 p.m.

262
00:27:20,674 --> 00:27:25,674
Because there are no known photographs or video of this alleged massive craft,

263
00:27:26,674 --> 00:27:32,674
UFO hunters has enlisted the help of John Bavresco, a sketch artist and computer graphic expert.

264
00:27:33,674 --> 00:27:41,673
Based on multiple eyewitness testimonies, John will create a composite image of what was in the skies over Arizona that night.

265
00:27:43,673 --> 00:27:47,673
8.13 p.m. March 13, 1997.

266
00:27:48,673 --> 00:27:55,673
Dana Valentine is sitting on the back porch of his father's house when he sees five lights in a V-formation approach.

267
00:27:56,673 --> 00:28:00,673
I watched a little longer and came by about 10 minutes and I figured these should have been on top of me by now.

268
00:28:02,673 --> 00:28:06,673
Intrigued, Dana brings his father outside to watch the lights with him.

269
00:28:07,673 --> 00:28:16,673
We couldn't tell if it was five units or one huge one, but as it got closer we believed that it was starting to be one big one because it was just huge.

270
00:28:20,673 --> 00:28:23,673
So it didn't look like it did have a body shape to it.

271
00:28:24,673 --> 00:28:27,673
It definitely was one big object to me.

272
00:28:28,672 --> 00:28:29,672
How big?

273
00:28:29,672 --> 00:28:30,672
Would you say that it was?

274
00:28:30,672 --> 00:28:36,672
If I had to go from the left light to the right light, I'd have to say probably close to a mile.

275
00:28:39,672 --> 00:28:46,672
John takes the visual details and puts the information into the CGI program. He shows the image to Dana.

276
00:28:47,672 --> 00:28:55,672
Okay, what I've done here is an animation of a direct overhead shot basically on how you witnessed it as it passed over.

277
00:28:55,672 --> 00:29:02,672
Lights look good. The size is right. That's definitely what I saw.

278
00:29:03,672 --> 00:29:07,672
Dana's description of the V-formation is consistent with other witness testimony.

279
00:29:08,672 --> 00:29:14,672
A mile from tip to tip, five large lights and completely noiseless in flight.

280
00:29:15,672 --> 00:29:22,671
Bill, James and John meet with another witness, Terry Mansfield, who claims to have observed a boomerang-shaped craft.

281
00:29:23,671 --> 00:29:30,671
All of a sudden one of my volunteers pointed straight up and said, oh my gosh, what's that? And we all looked straight up.

282
00:29:31,671 --> 00:29:35,671
First thing I noticed was there were no more stars. I couldn't see the stars anymore in the sky.

283
00:29:35,671 --> 00:29:42,671
And it appeared as if there were a black, shimmery, satiny piece of material right over my head.

284
00:29:46,671 --> 00:29:52,671
Terry seems to see details that few others report. The craft seems to shimmer in the night sky.

285
00:29:53,671 --> 00:29:57,671
It was so big, I could not see the front, the back, side to side of this craft.

286
00:29:58,671 --> 00:30:01,671
Was it so large that it spanned from horizon to horizon?

287
00:30:01,671 --> 00:30:05,671
Where I was standing, I could not see the edges of this, whatever it was, that was flying overhead.

288
00:30:06,671 --> 00:30:11,670
You said you saw a surface on the bottom of this craft and it was kind of shimmery.

289
00:30:12,670 --> 00:30:18,670
Really, it was if there was a soft ripple of an undulation, it was very fluid. I felt like I could reach up and touch it.

290
00:30:21,670 --> 00:30:25,670
Terry's past experience makes her a knowledgeable witness when it comes to aircraft.

291
00:30:26,670 --> 00:30:31,670
Having been in the Air Force with my husband for 22 years and my father-in-law is an Air Force pilot for 26 years,

292
00:30:32,670 --> 00:30:36,670
we've seen jets, we've seen planes, we've seen helicopters, we've seen all kinds of military aircraft.

293
00:30:37,670 --> 00:30:42,670
Well, I think I've got something here that could represent what Terry saw. See if this works out.

294
00:30:43,670 --> 00:30:49,670
You've got the undulation just right. You've got the, we've got black, silvers, little bit of grays.

295
00:30:49,670 --> 00:30:52,670
It looks very fluid. Very, very similar to what I saw.

296
00:30:53,670 --> 00:30:56,669
Right, it's just because the whole screen is covered with what I saw that night, which is, that's exactly...

297
00:30:57,669 --> 00:30:58,669
The thing is just enormous.

298
00:31:01,669 --> 00:31:06,669
One of the most powerful forms of evidence is a corroborating witness testimony from people who don't know each other,

299
00:31:07,669 --> 00:31:10,669
never heard of each other, so we've got a lot of evidence.

300
00:31:11,669 --> 00:31:17,669
One of the most powerful forms of evidence is a corroborating witness testimony from people who don't know each other,

301
00:31:18,669 --> 00:31:24,669
never heard of each other, so what this does for the case is it adds another mosaic tile to a much larger picture.

302
00:31:27,669 --> 00:31:37,669
Orbs, a mysterious string of lights, and a massive V-shaped object that appears to undulate are all reported over Phoenix in March 1997.

303
00:31:38,669 --> 00:31:42,669
Are these sightings all related or completely separate incidents?

304
00:31:43,669 --> 00:31:49,668
And is it possible that the technology responsible is a top secret invention of our own?

305
00:31:50,668 --> 00:31:55,668
There are large vehicles that sort of fit some of the descriptions you heard.

306
00:32:00,668 --> 00:32:05,668
Whatever was going over my head, it seemed to be so low that I could reach up and touch it.

307
00:32:05,668 --> 00:32:09,668
And it was absolutely silent.

308
00:32:11,668 --> 00:32:17,668
Video evidence from March 13, 1997 has shown strange light formations in the Phoenix skies,

309
00:32:18,668 --> 00:32:24,668
and numerous witnesses have reported seeing unexplained objects and other orbs hovering above Arizona.

310
00:32:26,668 --> 00:32:30,668
Is there something about this area that attracts these objects?

311
00:32:30,668 --> 00:32:35,667
Pat meets Jeff Woolwine, a UFO researcher at the foot of the White Tank Monument.

312
00:32:36,667 --> 00:32:39,667
These hills are riddled with petroglyphs.

313
00:32:40,667 --> 00:32:44,667
Rock art carved into the landscape, primarily by the Hohocom,

314
00:32:45,667 --> 00:32:53,667
a Native American people who lived here from 200 BCE to 1400 CE and then mysteriously disappeared.

315
00:33:01,667 --> 00:33:08,667
Clearly, the Hohocom were seeing things in the sky as we're seeing now, strange objects, strange lights, if you will.

316
00:33:09,667 --> 00:33:16,667
They didn't have video cameras back then, they had stone bowlers to record something significant, something to remember in history.

317
00:33:17,667 --> 00:33:21,667
They wanted to copy this down so people would understand what had happened here.

318
00:33:24,667 --> 00:33:28,666
Pat and Jeff hike to the spot where strange petroglyphs have been found.

319
00:33:30,666 --> 00:33:34,666
Among the petroglyphs is an image Jeff believes to be significant.

320
00:33:36,666 --> 00:33:38,666
You'll notice this interesting line here.

321
00:33:39,666 --> 00:33:41,666
It has a block here, a block here, a block here in the line.

322
00:33:42,666 --> 00:33:44,666
In today's world what we like to call them is barbells.

323
00:33:45,666 --> 00:33:54,666
Barbell shaped UFOs, like this one videotaped over Phoenix on January 24, 2005, are well known to modern researchers.

324
00:33:55,666 --> 00:34:03,666
It's possible that local tribes people were inspired to record their own sightings on these very rocks nearly a millennium ago.

325
00:34:04,666 --> 00:34:06,666
And when you say barbell you mean a barbell shaped UFO?

326
00:34:07,666 --> 00:34:08,666
Barbell shaped UFO, correct.

327
00:34:09,666 --> 00:34:13,666
Right now I'm looking at glyphs that are very interesting, but again they are Jeff's interpretation.

328
00:34:14,665 --> 00:34:17,665
You could speculate it could be the sun in a star, but it could also be a light in the sky.

329
00:34:18,665 --> 00:34:19,665
That's correct.

330
00:34:19,665 --> 00:34:26,665
These people could have been recording UFOs or they could have been recording celestial events, you know stars, comets, that sort of thing.

331
00:34:27,665 --> 00:34:30,665
So at this time it's just a theory, but it's a very interesting one.

332
00:34:35,665 --> 00:34:44,665
While Jeff's interpretation is a personal one, even government experts who have studied the petroglyphs for years have difficulty explaining some of the images.

333
00:34:45,665 --> 00:34:56,665
Doc Tallboys is a park ranger and works with the Arizona State Historical Preservation Office on the study, cataloging and mapping of all the sites in the White Tank Mountain Regional Park.

334
00:35:00,665 --> 00:35:02,665
So Doc, what's your take on the White Tank Mountain petroglyphs?

335
00:35:03,665 --> 00:35:06,664
The Ho Ho Cums really observed what was going on around them.

336
00:35:07,664 --> 00:35:12,664
They had, they were great observers of celestial events, seasonal events.

337
00:35:12,664 --> 00:35:17,664
They really left us an interesting pictorial history of that from their point of view.

338
00:35:18,664 --> 00:35:23,664
We have pictures that could look like alien beings, men wearing helmets.

339
00:35:24,664 --> 00:35:30,664
We have one obvious one that we look at it one way, it looks like a saucer with fire coming out to the bottom.

340
00:35:31,664 --> 00:35:41,664
We're strictly speculating on what these things mean. We have no idea what they mean, because there's no Rosetta Stone, there is no bridge to translating what they might have been.

341
00:35:43,664 --> 00:35:55,663
But while the mysteries of the ancient petroglyphs are hidden by history, the truth behind the light seen over Arizona may have been intentionally kept secret.

342
00:35:56,663 --> 00:36:04,663
In nearby Mesa, Arizona, Bill and James Fox arrive at the Arizona Wing Commemorative Air Force Museum.

343
00:36:05,663 --> 00:36:16,663
They are meeting with aviation expert and author Bill Scott, who did research on a highly classified Black Operations aircraft for an article in Aviation Week Magazine.

344
00:36:17,663 --> 00:36:23,663
What he pieced together in his research bears striking similarities to what was witnessed over Phoenix.

345
00:36:25,663 --> 00:36:29,663
Apparently it was up to a mile across, it could fly silently, it could hover.

346
00:36:29,663 --> 00:36:34,663
When it took off, the witnesses described it as had they blinked they would have missed it.

347
00:36:35,663 --> 00:36:37,663
It was a boomerang shape, boomerang shape, V shape.

348
00:36:38,663 --> 00:36:45,662
You have done a lot of research, you've written a lot of articles for aviation week in space technology. What is your take on this?

349
00:36:46,662 --> 00:36:53,662
We came across a number of Black programs, highly classified programs that probably included near neutral buoyancy.

350
00:36:53,662 --> 00:37:00,662
In other words, it's a vehicle filled with helium and had a rigid hull, so we call them rigid hull airships.

351
00:37:01,662 --> 00:37:06,662
Some of these were reporters being very large, you know, perhaps the wingspan of a football field.

352
00:37:07,662 --> 00:37:12,662
They typically were triangular shaped, some were sort of boomerang shaped.

353
00:37:16,662 --> 00:37:22,662
No pictures, official diagrams or blueprints of these types of vehicles have been released by the government.

354
00:37:23,662 --> 00:37:30,662
If the US military does operate these massive aircraft, they still remain secret.

355
00:37:32,661 --> 00:37:36,661
These things might have been developed for special forces operations.

356
00:37:37,661 --> 00:37:42,661
The nice thing about this particular vehicle design is it can carry fairly large payloads.

357
00:37:43,661 --> 00:37:49,661
So you can put an entire small unit of fully outfitted troops on board.

358
00:37:49,661 --> 00:37:55,661
Is there any projected point, at least in your estimation, when these covert aircraft will be revealed to us?

359
00:37:56,661 --> 00:38:02,661
They may never be revealed, because as long as it's an advantage, we don't want people to know about them. That's the way the Black world thinks.

360
00:38:07,661 --> 00:38:14,661
While the rigid hull airship sounds similar to reports of the boomerang, it is not an exact match.

361
00:38:14,661 --> 00:38:22,660
Some of the performance characteristics, such as amazing speed and the strange undulating surface, don't seem to be consistent.

362
00:38:23,660 --> 00:38:29,660
The rigid hull airships that I looked at would not display some of the characteristics that some of your observers did.

363
00:38:30,660 --> 00:38:34,660
I like this idea of blinking out and disappearing immediately. I don't know how to explain that.

364
00:38:35,660 --> 00:38:40,660
I'm just saying that there are large vehicles that sort of fit some of the descriptions you heard.

365
00:38:44,660 --> 00:38:49,660
Can the events that transpired in Arizona be explained by these covert programs?

366
00:38:50,660 --> 00:38:53,660
And are the UFO stories merely part of a disinformation campaign?

367
00:38:54,660 --> 00:39:01,660
Former Arizona Governor Fife Simington comes forward to put the issue to rest once and for all.

368
00:39:02,660 --> 00:39:04,660
I describe what I saw as being otherworldly.

369
00:39:05,660 --> 00:39:09,660
The Governor of Arizona

370
00:39:10,660 --> 00:39:19,659
Bill and James Fox are meeting with Fife Simington, the Governor of Arizona from 1990 to 1997.

371
00:39:20,659 --> 00:39:28,659
On June 19, 1997, the Governor holds a press conference and promises to investigate the Phoenix Lights event.

372
00:39:28,659 --> 00:39:37,659
But then, later that same afternoon, he calls another conference and brings his Chief of Staff out before the press dressed as an alien.

373
00:39:40,659 --> 00:39:44,659
Now, Simington explains his actions.

374
00:39:46,659 --> 00:39:57,659
The whole world descended on us. We were just inundated from all over the world, the Peking News Bureau, the BBC, everybody sort of descending on Phoenix about the lights over Phoenix and what was happening.

375
00:39:58,659 --> 00:40:05,658
I was in a hurry with my staff and made the decision at that point to do a spoof to try to kind of lighten the atmosphere.

376
00:40:06,658 --> 00:40:17,658
But I didn't realize I was going to offend so many people. I was just simply trying to kind of add some levity to this atmosphere, which I thought was really starting to get a little too hyped up, a little over the top, too much hysteria.

377
00:40:18,658 --> 00:40:33,658
You've said repeatedly that you pursued all these avenues to get to the bottom of what was going on in Phoenix in March of 1997. What were those avenues, Governor, and how did you pursue them?

378
00:40:33,658 --> 00:40:44,658
I asked my staff to call the commanding officer at Luke Air Force Base and to call the head of the Department of Public Safety and the general who was in charge of our guard to try to find out what it was.

379
00:40:44,658 --> 00:40:48,658
And the Air Force totally blanked us. They just said we have no comment. That was it.

380
00:40:49,658 --> 00:40:51,657
No comment. Not we don't know, but no comment.

381
00:40:51,657 --> 00:40:52,657
We have no comment.

382
00:40:52,657 --> 00:40:58,657
That's unacceptable, though. I mean, that's just not acceptable. You have to know what flies around in your airspace, right?

383
00:40:59,657 --> 00:41:06,657
As a governor, you know that no comment means a lot more than we don't know there's nothing there.

384
00:41:06,657 --> 00:41:11,657
Well, I know as a governor the worst comment that a governor could make is no comment to the press.

385
00:41:11,657 --> 00:41:22,657
No comment means there's something to comment about. So for the first time we found out that the Air Force knew there was something there, but would not talk about it.

386
00:41:23,657 --> 00:41:36,657
In 2006, Governor Simington agrees to be interviewed for James' documentary Beyond the Blue and drops a bombshell on camera.

387
00:41:36,657 --> 00:41:38,657
A lot of people saw it in Northrop County, and I saw it, too.

388
00:41:41,656 --> 00:41:49,656
Simington, a pilot and retired Air Force officer, admits that he himself saw the boomerang-shaped craft.

389
00:41:50,656 --> 00:41:56,656
Fife, can you describe what exactly you saw on March 13, 1997?

390
00:41:56,656 --> 00:42:02,656
I've described it as a delta-shaped craft, but it was a large, dark object, and it was enormous.

391
00:42:02,656 --> 00:42:06,656
It was so big it was hard to really determine how fast it was going because it was so large.

392
00:42:06,656 --> 00:42:12,656
It was very odd. The whole thing, it was kind of had a iridescent quality to it, and it was just astounding.

393
00:42:12,656 --> 00:42:15,656
I mean, much bigger than anything I'd ever seen in the air.

394
00:42:15,656 --> 00:42:18,656
I realized that I was seeing something that was truly extraordinary.

395
00:42:21,656 --> 00:42:24,656
Fife, why did you decide to come forward?

396
00:42:24,656 --> 00:42:30,655
I figured, well, enough time has passed, and I can see that there are a bunch of people that are really angry with me for what I did,

397
00:42:30,655 --> 00:42:33,655
so this is really an opportunity right now to set the record straight.

398
00:42:33,655 --> 00:42:44,655
I'm no longer Governor, and I'm just a Joe citizen, and I don't want people who are my constituents to be upset with me for something that really I'm on the same page.

399
00:42:45,655 --> 00:42:52,655
In your opinion, as an airfield chef or as a pilot, do you think that this craft you saw was military?

400
00:42:52,655 --> 00:42:57,655
Do you think the craft you saw might have been extraterrestrial or something along those lines?

401
00:42:57,655 --> 00:43:01,655
I've used the word before to describe what I saw as being otherworldly.

402
00:43:01,655 --> 00:43:09,655
I just don't believe that it came from anything that we know on Earth, so you call it extraterrestrial, otherworldly.

403
00:43:09,655 --> 00:43:16,655
It was an incredible thing to see, and I just don't know of any earthly explanation for what we saw.

404
00:43:22,654 --> 00:43:26,654
In my opinion, we're looking at some kind of extraterrestrial craft that passed over the city.

405
00:43:26,654 --> 00:43:32,654
Multiple eyewitnesses agree on that, including the Governor of Arizona himself, who said that this thing was from another world.

406
00:43:32,654 --> 00:43:36,654
I can't imagine that hundreds of people across Phoenix would be so fooled.

407
00:43:36,654 --> 00:43:39,654
It really does leave me wondering, could this have been something more?

408
00:43:39,654 --> 00:43:42,654
I think it's a real craft. I don't think it's an illusion.

409
00:43:42,654 --> 00:43:45,654
I think it's a craft that has amazing aerodynamic qualities.

410
00:43:45,654 --> 00:43:54,654
I think it's a solid craft, but I think it is our own neutral buoyancy triangular spacecraft.

411
00:43:55,654 --> 00:44:05,654
Tests have shown the lights captured on video on March 13, 1997, behave unlike conventional flares.

412
00:44:05,654 --> 00:44:12,653
And witnesses across the state remain convinced that they saw something extraordinary.

413
00:44:12,653 --> 00:44:18,653
Was the state of Arizona a testing ground for a new and still secret technology?

414
00:44:18,653 --> 00:44:25,653
Or were the witnesses on the ground truly seeing an object from beyond this world?