UFO Sightings: Lights Over Phoenix

In two thousand and seven. In two thousand and eight, people from Phoenix, Arizona, started reporting lights in the sky to their local police department and telling everyone they knew of what they had witnessed. They showed up out of nowhere. They were glowing like orbs in the sky, and yet no one was able to figure out exactly what was going on. Eventually, the lights were explained as being military flares dropped by aircraft. They were from Luke Air Force Base. Well, that was what explained a two thousand and seven incident, and for two thousand and eight the explanation went to civilian launching helium balloons with flares attached to them. But the people from Phoenix were already shaken up by one of the most bizarre UFO incidents recorded up to date, it is understandable that they would be looking for explanations or wondering if this event would also be related to it. Back in nineteen ninety seven, hundreds of people across the Mexican state of Sonora and in the US in the areas of Nevada and Arizona witness unidentified flying objects over the night sky and flooded the police department lines with the calls after calls of a silent, enormous flying object over the sky. For one hundred and six minutes, a V shaped object flew over major cities and without an explanation. It was March thirteenth, a night like any other that turned out to baffle and stir up major controversies over the news, politicians, and the possibility of another US government cover up. But what was the final consensus on this what actually happened. Let me tell you about one of the most famous encounters with UFOs in history, the Lights over Phoenix incident. My name is Edwin and here the Dark Knight. It was a Thursday, six fifty five pm on March thirteenth, nineteen ninety seven, when a man living in Henderson, Nevada, reported seeing a V shaped object and when has detailed to count the six large lights on its leading edge, he said it was about the size of a Boeing seven forty seven, that it made a rushing wind sound. He followed it with his eyes until it disappeared from his view over the horizon. Little did he know at the time that hundreds of people would have ended up reporting something similar. Soon after, a former police officer in Pauldon, Arizona, called in a report he was driving north after leaving his house when he looked out the driver's window of his car out toward the west. That's when he saw a cluster of five reddish lights in the sky. He turned his car around and raced home. He grabbed a pair of binoculars and kept an eye on the lights as he disappeared over the horizon towards the south. That's when everything started. A full on blitz of telephone reports started pouring to law enforcement offices, to the local news and air force base, and also to UFO organizations. Some people described the lights as orange, while others said that they were yellow. Some people said that the flying objects were flying very fast, while others said that they went so slowly that they were even able to stand still in the sky and simply hover in place. When all of these reports were coming in, those taking notes on the subject started to wonder if maybe they were different objects that were being reported. The majority of people said that they looked like a wedge or a series of lights flying in v formation. Perhaps the most bizarre part of these accounts is that most of the witnesses emphasized just how big this object was that it blocked out a huge part of the sky, covering up the stars with pitch black darkness. At the intersection of Indian School Road and Seventh Avenue, a family composed of a mother and her four daughters were in a car when they witnessed an object in the same shape come from Camelback Mountain toward the north. They were in awe as they looked out the windows to see the object hover right above them for about five minutes. A faint glow ran along its trailing edge. Here is where the account is different from the others. They claimed that they could see the object's surface and they were one hundred percent sure that the flying objects was solid in nature, not just a series of lights flying together. Then began to move slowly towards the south, where it was said that it fired a white beam of light toward the ground under it. Then, just like that, the lights dimmed and the object disappeared. Pilots, air traffic controllers, and others from Sky Harbor International Airport, which was only a few miles to the south, also reported seeing the same object. Witnesses reported that the object made its way toward the mountains to the South Phoenix. Soon after that, reports came in about sightings along Interstate one ten around Casa Grande. A family of five people on that road said that the object passed over their car, that it was so large that they could see a wingtip when they looked to their left, the other one when they turned to their right. Everything from a huge flying disc to fireballs in the sky. The lines were being flooded with information about this object in the sky. However, the lack of action from the city officials make this a very strange case. Not many local news outlets reported on the sightings, and it would take about ten weeks later for it to finally make headlines thanks to a front page article in USA Today published in June eighteenth of that same year. Now, I have mentioned other encounters with UFOs in this podcast, like the event involving Barney and Betty Hill, which was a widely known case of an alien abduction almost sixty years ago, and UFOs and alien have been mentioned as a potential explanation to some events described here. This one is different. How is it possible that hundreds and perhaps even thousands of people witnessed a huge, strange flying object in the sky, yet there was no explanation. UFO conspiracy theories also came about even before the Lights over Phoenix incident. It happened in Los Angeles in nineteen forty two. It was called the Battle of Los Angeles, when search lights were pointing out a dark object in the sky when anti aircraft artillery started trying to bring it down. An image on the Los Angeles Times published on February twenty sixth, nineteen forty two, showed search lights taking aim at a saucer looking object in the darkness of night. This, however, was soon debunked. The object in the image had been altered at the time, which was common as a way to make the black and white images come out better once they were printed. Also, the flying object in the sky was later determined to be a weather balloon that was sent off at one am. It was that object that started all the shooting, and then the bullets and lights from artillery started confusing everyone, and everyone just joined in firing towards the sky. The US had just entered the Second World War and tensions were high, thinking that the area was being attacked by Japanese forces. The case in Phoenix was even mocked by the leader of the state, Governor Symington from Arizona. During a press conference, he brought along an aid to the stage dressed in an alien costume. Later on, though, he would admit to having seen the objects himself and then say that quote as a pilot and a former Air Force officer, I can definitively say that this craft did not resemble any man made object I had ever seen, and it was certainly not high altitude flares, because flares don't fly. Information Endo Councilwoman Francis Barwood launched an investigation into the event and said that out of the seven hundred witnesses that she interviewed, the government had not interviewed a single one. One of the strangers accounts was the one from a supposed airman in the Air Force who was stationed at Luke Air Force Base. He called the National UFO Reporting Center at three twenty a m. On Friday, about eight hours after the sightings, and said that two F fifteen fighter jets had been sent out from Luke Air Force Base to intercept the flying objects. Investigators, who were working on reconstructing the event from witness reports, said that in fact, his accounts made total sense. And we're accurate. However, just two days after his first telephone call, he called in again to report that he had been transferred to an assignment in Greenland. He wasn't heard from again. Despite the hundreds of witness accounts, the government and Air Force officials have denied these events, leaving it up to us to come up with our own explanations. Could this have been a series of flares dropped from airplanes in formation or could this event be used as proof to show that, in fact, a huge aircraft was hovering over densely populated areas, thereby proving the existence of aliens. Perhaps in the future we will have a definite answer to this question, but for now we'll have to wonder what else lives out there when we look out to the sky. Or maybe it's better if we don't find out. What topic would you like to hear about on a Dark Memory? Tap the link in the description of this episode or find us on a Dark Memory dot com. This episode was written and produced by me Edwin Kovarubias. You can find me on Instagram at Edwin Cove That's e d w I n c O V or through my other shows Scary Story Podcast, and true scary story available right here where you're listening. See you soon.