Phoenix, Arizona (4-21-2008)
From The Black Vault Encyclopedia Project
Newspaper Articles Regarding This Case
Mysterious Lights Spotted Over Phoenix (AP)
Associated Press - April 22, 2008, 12:34 PM PDT
Red colored lights that formed a square and then a triangle were seen floating over north Phoenix late Monday, a sight reminiscent of an unexplained 1997 sighting that has become part of the area's lore.
There was no immediate word where they came from.
The Air Force said the lights weren't from any of their flight operations and officials at Deer Valley airport and Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport could not explain it.
The lights were visible for about 13 minutes around 8 p.m. Monday.
A Luke Air Force Base official said the base wasn't flying any aircraft in the sky Monday night and that the lights are not part of any Air Force activities.
KSAZ-TV, a local Fox affiliate in Phoenix, reported that officials from Phoenix Deer Valley Airport saw the lights approximately 4 miles south of the airport and that the lights were rising as they watched.
Airport officials said the lights were not from any aircraft at that airport.
Ian Gregor, a spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration, said that air traffic controllers at Sky Harbor also witnessed the lights, but do not know the cause.
On March 13, 1997, thousands of residents reported seeing a mile-wide, v-shaped formation of lights over the Phoenix area. In that case, the lights appeared about 7:30 p.m. and lasted until 10:30 p.m.
Mystery lights reported over Phoenix
Could the strange lights over Phoenix last night have been sky lanterns?
Sky lanterns are big balloon-looking things that have a flame at the bottom and slowly rise like a helium balloon. people use them for celebrations.
The company's web site says they last for up to 20 minutes, rise about a mile high and can travel for miles.
People are looking for an explanation for mysterious red lights that appeared in the north Phoenix sky Monday night, reminiscent of a similar event 11 years ago.
Dozens of listeners called News/Talk 92-3 KTAR just after 8 p.m. reporting they were watching the four mystery lights.
``From my position, it looked like they were just hanging, not moving at all," said one man, who called 92-3's ``Gaydos After Dark." He said he ``absolutely" saw something.
A woman caller said, ``It looked like four red tower lights, but it was pretty high up in the air. I called my husband and he said, `Get home, what's wrong with you?'"
A man in north Phoenix told CBS-5: ``They were about 3,000 feet high, approximately. They looked as though they were kind of hovering or floating from west to east, very slowly. They were up there for 15 or 20 minutes."
Callers said the lights appeared at one point in a straight line, and also formed a square and then a triangle. They were visible for about 15 minutes around 8 p.m. before heading to the east and disappearing.
Deer Valley Airport, which was the closest air field to the lights, had no explanation for them. Neither did Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport or Luke Air Force Base, which said it had no jets flying at the time.
Ian Gregor, a spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration, said, ``A lot of people were reporting seeing some strange lights in the sky around Phoenix last night. Air traffic controllers at the control tower at Sky Harbor saw them. But, we have no idea what they were."
Gregor added, tongue-in-cheek, ``It could be aliens coming down to save us from ourselves, you never know. The only thing I do know is if they were coming down, they weren't talking to air traffic controllers."
On March 13, 1997, thousands of people reported seeing a v-shaped formation of lights over north Phoenix. They lasted about three hours. Some described them as forming a carpenter's square.
Among those who saw the lights in 1997 was former Gov. Fife Symington, who initially played down the episode. However, he said last year that he believes the lights came from ``crafts of unknown origin" and, ``It remains a great mystery."
Unexplained lights spotted above Valley; were they flares? (ABC, Channel 15)
PHOENIX -- Strange lights appeared above the Valley sky in formation on Monday night.
Witnesses said the lights formed a vertical line, then a diamond shape, followed by a u-shape. The lights reportedly moved from side to side and upward before disappearing one by one.
ABC15's Jon DuPre talked to one north Phoenix man late Tuesday afternoon who said he watched his neighbor launch four helium balloons with flares attached to them right before the mysterious lights were spotted.
He said he believed this could be the source of Monday night's sightings.
ABC15 knocked on the door and talked to that neighbor, who then said he didn't launch the flares, and instead it was another neighbor several doors down.
FAA officials told ABC15 on Tuesday that air traffic controllers in the Sky Harbor tower saw the lights, but noticed nothing on their radar, meaning it was not an aircraft.
An official with the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) said they checked with their command center that monitors the skies to see what is entering the Earth's atmosphere. They have no reports of anything entering the Phoenix area.
A spokesperson from Luke Air Force Base in the West Valley also told ABC15 that the pattern of these lights was not common to an F-16 and that the lights were not from Luke.
The base had no aircraft in the air at the time of the sightings, according to that spokesperson.
Residents like Tony Toporkek caught the lights on camera and shared his video with ABC15.com.
Toporek was talking with his neighbors in north Phoenix when the lights appeared at about 8 p.m.
He grabbed his video camera and started taping.
A Tuesday morning call to Vandenberg Air Force Base on the central coast of California also confirmed they had no activity during the evening and were not tracking anything.
Officials from the Yuma Air Station, the Arizona National Guard and White Sands in New Mexico told ABC15 they had no activity Monday night.
If you saw the lights, send in your stories and pictures by emailing us at News@ABC15.com
Are the Phoenix lights a UFO? (The Socialite Report)
Is it a UFO over Phoenix? The same thing happened in 1997, and the unidentified Phoenix lights are back!
Witnesses of the Phoenix UFO said they saw four or five red lights lined up in a straight line and spaced apart evenly. The lights slowly moved east and became dimmer as three jets flew from the west and traveled in the same direction of the lights.
Witnesses near Deer Valley, Arizona say they saw the lights for about 13 minutes at about 8 PM on Monday night.
An official from Luke Air Force Base stated that they do not have any aircraft in the sky tonight and that the lights are not part of any Air Force activities.
UFO Alert: The Lights and Military Jets Are Back Over Phoenix (OpEdNews)
by Bill Knell
Less than a week after strange lights appeared in the skies over Northern Indiana and off the Jersey Coast, lights have returned to the skies over Phoenix.
Less than a week after strange lights appeared in the skies over Northern Indiana and off the Jersey Coast, lights have returned to the skies over Phoenix. The lights were seen on Monday might (April 21, 2008) and are similar to the infamous display of bright objects in the night sky seen in March of 1997 over Phoenix, Arizona. Originally dubbed ‘The Phoenix Lights’ after they first appeared ten years ago, the lights have made several appearances since that time.
According to witnesses (which included a Reporter for the Arizona Republic newspaper), the Monday night light display seen over Deer Valley and other locations featured red lights. The bright objects morphed into various shapes and sizes, eventually forming a triangular and square shape. At least three U.S. Military jets chased the lights as they moved west to east in the sky. Officials from Deer Valley Airport officials said that none of their aircraft were responsible for the lights.
Comparable events took place over the skies of Stephenville and Dublin, Texas, back in January and have become known as ‘The Stephenville Lights’. According to multiple witnesses, U.S. Military jets chased at least one large object during that occurrence. The jets may have continued to show up in Erath County, Texas, along with military helicopters, to investigate the reappearance of lights and other types of UFOs during the day and night since that time. Military aircraft have also buzzed the home of one or more UFO witnesses living in that area.
Lights similar to those seen over Phoenix also appeared on Tuesday and Wednesday (April 14-15, 2008) over the towns of Kokomo and Logansport in Northern Indiana. Those lights were accompanied by loud sounds, an odd metallic odor in the air, the appearance of military aircraft and debris falling from the sky. Earlier in the evening on Wednesday night (April 15, 2008), a fishing boat captain reported seeing a huge object split into smaller lights off the coast of Atlantic City, New Jersey and said that he felt a brief tremor after that event.
In the case of the original Phoenix Lights, the Stephenville Lights, the lights in Northern Indiana and those seen off the Jersey Coast, the U.S. Armed Forces claimed that they were just military exercises mistakenly reported as UFO sightings. However, a spokesperson for Luke Air Force Base said that they had no aircraft in the sky and that the lights seen over Phoenix on Monday night were not a part of any Air Force activities.
While it’s doubtful that any known military or civilian aircraft were responsible for the appearance of the latest lights over Phoenix and Luke AFB has admitted as much, witnesses say that military jets were present during the event and chased the lights across the night sky. That is in direct conflict with the Luke AFB spokesperson’s claim that none of their jets were in the sky on Monday night. However, it’s a nice change to find the military not immediately trying to explain any and all UFO sightings away as training or other military aircraft events.
When the military does try and explain the lights away as jets involved in training exercises, it’s obvious that all the recent sightings of these objects cannot be dismissed merely as military aircraft sightings by untrained observers. This is especially true in busy air corridors like Northern Indiana and the skies over the coast of New Jersey. These are areas were many commercial and private aircraft are constantly in the air heading to various major airports in those regions. It would have been beyond irresponsible for the military to fail to announce such exercises in advance.
Beyond the safety factor, it would also be ridiculous for military authorities to fail to announce any plans for exercises occurring late at night given the possibility that such events might cause a certain level of public panic and end up being reported as UFOs. Despite these facts, they keep on sending up jets to chase these objects, claim there are no objects other than military aircraft in the sky and always seem to fall back on the same old explanation; one which is becoming increasingly, obviously and laughingly unrealistic.
UFO Photos, Video: Phoenix Lights Part Two? (The National Ledger)
By Jon Shanks
The Phoenix Lights were an unbelievable phenomenon that took place in March 13, 1997 and the event was witnessed by thousands of residents. There are photographs and video of the UFO sighting and to this day it is still one of the biggest UFO sightings in history and the most scrutinized. Many have argued that the lights that were filmed were nothing more than military flares dropped in the desert at the Goldwater Range southwest of Phoenix.
Other witnesses that spotted the strange lights believe it was something else and many are still looking for explanations. There were several events that night but the main focus was on the lights because of the video and the photos. Those lights were amber in color and formed a wide V-shape that looked as if it were a mile wide, some witnesses claimed at the time.
It might now be time for Phoenix Lights, Part Two. On Monday night many residents in the north part of the city saw red lights. The lights were bright and so far there is no explanation from authorities on what they were. Several witnesses have already come forward and said they were stunned at what they saw.
One witness told local Channel 12 news (KPNX) that he saw several red lights in the sky that were unexplained and that the lights went out one by one. The witness then said that he saw three jets come from the west and traveled in the same direction where the lights were. What were the strange lights that everyone is now calling a UFO? Authorities say they have no explanation, yet.
Valley man: I was behind mystery lights in sky (AZ Family)
April 23, 2008
PHOENIX -- Phoenix residents and the media still are abuzz over the mysterious four red lights that appeared in Monday night's sky in north Phoenix. A man who lives on the north side of the city, however, claims he's responsible.
The man, who did not want to be identified, told 3TV that he used fishing line to attach road flares to helium-filled balloons, then lit the fares and launched them a minute apart from his back yard.
A Phoenix Police Department helicopter pilot who witnessed the lights said they appeared to be flares, possibly hanging from one or more helium balloons.
Witnesses said the lights initially appeared to be in a straight line, then formed a square and then a triangle before disappearing.
The man interviewed, who asked not to be identified, said he believed turbulence created by a passing jet caused the balloons to move around.
[News Story about Phoenix, AZ 4-21-2008 Hoax Source]
Arizona man claims UFO hoax
By BRIAN WEBB / KTVK-TV
PHOENIX — Many Phoenix-area residents reported seeing mysterious red lights in the sky over the north Valley Monday night. Some said they could be seen for miles, leaving many to wonder what was going on.
Those who saw the four lights said they appeared randomly. Some said the lights made shapes — a straight line, a square and a triangle. The lights reportedly were visible for between 15 and 30 minutes at about 8 p.m.
An area man who does not wish to be identified claims that he was behind the mysterious phenomenon.
He told KTVK-TV that after the sun went down Monday night, he tied road flares to four large helium-filled balloons using fishing line. Then he released the balloons one-by-one, at one-minute intervals.
"Very impressed," the man said. "Very bright, and something I'd never seen before."
According to Deer Valley Airport and air traffic controllers at Phoenix Sky Harbor, no planes were on the radar, although people at both locations reportedly saw the lights.
Luke Air Force Base said it had no operations in the air at the time the lights were seen. NORAD (the North American Aerospace Defense Command) also confirmed no activity on its radar Monday night.
Some Valley residents said the lights might have been a UFO.
"It was really close to the star, and when it would go really close, and then go fast far away," said Annie Braslawsce. "It was just unbelievable. I thought it was the coolest thing. It was pretty intense."
The man who claims to have launched the flares said an aircraft did get near the balloon-borne lights. He figures that the atmospheric disturbance left in the plane's wake caused the flares to move in a pattern.
Monday night's sighting comes about a month after the 11th anniversary of the famed Phoenix Lights, when thousands of people reported seeing several lights in a "V" formation hovering over the city. The Air Force eventually said those lights were flares, but not everybody believes that explanation.
The man who said he launched Monday's sky show said he thinks the 1997 Phoenix Lights could indeed have had a similar, terrestrial origin — but that it wasn't his doing.
Denogean: Hey, Phoenix, we've got first dibs on UFOs (Tuscon Citizen)
ANNE T. DENOGEAN Tucson Citizen
Some jokester with flares, helium balloons and too much time on his hands has claimed responsibility for the four mysterious red lights that appeared in the Phoenix skies Monday.
I'm not surprised it was a hoax. If aliens are searching for intelligent life on Earth, Phoenix is the last place they would look.
Settle down, my Phoenician friends. That was just a joke, born out of momentary pangs of Venus-envy.
You see, Phoenix can boast of professional sports, crosstown freeways and, yes, even one notable strange-lights-in-the-sky episode in 1997. But Tucson has always laid claim to arguably the richest history in the state when it comes to UFO sightings and, umm, research.
Until 1988, Tucson was home to the Aerial Phenomena Research Organization, which was the largest and oldest group in the world studying UFO reports. Starting in 1952, APRO, operated by the husband and wife team of Jim and Coral Lorenzen, studied and catalogued 40,000 sightings around the world. At its peak, APRO had an international membership of 4,000 and the most extensive UFO library in the world.
The Lorenzens sent out a monthly newsletter and ran a 24-hour UFO sighting report hot line. APR0 folded in 1988 after the deaths of Jim Lorenzen in 1986 and his wife in 1988. A University of Arizona physicist, the late James E. McDonald, was one of the most prominent UFO researchers of the 1960s, until his death by suicide in 1971. He spoke on the topic before audiences around the world, including testifying at a 1968 congressional hearing. He was a leading critic of the U.S. Air Force's 18-year investigation of UFOs, Project Blue Book, calling the effort incompetent and superficial.
UFO enthusiasts Ted Loman, Jim Nichols and Peggy Kane brought UFO lore to the local airwaves in 1991 with an Access Tucson cable program called, "UFOAZ Talks," replaced in 1997 by Loman's "Off the Record" show. After Loman moved to Idaho in 2002, Jim Rodger, the director of Loman's shows, started his own program in 2003, "The Cutting Edge." The twice-monthly program delves into UFOs, ancient mysteries and the paranormal.
Loman took his work seriously but had a sense of humor about his exploits. When I interviewed him in 1997, he got a kick out of telling me about the time he and his friends zoomed through the streets of Tucson at 60 miles per hour in pursuit of a UFO that turned out to be a Goodyear blimp.
Tucson even has its own resident UFO debunker in retired Air Force Maj. James McGaha. Often called by media to provide a skeptic's point-of-view, McGaha most recently appeared in a January episode of "Larry King Live" about strange lights in the skies over Stephenville, Texas.
The Tucson Citizen archives are filled with stories, dating back to 1959, of odd objects in our own skies. Some were explained as natural phenomena, weather balloons, missiles and aircraft in follow-up stories. Some were the work of mischievous youngsters, such as a rash of sightings in 1962 that turned out to be balloons sent aloft with candles by a trio of UA students.
But the archives also include some unexplained doozies, including a 1966 report of a large, bright, egg-shaped object hovering near the border (insert your own "illegal alien" or Russell Pearce joke here).
Earlier this week, Tucsonan George Parks, state director of the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON), told me he investigates about 35 sightings a year. He often hears the same opening line: "'Man, I got a story to tell you, but you ain't going to believe it.'"
"Well, I am going to believe it because I'm going to listen to it with an open mind and an open heart," said Park, who invited anyone with a sighting report to call him at 742-6651.
MUFON meets every month at the Pima County Public Library, Murphy-Wilmot Branch, 530 N. Wilmot Road, The next meeting is 1 p.m. May 17. Parks, a resident of Tucson for most of his 72 years, said he's seen UFOs throughout his life. He knows such a statement opens him up to ridicule, but he doesn't much care. It's easy to see, Parks said, "that there's things out here that just don't look kosher."
So, Phoenix, you can try to steal our spring training but, please, leave the UFOs to us.
Anne T. Denogean can be reached at 573-4582 and adenogean@tucsoncitizen.com. Address letters to P.O. Box 26767, Tucson, AZ 85726-6767. Her columns run Tuesdays and Fridays
Lights over Phoenix a UFO hoax (USA Today)
Unusual red lights that hovered over Phoenix on Monday night captured the attention of Arizonans and reprised an infamous UFO siting in 1997.
Alas, it turns out it was just a nocturnal prank, according to local media:
The man, who did not want to be identified, said he used fishing line to attach road flares to helium-filled balloons, then lit the flares and launched them a minute apart from his back yard. He said he believed turbulence created by a passing jet caused the balloons to move around. ...
“I feel bad for the people freaking out about this,” Lino Mailo, who watched his neighbor launch the balloons, told the Arizona Republic. “I could've put this whole thing to rest.”
Here's how another writer at theArizona Republic (a Gannett cousin of USA TODAY) initially explained the light show:
There were absolutely four lights. They appeared to hover in the sky.
They looked red or white, and they flickered. They were visible for nearly 15 minutes on Monday night.
The lights were seen by, among others, a Phoenix police-helicopter pilot, air-traffic controllers and a reporter. There was even an extended videotape.
But the lights were a mystery. A mystery that generated a lot of interest. ...
Many residents recalled the "Phoenix Lights" of March 1997. A Village Voice writer who worked in Phoenix at the time sets everyone straight (mostly the media) about that night's two events and the official explanation for only one.
UFO Evidence has an archive of articles and documents pertaining to the "Phoenix Lights." YouTube has a "documentary."
Over at LiveScience, the Bad Science Columnist offers this reminder of the danger of gullibility: The light show of 2008 shows just how easy it is to fool the public and create a media stir. All it takes is a few balloons and flares, some spare time, and a mischievous streak.
'Phoenix lights' spark variety of local UFO-related businesses (Phoenix Business Journal, 5-2-2008)
The lights spotted in the night sky over Phoenix last month stoked the fires within UFO believers and further fueled speculation over the mysterious "Phoenix lights" phenomenon of 1997, a formation that some -- including former Arizona Gov. Fife Symington -- believe to have been UFOs.
The latest light show solidifies Phoenix's place in the UFO annals and helps drive Arizona's cottage industry of UFO researchers, businesses and authors.
Thanks to these sightings, the Valley is part of a golden triangle of the UFO community, along with Southwestern neighbors Roswell, N.M., and Nevada's Area 51.
Phoenix hosts UFO conferences and is home to a gaggle of UFO-related businesses, ranging from authors and researchers to artists and DVD producers.
Jeff Willes, a Glendale UFO hunter who sells DVDs related to the Phoenix lights and other Valley sightings, said he had 10,000 hits on his Web site, UFOs Over
Phoenix, after this latest episode. That is helping sales, said Willes, who has four DVDs on the market and has sold more than 2,000 to date.
Most of the UFO entrepreneurs are true believers who say they have seen UFOs and that the sightings can't be discredited by stories of military flares and weather balloons.
"They're real," said Bill McDonald, a Mesa artist who specializes in UFO and alien artwork for books and movies. McDonald, who said he saw a UFO in 2005, said interviews with military personnel about extraterrestrial activity in Roswell led him to change his career path from commercial illustration.
Roswell is the storied site of a 1947 UFO crash. The New Mexico town has linked its economy at the hip with aliens and UFOs, including festivals and a museum.
The secret Area 51 military installation sits in the Nevada desert 90 miles north of Las Vegas. The region spawns UFO-
UFO Alert: FAA Silences Air Traffic Controllers and Hoax Theory has Problems (By Bill Knell)
On Monday, April 21, 2008, odd red lights appeared in the sky over Phoenix, Arizona. Video and photos were taken and Air Traffic Controllers in the main tower at Sky Harbor International Airport saw them. The FFA says that the lights did not appear on radar and weren't a threat to any air traffic, so no action was taken. However, the FAA has issued a statement saying that they will not allow the Air Traffic Controllers to talk about what they saw.
According to regional FAA Spokesperson Ian Gregor, it's against agency policy to allow the ATCs to discuss what they saw. The Phoenix New Times reported the story about the silencing of the Sky Harbor Air Traffic Controllers. They have already filed an official request to receive any documents or recordings that contain statements about the lights by the ATCs.
When asked what the FAA plans to do about the appearance of the lights in the sky over Phoenix on Monday night, FAA Spokesperson Ian Gregor said, "There is nothing to investigate." This is in direct opposition to the FAA policy to investigate anything and everything strange that might be reported in the sky over the USA. That policy has been in place since the terrorist attacks of 9/11/01.
Just a day after the lights were spotted, the Arizona Republic newspaper reported that Phoenix resident Lino Mailo claimed his neighbor launched several helium balloons with flares on them. Lilo says the balloons went up in the sky from his neighbor's yard around 8pm on Monday night. A Phoenix Police Helicopter Pilot also says that he saw what he believed were helium balloons with flares hanging from them. Despite these claims, there are some problems with the helium balloons explanation.
After hearing the hoax story, I contacted a friend who lives in Phoenix. He agreed to try and reach Mailo or his neighbor. Since the article came out on Tuesday, attempts to contact Lino Mailo have failed. He does not answer his door and his neighbor wasn't home when my friend stopped by on two occasions. In fact, people living two houses down from Mailo say that they know Lino's next store neighbor and he was not home on Monday night. They claim they were out in their own backyard that evening and would have seen balloons with flares being launched. They also agreed to ask him about the flare story when they next see or speak with him.
By contrast, a number of witnesses have come forward to say that jets took off from Luke Air Force Base on Monday night. Luke still claims they had no aircraft in the sky that evening. Further, I asked Kelly Atwood, a professional photographic software expert, to take a look at the video and photos from 4/21/08 lights event. She has extensive experience examining UFO photos for legitimacy and has been able to identify many hoaxes involving balloons, dry cleaning bags and flares.
Kelly says that the lights were too bright and the wrong color to be flares. She also states that the video does not show the normal affect that flares exhibit as they burn. Instead, the lights resemble objects that would have been much larger with a steady source of illumination. Kelly lives in phoenix, but was working on Monday night and didn't see the lights.
Apart from the holes in the hoax story, the FAA issues and Luke Air Force Base denials that jets were in the air when residents living near Luke say jets taking off, there are other things that point to the fact that strange lights have been back over Phoenix for some time. All told, there have been hundreds of reports about strange lights and unidentified objects in the Phoenix area since the original March 13, 1997 infamous 'Phoenix Lights' event. Many of the reports include photos, video, and come from credible witnesses.
Was it a hoax?
Man claims that he launched balloons filled with helium and road flares attached underneath them from his backyard. Four of them to be exact, at around 8:00pm. It was also witnessed by his neighbor. Could this explain the event? Videos are archived below for research:
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