Case · C-063

The Phoenix Lights: V-shaped formation and suspended lights over Arizona

Phoenix and central Arizona · United States · Mar 13, 1997

In flight Civilian witnesses Video Photos

What happened

On the evening of March 13, 1997, hundreds, perhaps thousands of people in Arizona and southern Nevada observed two distinct phenomena: around 8 p.m. a V-shaped formation of lights that crossed the state toward Tucson, and around 10 p.m. a row of bright lights apparently stationary or slowly descending, visible from Phoenix and filmed by many video cameras. The Air Force attributed the 10 p.m. lights to flares dropped during an exercise. In 2007 the former governor Fife Symington, who in 1997 had made light of the case at a press conference, declared that he had personally seen an enormous delta-shaped craft and rejected the flare explanation for what he had seen.

Proposed explanation

The Air Force attributed the 10 p.m. lights to illumination flares dropped by Maryland Air National Guard A-10s over the Barry Goldwater Range; according to the reconstructions by Robert Sheaffer and James McGaha, the formation at about 8 p.m. was a group of five A-10s of Operation Snowbird headed to Tucson. Some witnesses and the former governor Fife Symington maintain that they saw a single enormous craft, not attributable to flares.

Official investigation

U.S. Air Force and Air National Guard (public explanation)

Sources

1. CNN, “What were those lights in the Phoenix sky?”, June 19, 1997 (press)
2. NBC News / Associated Press, “Former Ariz. governor boosts UFO claims”, March 23, 2007 (press)
3. Fife Symington, “I saw a UFO in the Arizona sky”, CNN, November 2007 (press, pro-disclosure)
4. Robert Sheaffer, “The 'Phoenix Lights' Become an 'Incident'”, Skeptical Inquirer, 2016 (analysis, skeptical)
5. Wikipedia (en) – Phoenix Lights (other)

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