What were the Phoenix Lights?
The Phoenix Lights were a mass UFO sighting around Phoenix, Arizona, on the night of March 13, 1997. From about 7:30 p.m., bright lights in a V (boomerang) formation were seen slowly crossing the sky from the Nevada border through Phoenix toward Tucson. The witnesses are said to have numbered in the thousands.
Two sightings
The incident is thought to have involved two sightings of different kinds. One was the V-shaped formation of lights seen up to about 8 p.m.; some witnesses said a huge black object large enough to block out the stars lay between the lights. The other, around 10 p.m., was a row of orange lights hovering in a line in the southwestern sky over Phoenix and then fading away, which many people captured on video.
The military flare explanation
The U.S. Air Force explained the late-night row of lights as flares (lights that descend slowly on parachutes) dropped by military aircraft at a nearby range. When the flares sank behind the mountains, the lights appeared to go out one by one. As for the earlier V-shaped lights, one theory says they were the lights of planes flying in formation, but it is still not clear.
The governor’s remarks
To calm the commotion, the governor of Arizona at the time made a joke of it, bringing a staff member dressed as an alien to a press conference. But ten years later, in 2007, he said that “I too saw an unexplainable object that night,” making headlines again. Sightings of huge triangular or V-shaped UFOs have also been reported elsewhere around the world.
