The Phoenix Lights were a series of widely sighted phenomena that occurred in the skies over the U.S. states of Arizona, Nevada, and the Mexican state of Sonora on March 13, 1997.
Lights of varying descriptions were seen by over 30,000 people between 19:35 and 22:30pm Mountain Standard Time.
From the Nevada line to the Northside of Tucson, the sighting spanned over 300 miles. There were two distinct events involved in the incident: a triangular formation of lights seen to pass over the state, and a series of stationary lights seen in the Phoenix area. The United States Air Force identified the second group of lights as flares dropped by A-10 aircraft on training exercises over the Barry Goldwater Range. Witnesses observed a huge triangular shaped object, containing lights and completely silent.
Arizona State Governor Fife Symington was one witness to the sighting.
Henderson, NV At 7:55 MST, a man reported a V-shaped object above Henderson, Nevada. He said it was about the “size of a 747”, and traversed northwest to the southeast.
Paulden, AZ
At 8:15 MST, a police officer from Paulden, reported a cluster of red lights in the sky, comprising four lights and a fifth trailing behind. Each of the individual lights in the formation appeared to consist of two separate point sources of red light.
Prescott, AZ 20:17 MST, Lights were seen in the areas of Prescott and Prescott Valley. Callers began reporting the object was solid because it blocked out much of the sky as it passed overhead.
John Kaiser was standing outside with his wife and sons in Prescott Valley, when they noticed a cluster of lights to the west-northwest of their position. The lights formed a triangular pattern, but all of them appeared to be red, except the light at the nose of the object, which was distinctly white. The object, or objects, which had been observed for approximately 2–3 minutes with binoculars, then passed directly overhead the observers, they were seen to “bank to the right”, and they then disappeared in the night sky to the southeast of Prescott Valley. The altitude could not be determined, however it was fairly low and made no sound whatsoever.
The NUFOC received the following report from the Prescott area:
“While doing astrophotography I observed five yellow-white lights in a “V” formation moving slowly from the northwest, across the sky to the northeast, then turn almost due south and continue until out of sight. The point of the “V” was in the direction of movement. The first three lights were in a fairly tight “V” while two of the lights were further back along the lines of the “V”‘s legs. During the NW-NE transit one of the trailing lights moved up and joined the three and then dropped back to the trailing position. I estimated the three light “V” to cover about 0.5 degrees of sky and the whole group of five lights to cover about 1 degree of sky.”
Dewey, AZ
At the town of Dewey, 10 miles south of Prescott, Arizona, six people saw a large cluster of lights while driving northbound on Highway 69. The five adults and a youth stopped their car to observe the lights which were directly overhead when they exited the car.
The lights appeared to hover for several minutes. The caller, who was an experienced flyer, said that the object was so large that he could clench his fist and hold it at arm’s length and still not completely cover the light. He estimated the object to be not over 1,000 feet above the ground and that it was moving at a considerably slower pace than an aircraft would fly. Calls to the UFO centre were also received from Chino Valley, Tempe, and Glendale.
Phoenix, AZ Tim Ley and his wife Bobbi, his son Hal and his grandson Damien Turnidge first saw the lights when they were above Prescott Valley about 65 miles away from them. At first they appeared to them as five separate and distinct lights in an arc shape like they were on top of a balloon, but they soon realized the lights appeared to be moving towards them. Over the next ten or so minutes they appeared to be coming closer and the distance between the lights increased and they took on the shape of an upside down V. Eventually when the lights appeared to be a couple of miles away the witnesses could make out a shape that looked like a carpenter’s square with the five lights set into it, with one at the front and two on each side. Soon the lights appeared to be coming right down the street where they lived about 100 to 150 feet above them, traveling so slowly it appeared to hover and was silent. The lights then seemed to pass over their heads and went through a V opening in the peaks of the mountain range towards Squaw Peak Mountain and toward the direction of Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport. Flights out of the Airport were reportedly suspended for 30 minutes when the lights crossed into Sky Harbor Airspace. There were multiple reports of F-15 jets leaving Luke Air Force base to intercept the lights.
When the triangular formation entered the Phoenix area, Mitch Stanley, an amateur astronomer, observed the lights using a Dobsonian telescope outfitted with a TELEVUE 32mm Plössl eyepiece, which produces 43x magnification. After observing the lights, he told his mother, who was present at the time, that the lights were aircraft.
Phoenix Councilwomen and Vice Mayor, Frances Emma Barwood, received over 700 reports of mile wide V or boomerang shaped craft and orbs.
In addition to the triangular formation, a separate phenomenon occurred in the Phoenix area. A series of lights appeared, one by one, and then were extinguished one by one. Although the lights were silent, residents near Indian School Road reported sounds of thunder or distant explosions over the Estrella Mountains.
Bill Greiner, a commercial driver from Phoenix, stated the lights hovered over the area for in excess of 2 hours.
The following morning, Four Phoenix men were reported missing, after last being seen in the Estrella Sierra region. Despite reports of animal attacks and serial killers, the Lauder Case remains one of Arizona’s longest unresolved missing person’s case.
19 days after the sightings, two A-10 Air Force pilots (Capt. Craig D. Button and Capt. Amy Lynn Svoboda) contacted the news media about their involvement in the Operation. After the fatal crash of both pilots, their story was never released to the public.
Kingman, Tucson, AZ A report came from a man in Kingman who stopped his car at a payphone to report the incident. The young man, en route to Los Angeles, called from a phone booth to report having seen a large and bizarre cluster of lights moving slowly in the northern sky towards Tucson.
