Article by MJ Banias March 13, 2020 (vice.com)
• On March 13th, 1997, hundreds of Arizonans called their local law enforcement to report a series of strange lights moving over their cities and towns. Today, ‘The Phoenix Lights’ case remains one of the largest UFO sightings in history, and a fixture of contemporary UFO discourse. (see video of the Phoenix Lights below) Filmmaker Seth Breedlove takes an in depth look into the “Phoenix Lights” event in a new documentary series: On the Trail of UFOs.
• At about 7:00 pm, people in northwestern Arizona began reporting a large craft passing overhead. At 8:16 pm, a retired police officer in Paulden, Arizona, two hours north of Phoenix, called the National UFO Reporting Center to report seeing a series of reddish lights arranged in a V-formation in the night sky. Calls continued to pour in over the next couple of days to report the pair of sightings – both a boomerang-shaped object in the sky and odd moving lights with tails and “fireballs.”
• Ron Regehr is a veteran UFO researcher with the Mutual UFO Network and a former engineer with Boeing and Northrop Grumman. He was part of the team that helped develop the Defense Support Program Satellites (DSP), a series of infrared sensing tactical satellites that detect the launch of missiles, space launches, and nuclear detonations. On this evening, Regehr received a phone call from a colleague at the DSP that they had picked up an object over Las Vegas, Nevada traveling southeast toward Phoenix and Tucson, Arizona.
• Regehr said that the Phoenix Lights event was significant not only because so many people witnessed it, but because of the great extent that government and military authorities went to denounce the incident. People became so polarized that it took on a ‘cult like’ life of its own.
• Arizona’s governor (Fife Symington) held a press conference where he brought in his chief of staff dressed in an alien costume, poking fun and telling the press that they were “too serious” about the UFO stuff. Ultimately, the military took responsibility, claiming that the two events were: 1) jets flying in close formation, and 2) some military flares.
• In the documentary series, Breedlove doesn’t try to prove or disprove whether the lights were alien UFOs or military exercises. Instead, Breedlove follows podcaster and author Shannon LeGro who explores the UFO community itself and the cultural ramifications for the people who claim to have anomalous encounters. On the Trail of UFOs also explores several other cases where Breedlove focuses on the individuals caught up in the event, and how it altered their lives.
• “As an event, the Phoenix Lights is important simply because it gained so much media attention, was witnessed by so many people,” says Breedlove. “Every year, more witnesses come forward; from airline pilots to military personnel to ordinary people living from places as far removed as downtown Phoenix to Las Vegas.”
• “I’m not sure today that the response to the Phoenix Lights would be as over-the-top as it was in 1997,” says Breedlove. “Things have changed drastically in 23 years, and the Phoenix Lights helps illustrate that fact.” “[I]t’s a culturally important event because it illustrates how at-risk witnesses were of being ridiculed if they came forward.”
23 years ago today, the people of Arizona witnessed one of the most infamous UFO incidents in history.
A new documentary series by filmmaker Seth Breedlove takes an in depth look into the so-called “Phoenix Lights.” On the Trail of UFOs doesn’t try to prove that the incident was aliens or flares, but instead expertly explores the cultural ramifications of the event on the UFO community.
“As an event, the Phoenix Lights is important simply because it gained so much media attention, was witnessed by so many people, and today, can still not be precisely explained away,” Breedlove told Motherboard. “Every year more witnesses come forward; from airline pilots to military personnel to ordinary people living from places as far removed as downtown Phoenix to Las Vegas.”
On March 13th, 1997, hundreds of Arizonans called their local law enforcement and a popular UFO reporting hotline to report a series of strange lights moving over their cities and towns. The Phoenix Lights case remains one of the largest UFO sightings in history, and continues to be an established fixture of contemporary UFO discourse.
At roughly 7:00 pm, people in northwestern Arizona began reporting a large craft passing overhead. According to the National UFO Reporting Center, the first call they received came in at 8:16pm from a retired police officer in Paulden, Arizona, a town about two hours north of Phoenix. He reported seeing a series of reddish lights arranged in a V-formation.
Over the next couple days, calls continued to pour in regarding the sighting of multiple lights in the sky, some arranged in the shape of a boomerang, and others as odd moving lights with tails and “fireballs.” Ron Regehr, a veteran UFO researcher with the Mutual UFO Network and a former engineer with Boeing and Northrop Grumman, told Motherboard in an interview that he was part of the team that helped in developing the Defense Support Program Satellites (DSP), a series of infrared sensing tactical satellites that detect the launch of missiles, space launches, and nuclear detonations.
4:02 minute video of Phoenix lights footage (YouTube)
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