PHOENIX.
“On the night of March 13, 1997, a formation of lights appeared in the skies over Nevada, moved south through Arizona, and was observed by thousands of people across a corridor from Prescott to Phoenix to Tucson — a distance of over 300 miles.”
The event lasted approximately three hours and remains one of the most documented mass UFO sightings in history.
Witnesses consistently described a massive, silent, V-shaped or boomerang-shaped craft moving slowly and at low altitude. Dr. Lynne Kitei, a prominent Phoenix physician, photographed the lights from her home. Witnesses estimated the craft's wingspan at up to a mile. Military aircraft in the vicinity were described as appearing tiny by comparison. The object made no sound and blocked out stars as it passed overhead.
Arizona Governor Fife Symington initially ridiculed the reports at a press conference, producing a staff member in an alien costume. He later publicly recanted, stating he had personally witnessed the craft and was convinced it was extraterrestrial — he had joked to deflect public panic. "It was enormous and it just felt otherworldly," he said years later.
The US military attributed the lights to flare drops from A-10s at Barry Goldwater Range. But witnesses who saw the craft earlier in the evening — before any flares were dropped — describe a solid, structured craft. The "flare" explanation addresses only the later, stationary lights seen over Phoenix. To this day, no official explanation covers the earlier traveling formation seen across three states.
Independent editorial summary. An unidentified report does not by itself establish an extraterrestrial origin. Map locations may be approximate.
NUFORC director Peter Davenport on "probably the most dramatic sighting," the 1997 Phoenix Lights
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