Background to why no official inquiry followed: the Air Force ended Project Blue Book, its UFO investigation programme, in 1969 and said there was no reason to resume.
“On December 17, 1969, the Secretary of the Air Force announced the termination of Project BLUE BOOK, the Air Force program for the investigation of UFOS.” source
CLASSIFIEDDeclassifiedFILE NO. 007SHEET 2 OF 4
Testimony
Interviews and witness statements: who, in what role, when and where it was said.
WITNESSFife Symington, former Governor of Arizona (special to CNN) · 2007-11-09
The former governor's own account: a massive delta-shaped craft over Squaw Peak, his 1997 press conference with his chief of staff in an alien costume, and his rejection of the flare explanation for what he saw.
“There might very well have been military flares in the sky that evening, but what I and hundreds of others saw had nothing to do with that.” source
Date from the article's URL; the page itself shows no date. The cnn.com address refused our automated check (HTTP 451); the edition.cnn.com address loads.
CLASSIFIEDDeclassifiedFILE NO. 007SHEET 3 OF 4
Press
Newspaper and magazine coverage, then and now. Linked, never copied.
Maryland Air National Guard spokesman Capt. Drew Sullins: eight A-10s on a night training mission over the Barry M. Goldwater range dropped flares and jettisoned the rest at altitude. Notes the Air Force told Sen. McCain it no longer investigates UFO reports.
“The planes were dropping high-intensity flares from 15,000 feet to illuminate the target area, Sullins said.” source
PRESSTony Ortega, Phoenix New Times (reprinted in Tucson Weekly) · 1997-07-03
Reconstructs the ‘V’: sightings from north of Prescott at about 8:15 to south of Tucson by 8:45, and amateur astronomer Mitch Stanley's view of planes through a telescope. Contacted military bases; none claimed the planes.
“They were planes. There's no way I could have mistaken that.” source
Tucson Weekly issue of 3–9 July 1997; first published in the Phoenix New Times.
PRESSThe Associated Press, via NBC News · 2007-03-23
Symington says he saw the craft in 1997 and kept quiet to avoid panic; recalls his 1997 alien-costume press event; Tucson astronomer and retired Air Force pilot James McGaha traces both sightings to A-10s.
“This just goes to show that you guys are entirely too serious,” source
Anniversary report: witness and researcher Lynne Kitei on what she saw; University of Arizona astronomer Chris Impey favours A-10s in a chevron followed by flares.
The page shows no date; year inferred from the ‘28 years later’ headline.
CLASSIFIEDDeclassifiedFILE NO. 007SHEET 4 OF 4
Analysis
Our own reading of the file, written from the sources on the other sheets. Opinion is marked as such.
Most of the confusion around the Phoenix Lights comes from treating one evening as one event. The record describes two. The first, around 8:30 p.m., was a ‘V’ of lights that crossed much of Arizona in under an hour; a local astronomer looking through a telescope saw planes, and the only known video shows the lights moving relative to each other. The second, around 10 p.m., was a string of lights that hung southwest of Phoenix for several minutes and then disappeared; that is the footage most people have seen.
The 10 p.m. lights have an identified cause. The Maryland Air National Guard said in July 1997 that its A-10s dropped high-intensity flares over a range southwest of the city that night and jettisoned the rest at about 15,000 feet. A later image analysis placed the lights above the Sierra Estrella and showed them disappearing behind the ridge, as distant flares would. The ‘V’ is less tidy: the Maryland Guard's spokesman said its A-10s never went north of Phoenix, and none of the military bases the Phoenix New Times contacted in 1997 claimed the formation. That some aircraft flew it is well supported; whose aircraft is not settled in public.
Our label is Explained, and it applies to the 10 p.m. lights named in the status note. It rests on a military spokesman's statement reported by the press, not on a published investigation; the Air Force said it no longer investigates UFO reports. Governor Symington's later account is first-hand and sincere, and it is about the ‘V’, not the flares.
What it shows
That two separate sightings happened on the same evening: a moving ‘V’ around 8:30 p.m. and stationary lights around 10 p.m.
That the Maryland Air National Guard said its A-10s dropped illumination flares southwest of Phoenix that night, and that video of the 10 p.m. lights matches distant flares behind the Sierra Estrella.
That a sitting governor publicly mocked the sightings in 1997 and, ten years later, said he had seen a huge craft himself.
What it doesn't prove
That the ‘V’ was a single object. The only known video shows the lights moving relative to each other, and an astronomer with a telescope saw separate planes.
Who flew the ‘V’. No unit is publicly documented as its owner, and the Maryland Guard said its A-10s did not go north of Phoenix.
That flares explain everything seen that night. They account for the 10 p.m. lights; reports from northwestern Arizona and of stars being blotted out concern the earlier event.
The other side
Fife Symington, a former Air Force officer and pilot who was governor at the time, says that what he saw that evening was a massive, silent, delta-shaped craft with enormous lights, and that it was certainly not flares, because flares do not fly in formation. He accepts there may have been flares in the sky that night but says they had nothing to do with what he and hundreds of others saw. On this view the flare story explains away the wrong event.
The one-year investigation: the 8:30 ‘V’ versus the 10 p.m. lights, the video of each, Arizona Guard officer Capt. Eileen Bienz on the flare drop, the Cognitech image match against the Sierra Estrella, and the dissenting analyses.
“The lights clearly move in relation to each other, proving that the lights represent five separate objects, rather than a solid body.” source
Reposted on the author's own website around the 20th anniversary (2017); the page shows no posting date.
COMMENTARYJames McGaha and Joe Nickell, Skeptical Inquirer (vol. 39, no. 2) · 2015-03
Sceptical review: the ‘V’ as five aircraft in formation (citing Davis-Monthan's public information officer on a Maryland A-10 squadron), the later lights as a flare drop confirmed by the flight leader, and the Sierra Estrella video match.
TO VERIFY Candidates, not yet checked
Arizona Republic reporting (1997 onwards): azcentral.com could not be opened by our tools; Capt. Eileen Bienz reportedly told the Republic about the Maryland flights.
Date of Symington's 1997 alien-costume press conference (often given as June 1997); not found on a page we opened.
Phoenix New Times 25th-anniversary oral history (phoenixnewtimes.com, 2022): returned HTTP 403.
Who flew the 8:30 p.m. ‘V’: Skeptical Inquirer cites Davis-Monthan's information officer Lt Keith Shepherd for a Maryland A-10 squadron; the Maryland Guard's spokesman (via Ortega) said its A-10s never went north of Phoenix.
US Air Force fact sheet on UFOs and Project Blue Book (af.mil): returned HTTP 403, not used.
Flare type: Skeptical Inquirer says LUU-2A/B; other pages say LUU-2B/B. Not used on the sheets.
Found, but not linked to a source we trust. Not on the sheets until they are.
