The Phoenix Lights revisited

[synchronomy]

b- Okay, so there may be a little more to add than simply 'planes.' He did not describe them as military jets, he described them as "the planes themselves seemed small, like light private planes."

Hope that helps to clarify.

The Canadian Snowbirds jets are about as small as jets get. They are called Tutors and are for pilot training.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadair_CL-41_Tutor

Edited October 12, 2012 by synchronomy

[quillius]

Yes, I did find the video on Youtube.

Watching it again I found the section, starting around 40:00 minutes showing the v-shape, but I don't see any structure to it other than the lights.

At about 32:25, Lt. Col. David Tanaka, Maryland Air National Guard, states that on March 13, 1997 they were operating as part of Operation Snowbird.

The name Snowbird caught my attention because a few posts back it was posted the the Canadian Snowbird aerobatic team was in the area that night.

I've see this team perform many times and they are ace flyers performing incredible manoevers similar to the Blue Angels etc.

I wonder if they were possibly being used as part of the National Guards operation...seems a bit too coincidental that both the military operation and the aerobatic team have the same name?

This would certainly explain the witness accounts of formation flying taking place.

Maybe this case is simply that a combination of aerial manoevers, including flare dropping, poor news media coverage, sporadic filming and photos and in particular the military's initial statement saying they were not operating, all combined to cause media frenzy.

Add to that Fyfe Symingtons blunder with the alien showing up at his news conference.

operation snowbird.......thats worth a google

I think Nixon picturing videos in his head while in Phoenix is all the proof we need.

Apparently.

yeah and some may even say picturiong videos in your head whilst in Phoeix leads to 'wishful thinking and that infamous leap of faith'

apparently

[TheMacGuffin]

The Canadian Snowbirds jets are about as small as jets get. They are called Tutors and are for pilot training.

Source: http://en.wikipedia....air_CL-41_Tutor

If there were Canadian pilots flying around that night for some reason--which I have NEVER believed--no one has ever been able to confirm it. Investigators checked with the FAA, for example, and they said they had no record of the Canadian Snowbirds even filing a flight plan or entering the country.

This part of the "explanation" is completely bogus.

"My attempt to get answers about flight plans filed for what was in the air that night from officials in Albuquerque, the FAA regional center, proved frustrating. They claimed to have no records of anything unusual. An FAA official in Seattle told me that if the pilots were Canadian, they should have filed a flight plan by computer or radio at their first point of entry into the U.S., which would have been Great Falls, Montana. But there was no such documentation.

Was the formation of lights invisible to radar, much as a formation of stealth fighters might have been? Or was something else even stranger going on that could have involved intentional radar jamming?"

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&ved=0CCQQFjAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.examiner.com%2Farticle%2Fpart-two-were-the-1997-arizona-lights-a-psychological-warfare-experiment&ei=6z94UK2RJIeE8ATL0YCgDQ&usg=AFQjCNFRtU_nIPwE3OEIuj2_3wHn1R2GVA&sig2=eUwCN_IVx1XKEnQHvIITzw

[TheMacGuffin]

So why was someone (or something) on the radio that night claiming to be one of the Canadian Snowbird pilots on a flight that apparently did not exist?

At least, if it did exist no one has ever proved it. I think this is a very interesting question that has never been answered, and yet another indication that the whole business stinks.

You won't be hearing any of this from the "skeptics", of course, but I'm saying it.

[TheMacGuffin]

Then we have a little "flare dropping" exercise that also happens to be called Project Snowbird.

Coincidence I'm sure.

No one acknowledged that existence of this "exercise" on the night in question, but it certainly came into being afterwards.

[mcrom901]

So why was someone (or something) on the radio that night claiming to be one of the Canadian Snowbird pilots on a flight that apparently did not exist?

At least, if it did exist no one has ever proved it. I think this is a very interesting question that has never been answered, and yet another indication that the whole business stinks.

You won't be hearing any of this from the "skeptics", of course, but I'm saying it.

i never found any answers to that as well... any idea whether formation flight required some kind of due regard?

[quillius]

i never found any answers to that as well... any idea whether formation flight required some kind of due regard?

not sure about all formation flight groups but at least the snowbird gang did:

The OSB Mission

The 162nd Fighter Wing Operation Snowbird detachment's mission, is to provide support for U.S. military flying units and allied partners deployed for training. Southern Arizona provides optimal weather conditions and ample ranges that mirror the environment found downrange. OSB hosts an average of 10-12 units per year with 2 -12 aircraft per visit for an average of two weeks. Every visiting pilot is informed of and complies with all base traffic patterns and noise abatement procedures, mitigating noise impact on the surrounding

communities.

[TheMacGuffin]

Then we have these other anonymous sources, saying that F-16s (not F-15s) were set up after the "lights" from Luke Air Force base, not just once but twice, and chased them as far south as the Mexican border. They say that the "flares" were just part of the deception, but I say that someone is very busily trying to muddy the waters in this case, so that people will end up chasing themselves trying to determine what really happened.

How many times has this occurred in UFO cases? Many times. If there ever was an Operation Snowbird at all--which I personally doubt--then it was something very different from imaginary Canadian pilots or an imaginary flare dropping exercise.

All I see here is a big smokescreen of obfuscation, disinformation and cover stories designed to sow confusion, while the governor of the state puts on a little show with a guy in an alien costume for the benefit of the TV cameras. Not a pretty picture at all.

"Did Fighter Jets Intercept The Lights? There had been reports that fighter jets were scrambled that night to intercept the formation of lights. When I posed this question to officers at Luke Air Force Base in Phoenix, they informed me that F-16s from the base had been sent up that evening “for night training,” which they claimed to do routinely almost every night.

Public Affairs spokesman, Senior Airman Petosky, issued this statement in response to my many persistent queries: “I can tell you flat out there was no intercept that night of any lights formation.”

But was that completely accurate? On a website called The UFO Chronicles, dated January 26, 2009, an anonymous writer nicknamed Topol-M, claiming to be a former Luke Air Force Base airman, gave a different account of Luke’s role in the sightings incident. Since this claimant is coming forward anonymously, we must treat his or her information with some caution. But elements of the story ring true for me. Here is the provocative claim.

On that March night, Luke scrambled two F-16C’s from the 56th Fighter Wing and vectored them towards Tucson. Less than 10 minutes later a second set of F-16Cs were also scrambled. Pilots from the first flight reported by radio that “something odd” was happening, but they didn’t given any specifics over the radio.

A radar sighting of the lights formation allegedly occurred north of Casa Grande, Arizona, somewhere below 10,000 feet, but the pair of jets making this contact picked up “radar clutter common to stand-off jamming.” Radar at both Luke and Davis-Monthan “were picking up low level ‘noise’ on several frequencies…this ‘noise’ was consistent with active wide-spectrum jamming.”

One pair of the jets flew all the way to the Mexican border as the lights ”passed over the outskirts of Tucson and over Fort Huachuca.” This first intercept flight of jets lost contact with the lights “approximately 7 miles south of Tucson.”

As I will explain in a moment, if this is true-- and I suspect that it is-- it’s an important and revealing piece of the puzzle because Fort Huachuca may hold the key to this entire night of mystery.

The flares that were dropped around 10 pm on the Goldwater training range, this anonymous source related, “was a deception measure” to keep people focused on the sky because “flares were never used that far north of the Goldwater training range…if they were, there would be weekly Phoenix Lights incidents.”

http://www.google.co...Vx1XKEnQHvIITzw

Edited October 12, 2012 by TheMacGuffin

[TheMacGuffin]

So if you read further in that particular link I provided, the author thinks it was some kind of exercise out of "Area 51" and Fort Huachcua, another one of those supersecret spooky type bases that are all over the Southwest.

All I can say is that the muddy waters keep getting muddier all the time, but I do believe the governor and those hundreds of other witnesses who saw something very big flying around that night.

PS In the army, Fort Huachcua had a bad reputation as the kind of base out in the middle of nowhere that no one liked to be assigned to, like Fort Bliss, and people used to grumble a lot when they got transferred there.

Edited October 12, 2012 by TheMacGuffin

[synchronomy]

Then we have a little "flare dropping" exercise that also happens to be called Project Snowbird.

Coincidence I'm sure.

No one acknowledged that existence of this "exercise" on the night in question, but it certainly came into being afterwards.

Could be coincidence, but sometimes if it quacks like a duck and flies like a duck....lol

In rereading the account you posted which makes reference to an unidentified pilot saying "we're canadian snowbird on our way to...", I find the account suspicious now because it seems too detailed and perhaps "filled in" by an over zealous author-investigator.

Since I find the "Snowbird" title to be more than coincidence, I am thinking of plausible explanations for the debunker writing that.

Perhaps:

1. The author had Operation Snowbird and formation flying on his mind so he thought of the Canadian Snowbird aerobatic team and used that to write-off the witness claims. After all, I tried too, to find a record that the aerobatic team had even been in the US at that time, but to no avail.

2. Possibly it was a US military pilot, realizing they had been spotted, who did indeed claim to be part of the Canadian Snowbirds using similar logic...he was part of Operation Snowbird and was flying in formation so offered a quick debunking story of his own.

I would expect number 1 is far more likely than 2, because a military pilot would have kept his mouth shut.

So I think in this case the detailed conversations of the pilots are the rantings of an over zealous author-debunker.

[Bionic Bigfoot]

Here's what I have issues with...

Whenever there is a discussion about topics like these, there is generally the two vocal sides, the 'believers' and the 'debunkers/skeptics'. Those who are in the middle usually don't say much and probably because they haven't formed an opinion or don't know many of the facts, but regardless. I'm not new to the subject of ET's and UFO's, it's not a professional hobby, but it's a passionate hobby that I do quite a bit of reading on and sleuthing for details. It's become apparent to me now and after spending some time on this board & in this topic, some of you have done a lot more investigation on this event and know more of the facts than I do. Some of you seem to be extremely mathematically gifted and I admitted (more or less) that math isn't my strong point.

Anyway, speaking about the debunkers/skeptics, I've generally found that they are very closed to accepting things that can't be 100% explained, either by science, math or even religion and without every last 'i' dotted and 't' crossed. This doesn't just apply to this message board, it's a constant anywhere. For this group of people there is only black or white. There cannot be any unknowns and they don't seem to be willing or able to admit to grey areas. If details aren't backed and fully supported by scientific principles then the event, situation, case or phenomena is automatically bogus and case closed. Realistically our world is FULL of unknowns and science and math simply cannot definitively prove certain things.

Obviously, I am entrenched in the 'believer' camp and side of the coin. Speaking for myself, I am skeptical in my own way. I don't believe everything I read or watch and I do investigate situations in more detail than some might do. I will admit too that I also allow my gut feelings and intuition to guide my conclusions to an extent. I feel that most 'believers' have a similar mindset to mine and WITHOUT disregarding factual evidence either. Believers seem to be more willing to consider alternate ideas or theories, whereas the skeptics don't seem to be able to do this. Of course this is a generalization, but it's what I've experienced in my 38 years of life.

Alas, I also appreciate the engaging conversations about this topic. I was reluctant and unhappy to involve myself in arguing whether it was a real event or not. I HAVE learned some things about this specific event. I do believe that the one video is probably showing flares fall behind the mountains BUT, and as I maintain, I feel that that was a diversion by the military to confuse the real events of that night over Phoenix in 1997!

Regarding the reason why there were no pictures able to capture a solid craft blocking out the stars, it's probably because that level of detail wouldn't have shown up in a photo. You'd need a really good camera to even register stars on a photo first off and in a artificially bright city like Phoenix. Secondly, the witnesses said the craft was nearly the colour of the sky itself. These two factors would have not allowed this particular eye witness report detail to be seen in photos at that time, in 1997.

Edited October 12, 2012 by Bionic Bigfoot

[TheMacGuffin]

Could be coincidence, but sometimes if it quacks like a duck and flies like a duck....lol

1. The author had Operation Snowbird and formation flying on his mind so he thought of the Canadian Snowbird aerobatic team and used that to write-off the witness claims. After all, I tried too, to find a record that the aerobatic team had even been in the US at that time, but to no avail.

2. Possibly it was a US military pilot, realizing they had been spotted, who did indeed claim to be part of the Canadian Snowbirds using similar logic...he was part of Operation Snowbird and was flying in formation so offered a quick debunking story of his own.

Those guys are like the Thunderbirds and Blue Angels, and their purpose is to put on public airshows, which are always well advertised in advance.

I don't see them flying around at night with no flight plans, and certainly not playing tag with civilian airliners. No, something else was going on here.

[synchronomy]

Those guys are like the Thunderbirds and Blue Angels, and their purpose is to put on public airshows, which are always well advertised in advance.

I don't see them flying around at night with no flight plans, and certainly not playing tag with civilian airliners. No, something else was going on here.

That's what I mean. There's no record of the aerobatic team being there...so it's that author was making it up in order to "pad-up" his debunking story. In all likelihood that statement was never made over the radio.

And you're right about the formation flying requiring "due diligence". We used to have a large airshow every year here. I lived near the airport and used to go to a good vantage point the day before (because there were no crowds) and I would watch the airshow planes arriving. Two years running I saw the Snowbirds arrive and they were not in formation. There's 9 of them IIRC and they landed one at a time about 3-4 minutes apart. They only flew in formation during the show.

[Sweetpumper]

Acrobatic flare dropping teams?

[booNyzarC]

ok thanks for clarifying.

ahh now this is exactly why I want to know exactly what he said and when........did the words 'like private planes' or 'square wings' or even the 'make out the silohettes of the planes' come after he was shunned? did these get added to his story to make the plane scenario sound better against the avalanche of 'ufo' sightings and 'i know what I saw'........could he have seen plane lights whihc led him to believe they were planes but didnt quite realise they were military jets?

Well, Tim Printy's reference for this is here:

Ortega, Tony. "The Great UFO Coverup." Phoenix Newstimes. 26 June 1997.

It seems to suggest that the testimony has never wavered, but that nobody seemed all that interested in following up with what he was saying. It seems that the same level of disinterest in his testimony lives on through today.

By the time that article was published near the end of June we can be sure that Jim Dilettoso and Village Labs had already undergone at least some of their investigations, but I don't know whether this was published before or after the town hall meeting previously mentioned.

At any rate, Mitch seems to me like he was a pretty down to earth and laid back guy so he might be open to answering your question directly if you can find a way to get ahold of him.

On a side note, I'm trying to keep up with the discussions but work is taking precedence. I would like to comment a bit more on several of the posts that have been made, but that may have to wait.

[bee]

So if you read further in that particular link I provided, the author thinks it was some kind of exercise out of "Area 51" and Fort Huachcua, another one of those supersecret spooky type bases that are all over the Southwest.

All I can say is that the muddy waters keep getting muddier all the time, but I do believe the governor and those hundreds of other witnesses who saw something very big flying around that night.

PS In the army, Fort Huachcua had a bad reputation as the kind of base out in the middle of nowhere that no one liked to be assigned to, like Fort Bliss, and people used to grumble a lot when they got transferred there.

thanks for that....and again we have the question...was it one of ours or one of 'theirs'....

back in the 1940s, 50s, 60s(?)....this question could be answered more easily, maybe..

but by the 1990s who knows what 'we' have... and what advanced technology might be being used for..?

the general public don't know, anyway....and probably lots of military don't either (need to know and all that)

I'm not bothered if it turns out to be ours or theirs....in fact, as the waters are horribly muddied with the whole episode,

one might wonder if it was 'ours'.....using advanced technolgy...whether a cover up would be just as

thorough, if not more so.

I always kind of think that the triangle ones are more likely to be 'ours'....

the psychological experiment and/or holograph angle...is something else in the mix to consider.

The whole thing is a massive puzzle...because if it was a UFO/ET show for the public...why do this?

part of 'soft disclosure' ?

or to explain away advanced tech,? (that might have it's origins in ET/Interdimensional craft anyway)

.

[synchronomy]

One thing that never varies with UFO sightings...

Always more questions than answers!

[bee]

.

I think the fact that Phoenix is on the 33rd parallel is somehow relevant...

Roswell was also on the 33 degree latitude....

I think this latitude is important to do with magnetic / gravitational / light fields

and is probably used (with other geometricly aligned latitudes and earth positions)

by Beings from elsewhere (or interdimensionals) and by Human advanced technology.

But it's all a big secret so sshhhhhhhhhh.....lol

.

[TheMacGuffin]

thanks for that....and again we have the question...was it one of ours or one of 'theirs'....

back in the 1940s, 50s, 60s(?)....this question could be answered more easily, maybe..

but by the 1990s who knows what 'we' have... and what advanced technology might be being used for..?

The whole thing is a massive puzzle...because if it was a UFO/ET show for the public...why do this?

part of 'soft disclosure' ?

or to explain away advanced tech,? (that might have it's origins in ET/Interdimensional craft anyway)

.

It's definitely a puzzle, and a lot more was going on here than "flares".

My opinion is that the big UFO first appeared appeared around Nellis Air Force Base in Las Vegas, then made its way south-southeast, where it was seen in Henderson, Boulder City and Lake Mead in Nevada, then kept flying over a lot of empty desert and was seen in Kingman and Prescott, Arizona, then of course by many people in Phoenix and Tuscon.

Whether it was one of ours or theirs is an open question in my book. Maybe it's both ours and theirs.

The big military reaction only seems to have happened in the Phoenix area, so far as I know. That's where we get all the reports of "flares", Canadian Snowbirds and blah, blah, blah, and it does seem to me that interceptors were sent up after it at some point.

It makes its way south to the Mexican border and then...what? It's gone like it never was there.

They didn't pick up anything on radar, or so they say, so does that mean it was big and stealthy? Maybe.

[TheMacGuffin]

.

I think the fact that Phoenix is on the 33rd parallel is somehow relevant...

Roswell was also on the 33 degree latitude....

I think this latitude is important to do with magnetic / gravitational / light fields

and is probably used (with other geometricly aligned latitudes and earth positions)

by Beings from elsewhere (or interdimensionals) and by Human advanced technology.

But it's all a big secret so sshhhhhhhhhh.....lol

All very funny that it was the same night as the Hale-Bopp comet and following the same trajectory, which means more people than usual were out Watching the Skies.

Maybe it was just another celestial visitor dropping in to say hello and look around.

Edited October 12, 2012 by TheMacGuffin

[Bionic Bigfoot]

All very funny that it was the same night as the Hale-Bopp comet and following the same trajectory, which means more people than usual were out Watching the Skies.

Maybe it was just another celestial visitor dropping in to say hello and look around.

That or it was planned by the ET's and knowing that people would be watching the skies that night. Of course, all conjecture, but none of us know for sure!

Edited October 12, 2012 by Bionic Bigfoot

[zoser]

Regarding the reason why there were no pictures able to capture a solid craft blocking out the stars, it's probably because that level of detail wouldn't have shown up in a photo. You'd need a really good camera to even register stars on a photo first off and in a artificially bright city like Phoenix. Secondly, the witnesses said the craft was nearly the colour of the sky itself. These two factors would have not allowed this particular eye witness report detail to be seen in photos at that time, in 1997.

And because people were to staggered too do so. Don't forget that even though it was travelling slowly compared to an aircraft the whole show would have still been over in around a minute or so.

PS your in good company BF.

Edited October 12, 2012 by zoser

[Babe Ruth]

Some good posts here. Having just started reading AD After Disclosure, it is an interesting example of the corruption of language when people who believe and advocate for government stories are described as 'skeptics.'

[TheMacGuffin]

Of course, in March 1997 the members of the Heaven's Gate UFO cult committed suicide, thinking they were going to be taken "home" on a spaceship hidden in the Hale-Bopp comet. Their suicide was ten days after the so-called "Phoenix Lights" incidents.

I would reserve the insulting term "believers" for people like these, since they really did make a religion out of UFOs, which I definitely do not.

http://www.google.co...xBQqfFRED508syg

Edited October 12, 2012 by TheMacGuffin

[Bionic Bigfoot]

I only knew of one person, personally who lived in the Phoenix area during the time of the 1997 sighting. I asked her about it and unfortunately she told me she was gambling at a casino during the whole thing!