On March 13, 1997, thousands of people witnessed an event that’s now referred to as the Phoenix Lights. This particular night was especially well documented because, unlike reports that are unanticipated (resulting in blurred photos with few witnesses in isolated areas), this event had many expectant viewers looking to observe the Halle-Bopp comet and was therefore well documented by hundreds of eye-witnesses, many of whom had cameras and video recorders. When Frances Bar- wood, who was serving on the Phoenix city council at the time, brought up the issue with her peers, they surprisingly seemed dismissive of the event, reflecting a “there’s nothing to see here folks, move along” attitude. The U.S. Air Force would later state that the catalyst was most likely misidentified slow-falling illumination flares discharged by an A-10 Warthog aircraft during a training exercise (sometimes referred to as Operation Snowbird) at Barry Goldwater Range in southwestern Arizona. Comparative analyses of the lights and the mountain range did indeed reveal a very high similarity of what’s referred to as the “second UFO” and was corroborated as a typical training exercise by Capt. Drew Sullins of the Air National Guard, but not the slow- moving blimp-like UFO with a triangular shape.
The answers for the “black triangle” flying north to south, however, remained unconvincing. One of the largest and most unconventional aerial objects had just flown over the fifth largest metropolitan city in the U.S., with hundreds of eyewitnesses corroborating the event. Fife Symington, who was Arizona’s governor at the time, initially seemed cavalier about the event and even spoofed it when a staffer dressed as an alien appeared on stage for a press conference. Ten years later, however, he would go on record stating that he had personally witnessed the occurrence as well. In an episode of Larry King Live (July 13, 2007), Symington, a former Air Force pilot, said, “I acknowledge I saw a craft. I was in the Sunnyslope area around 8 p.m. I went out to look to the West, where…all the news channels were filming the Phoenix Lights. And to my astonishment, this large sort of delta- shaped, wedge-shaped craft moved silently over the valley, over Squaw Peak, dramatically large, very distinctive leading edge with some enormous lights. And it just went down to the Southeast Valley. And I was absolutely stunned because I was turning to the west looking for the distant Phoenix Lights, and all of a sudden, this apparition appears.
In The Phoenix Lights, author Dr. Lynne Kitei begins by sharing that her spiritual journey included researching Edgar Cayce and near-death experiences and that she even, for lack of a better word, prayed to the entities to provide her with revelation regarding their pur- pose. This could be described as conjuring. Shane Hurd, a field investigator in Phoenix for MUFON, said, “Because of their spiritual nature, I personally don’t investigate orbs,” and informed me that there was a special branch of MUFON dedicated to investigating the spiritual and paranormal aspects of the phenomena.
The fact that spirituality is a common denominator of the UFO phenomenon is one of its best-kept secrets.
