Sasquatch Chronicles Blog

The Phoenix Lights (sometimes called the “Lights Over Phoenix”) were a series of widely sighted unidentified flying objects observed in the skies over the southwestern states of Arizona and Nevada, and the Mexican state of Sonora on March 13, 1997.

Lights of varying descriptions were seen by thousands of people between 7:30 pm and 10:30 pm MST, in a space of about 300 miles (480 km), from the Nevada line, through Phoenix, to the edge of Tucson. There were two distinct events involved in the incident: a triangular formation of lights seen to pass over the state, and a series of stationary lights seen in the Phoenix area. The United States Air Force identified the second group of lights as flares dropped by A-10 Warthog aircraft that were on training exercises at the Barry Goldwater Range in southwest Arizona. Witnesses claim to have observed a huge carpenter’s square-shaped UFO, containing five spherical lights or possibly light-emitting engines. Fife Symington, the governor of Arizona at the time, years later said he witnessed this incident, describing the object as being “otherworldly.”

The lights were reported to have reappeared in 2007 and 2008, and were attributed to military flares dropped by fighter aircraft at Luke Air Force Base and flares attached to helium balloons released by a civilian, respectively.

Initial reports

At about 6:55pm PST (7:55pm MST), a man reported seeing a V-shaped object above Henderson, Nevada. He said it was about the “size of a (Boeing) 747”, sounded like “rushing wind”, and had six lights on its leading edge. The lights reportedly traversed northwest to the southeast.

An unidentified former police officer from Paulden, Arizona, is claimed to have been the next person to report a sighting, after leaving his house at about 20:15 MST. As he was driving north, he allegedly saw a cluster of reddish or orange lights in the sky, comprising four lights together and a fifth light trailing them. Each of the individual lights in the formation appeared to the witness to consist of two separate point sources of orange light. He returned home and watched the lights through binoculars until they disappeared south over the horizon.

Prescott and Prescott Valley

Lights were also reportedly seen in the areas of Prescott and Prescott Valley. At approximately 20:17 MST, callers began reporting the object was definitely solid because it blocked out much of the starry sky as it passed over.

Devon Lorenz and his aunt, Jamie Lorenz, were standing outside on his porch in Prescott Valley when they noticed a cluster of lights to the west-northwest of their position. The lights formed a triangular pattern, but all of them appeared to be red, except the light at the nose of the object, which was distinctly white. The object, or objects, which had been observed for approximately two to three minutes with binoculars, then passed directly over the observers, were seen to “bank to the right”, and then disappeared in the night sky to the southeast of Prescott Valley. The altitude could not be determined but the object was fairly low and made no sound whatsoever.

The National UFO Reporting Center received the following report from the Prescott area: “We observed five yellow-white lights in a “V” formation moving slowly from the northwest, across the sky to the northeast, then turn almost due south and continue until out of sight. The point of the “V” was in the direction of movement. The first three lights were in a fairly tight “V” while two of the lights were further back along the lines of the “V”‘s legs. During the NW-NE transit one of the trailing lights moved up and joined the three and then dropped back to the trailing position. I estimated the three light “V” to cover about 0.5 degrees of sky and the whole group of five lights to cover about 1 degree of sky.”

Arriving in Phoenix

When the triangular formation entered the Phoenix area, Bill Greiner, a cement driver hauling a load down a mountain north of Phoenix, described the second group of lights: “I’ll never be the same. Before this, if anybody had told me they saw a UFO, I would’ve said, “Yeah and I believe in the Tooth Fairy.” “Now I’ve got a whole new view and I may be just a dumb truck driver, but I’ve seen something that don’t belong here.” Greiner stated that the lights hovered over the area for more than two hours.

After Phoenix

A report came from a young man in the Kingman area who stopped his car at a payphone to report the incident. “[The] young man, en route to Los Angeles, called from a phone booth to report having seen a large and bizarre cluster of stars moving slowly in the northern sky”.

Reappearance in 2008

On April 21, 2008, lights were again reported over Phoenix by local residents. These lights appeared to change from square to triangular formation over time. A valley resident reported that shortly after the lights appeared, three jets were seen heading west in the direction of the lights. An official from Luke Air Force Base denied any United States Air Force activity in the area. On April 22, 2008, a resident of Phoenix told a newspaper that the lights were nothing more than his neighbor releasing helium balloons with flares attached. This was confirmed by a police helicopter. The following day, a Phoenix resident, who declined to be identified in news reports, stated that he had attached flares to helium balloons and released them from his back yard.