- On a mild springlike evening, the string of amber orbs
appeared as if by magic, a celestial sleight of hand that would in the
coming weeks make headlines across the nation.
-
- Although little more than an atmospheric curiosity at
the time, the hovering balls of light soon would become known as the Phoenix
Lights, an event that 10 years later continues to spark debate over just
what was seen that night.
-
- In the ensuing decade, the Phoenix Lights would change
outlooks, minds and even a few lives. What hasn't changed is this: the
mystery that still hovers above March 13, 1997.
-
- It is agreed that at about 10 p.m. on that date, under
a clear sky with no breeze, a string of lights appeared in the southwest
sky.
-
- Officials at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson,
Ariz., would report that no military maneuvers were taking place that night
at the Barry M. Goldwater Range to the west. (Air Force officials would
change their story two months later, saying the person on duty that night
failed to look at the proper logbook.)
-
- The lights were flares, said the Air National Guard,
dropped during nighttime exercises at the Barry M. Goldwater Range.
-
- That's what they were, insists Lt. Col. Ed Jones, who
piloted one of the four A-10s in the squadron that he says launched the
flares.
-
- Jones, in his first interview with the news media concerning
the night 10 years ago, says he can't believe a decision to eject a few
leftover flares turned into a UFO furor that continues to this day.
-
- He now is assistant director of operations for the 104th
Fighter Squadron of the Maryland National Guard.
-
- On the way back to Tucson, not far from Gila Bend, Jones
says, he reminded pilots to eject their leftover parachute flares.
-
- Jones and the crew returned to Maryland. Several weeks
later, Jones says, "All this stuff just blew up."
-
- http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20
070301/ NEWS07/703010425/1001/NEWS
-
-
- Comment
- Rense Webmaster
- 3-1-7
-
- Parachuted flares do not hover motionless in the sky.
They fall, slowly, but the fall is perceptible as recent military flares
over Phoenix demonstrated. If you've seen the video of the Phoenix lights,
they are not descending at all. They are hovering. Video analysis has also
proven conclusively that the lights in the Phoenix Lights videos, from
different sources and angles, are not the same luminescence videos taken
of night time flares. Anyone who saw this most recent flare drop around
Feb 6th also saw how dramatically different these were from the Phoenix
Lights array. They were distinctly flickering, golden or amber colored
lights which fell at different heights (staggered) and smoke was clearly
visible rising from them, illuminated by the flares themselves. Flares
also do not cause people to see an enormous V-shaped object, among other
unidentified objects, obscuring the starry sky, as many reported earlier
that evening of March 1997.
-
- With the 10 year anniversary of the Phoenix Lights around
the corner (March 13), it is no surprise the Brass is rolling out the official
debunker squad to pepper the news. It took Lt. Jones ten years to make
his first public statement?? Hmmm. Recent flare drops were probably part
of the same sad attempt to lull the public into continued complacency over
one of the most spectacular UFO events of the 20th century.
-
-
-
- This Photo Taken From Usery Pass East of Phoenix
Shows What some are Calling the Phoenix Lights Part 2 (Image: National
Ledger)
-
- "I write about the mysterious Phoenix lights in
the night sky 10 years ago. My husband and I were out flying that night
in the vicinity of the Stanfield VOR. We clearly saw the flares to our
west, over the Goldwater range - a familiar sight to my husband.
-
- However, there was a second set of lights that night
- the V-shaped formation that was initially shown on film by the local
TV networks. That formation, whatever it was, flew directly over us at
a much higher altitude than the flares.
-
- At the time, we thought it was some sort of military
flight, but that never appears to have been acknowledged. I am sure someone
knows the truth about those lights, but, please, don't insult our intelligence
by telling us they were flares." - Jan Markham, Gilbert
- (From http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/opinions/articles/
0210satlets2-101.html)
-
- Images of flares at night
-
 .. 
-
- From Ufosoverphoenix.com, a comparison of the Phoenix Lights
and flares
-
-
-
- Bruce Maccabee Defends "Flares" Explanation
While Simultaneously Defending The Triangular Craft On The Night Of The
Phoenix Lights
-
- Inresponding to the recent newspaper article in which
Ed Jones says the Phoenix Lights were flares, you wrote the following.
My comments are inserted.
-
-
- >Comment
- >Rense Webmaster.
- >3-1-7.
- >Parachuted flares do not hover motionless in the
sky. They fall, slowly, but the fall is perceptible as recent military
flares over Phoenix demonstrated. If you've seen the video of the Phoenix
lights, they are not descending at all. They are hovering.
-
- Wrong. They do fall downwards. On the TV screen it
is not a large distance, but it is measureable. Futhermore, the distance
of fall on the TV screen is consistent with the actual distance of fall
for a given duration when projected to the triangulated distance of the
flares (60 or more miles). For a much more detailed discussion and analysis
see "falling lights" below and my web site article at http://brumac.8k.com/phoenixlights1.com.
My web site presents the result of triangulation using the Phoenix Lights
videos. The result is that the lights at 10 PM March 13, 1997 were 60 or
more miles southwest of Phoenix.
-
- >Video analysis has also proven conclusively that
the lights in the Phoenix Lights videos, from different sources and angles,
are not the same luminescence videos taken of night time flares. Anyone
who saw this >most recent flare drop around Feb 6th also saw how dramatically
different these were from the Phoenix Lights array. They were distinctly
flickering, golden or amber colored lights which fell at different heights
>(staggered) and smoke was clearly visible rising from them, illuminated
by the flares themselves.
-
- There are different types of flares. Some may have been
recently dropped closer to Phoenix. The pictures on the Rense web page
of reddish flares and flares giving off smoke were taken at much shorter
distances, like maybe a couple of miles Ior less or with professional cameras
that have stronger lenses than on the home video cameras. But it is worthy
of note that these videos of flares at "short range" show how
much brighter is the light from the flare itself than from the smoke.
Try to imagine placing a neutral density filter in front of the camera
to cut the brightness of the flare itself by a factor of 100 or 1000 to
synthesize a much greater distance and then try to imagine the brightness
level of the smoke. IT might not even be detectable. If the shots of flares
on the Rense site were taken at a distance of 1 mile with a particular
type of camera, for example, then at 60 miles the brightness of the smoke
image (and the flare itself) would be (1/60)^2 = 1/3600 as bright by the
inverse square law. Reduction of this much in brightness would not be sufficient
to make the flare image invisible (the flare is so bright - creating a
very overexposed image in these short range videos - that it might still
overexpose at a distance of 60 miles) but it would make the smoke image
so faint as to be undetectable.
-
- > Flares also do not cause people to see an enormous
V-shaped object, among other unidentified objects, obscuring the starry
sky, as many reported earlier that evening of March 1997. Here the webmaster
is apparently mixing up the 8:30 triangle sighting witnessed by many people
as seen directly overhead in Phoenix... the "real UFO sighting"
that night.
-
- >With the 10 year anniversary of the Phoenix Lights
around the corner (March 13), it is no surprise the Brass is rolling out
the official debunker squad to pepper the news. It took Lt. Jones ten years
to make his first >public statement?? Hmmm. Recent flare drops were
probably part of the same sad attempt to lull the public into continued
complacency over one of the most spectacular UFO events of the 20th century.
-
- This conspiracy spectulation is useless unless it can
be proved. (Some have argued that there was a conspiracy to cover up the
real UFO sighting: the 10 PM lights were flares, dropped to intentionally
confuse the issue and draw attention away from the real UFO at 8:30.)
-
- >"I write about the mysterious Phoenix lights
in the night sky 10 years ago. My husband and I were out flying that night
in the vicinity of the Stanfield VOR. We clearly saw the flares to our
west, over the Goldwater >range - a familiar sight to my husband. >However,
there was a second set of lights that night - the V-shaped formation that
was initially shown on film by the local TV networks. That formation, whatever
it was, flew directly over us at a much higher altitude >than the flares.
>At the time, we thought it was some sort of military flight, but that
never appears to have been acknowledged. I am sure someone knows the truth
about those lights, but, please, don't insult our intelligence by telling
>us they were flares." - Jan Markham, Gilbert
-
- Amusing. Here is a person who claims to have seen flares.
However, the triangle, which a young man videoed for a short time, clearly
was not related to the flares. The fact of the triangle sighting directly
above Phoenix does not mean that the 10 PM lights/orbs were associated
with that triangle of lights.... which moved rather rapidly, by the way.
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