Eyewitnesses claim lights seen over Phoenix are UFOs.
![A man outside his car looking up at a tight arrangment of red lights in the night sky over the desert](https://cdn.unsolved.com/wp-content/uploads/existing/ufo_phoenix_mystery_lights1.jpg?x38205)
Multiple sightings were reported
![An air force flair in the night sky](https://cdn.unsolved.com/wp-content/uploads/existing/ufo_phoenix_mystery_lights2.jpg?x38205)
An Air Force flare
CASE DETAILS
On the night of March 13, 1997, Phoenix resident Michael Krzyston shot amateur video of lights flying over his home in a “V” formation:
“Before I knew it, an entire display of lights comes on. I got a little excited at that time, and I called my wife… it was really quite unusual”
![A tight arrangment of 5 yellow lights in the night sky](https://cdn.unsolved.com/wp-content/uploads/existing/ufo_phoenix_mystery_lights3.jpg?x38205)
Many in Phoenix saw the mysterious lights
Michael Krzyston was not the only eyewitness that evening. Thousands of Arizona residents claimed to have seen the exact same formation of lights. Were the lights UFOs? Many of the eyewitnesses were immediately convinced.
Not surprisingly, an official explanation soon emerged from Capt. Drew Sullins of the Air National Guard:
“The 104th fighter squadron of the Maryland Air National Guard’s 175th wing was conducting a night training exercise in the vicinity of the mysterious lights. What they were doing was dropping night illumination flares over the north tactical range at Luke Air Force and a lot of people seem to think that those flares could in fact have been the quote, unquote, mysterious lights.”
It seemed plausible that flares would be the cause for the sightings. However, there was a problem with the military’s explanation. The military said the flares were dropped between 9:00 and 10:00 PM. However, the most impressive sighting occurred between 8:00 and 9:00 PM. Taken together, these eyewitness accounts seem to indicate that there was something other than flares in the Phoenix sky that night.
At 8:10 PM, nearly an hour before the military began dropping flares, Ross Nickle and his family were driving on Highway 89 when they spotted the lights overhead:
“I saw some lights in a very small pattern. And what they really looked like at that point was just dim stars, several of them in a very tight pattern. They were white like stars when they were coming towards us. And at that point, they changed colors and went from white to red. They were just overhead at that point and they were, in my estimation, not very high off the ground. I’m guessing a thousand feet. And there was absolutely no sound. During the whole time, from the start to finish, there was absolutely no sound.”
![A frame from home video footage of the same arrangment of yellow lights in the sky](https://cdn.unsolved.com/wp-content/uploads/existing/ufo_phoenix_mystery_lights4.jpg?x38205)
Frame from an actual home video
Twenty minutes later, a commercial airline pilot and his wife were driving home after dinner when they too spotted the lights. For professional reasons, the pilot agreed to tell his story only if his identity was concealed:
“I’ve been flying for 29 years now, and I’m not used to looking up in the sky and not being able to figure out what I’m seeing. I looked at it then and tried to make it into an airliner. I realized again, it’s going too slow, and… there’s no noise at all. And then the next thing that struck me is that, man, why would his landing lights be pointed straight down?”
Given the locations of the sightings, the lights appeared to be heading south. At 8:30 PM, Ozma Linderman and her boyfriend were just settling down for the evening when they had their own encounter:
“It was very clear in my mind that it was one solid craft. The lights were traveling too perfectly spaced apart, and there was a void clearly between the lights that blacked out the stars when it came down. The whole thing just slowed, I don’t know, maybe to a stop or it hovered for a second, and then, what looked like one solid red oval object, it just turned red and shot straight up and disappeared, gone, completely gone.”
At 8:45 PM, 15 minutes before the military began dropping flares, trucker Gary Morris spotted the lights while driving:
“To me it didn’t look like floodlights. They didn’t really look like spotlights. There was something different about them that I had never seen before.”
Between 8:00 and 9:00 PM the Phoenix lights had traveled over 300 miles and been seen by hundreds of witnesses. An hour passed. Then at 10 PM Michael Krzyston shot the video that would provide the basis for the military’s official explanation:
“If you lived in Phoenix, these flares, some of them were dropped at 14,000 and 15,000 feet. They burn very bright. They burn for five to six minutes. They are suspended by a parachute, and it’s a large flare. You would be able to see those flares, I would imagine, for 150, maybe even 200 miles.”
The commercial pilot is convinced the lights he saw were not flares:
“I’ve seen them from the ground, I’ve seen them from the air, and these weren’t flares. And probably the major reason that these were almost certainly not flares dropped by the military was they’re dangerous. So they would never, ever be dropped over a population center.”
Will the mystery of the Phoenix lights ever be solved? For the military, the case is closed. But for hundreds of eyewitnesses the question remains: did the Phoenix lights come from somewhere beyond the stars?
Watch this case now on Amazon Prime in season ten with Robert Stack and in season one with Dennis Farina. Also available on YouTube with Dennis Farina. Various seasons available now on Hulu.
Greg
I saw exactly like these, but was at least 15 years ago, in Budapest Hungary. I was standing in the balcony when they showed up, they was reddish color. Honestly I could not believe in my eyes, but in the next day, there was an article about them claiming they was weather balloons, what is a big bs, but they have to weite something, hundreds of people saw them… It gives me the chills to this very day, that I saw something not from this earth…
icvosram
we saw same big lights last summer im Slovenia
The Truth Behind
thanks for the sharing some good information
John
You should write fiction.
Elijah
The people in Arizona were so lucky to see an actual UFO. I wouldn’t believe the military’s story because they always cover up UFO sightings. Even the Governor of Arizona finally admitted that it was a UFO. He couldn’t at first because it would have cost him his job. Many years later, he admitted they were not flares. The thousands of eyewitnesses saw this slow moving UFO go right over their heads and homes. This YouTube link has the story and more info regarding the Phoenix Lights “UFOs: I KNOW WHAT I SAW – 2017 Best UFO HD Movie UFOTV”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tGMGOdKOPKk&index=15&t=1869s&list=PLIaw9ew1qjVX0PkU5Ij1qVg1CCmjJufuM. OR this one: “The UFO Phoenix Lights” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=glsHAGIjdYo&index=18&list=PLIaw9ew1qjVX0PkU5Ij1qVg1CCmjJufuM
Enjoy and learn more about UFO’s. It’s easier to believe in them rather to mock people who actually saw them.
Anonymous
Just so you all know, the first person to report these lights was a Sheriff deputy in Pauldin Arizona. A small town north of Prescott Az.
Flares do not travel that far.
Second, these lights were seen all the way down to Sierra Vista Az.
More people saw them in Phx, but it wasn’t the only place they were seen.
You might want to find others from Arizona who saw them.
The flare report is false. Flares will land not too far from where they were dropped. They will not travel many hundreds of miles.
Antonio deas
I believe what you and everyone else in Phoenix, AZ that night was in fact a UFO.
Anonymous
i have deep inside info linking HAARP/ Project blue beam hologram used to misdirect the community due to a secret military exercise that night,however i have seen blue prints for project “DELTA 12” which is a triangle type flying anti gravity craft that is the length of 6 football fields that makes no noise at all, the current location of this craft is reported to be in the Nevada area
Chanita
They Had Problay Mistaken The UFO’s For The Flare Guns Used By The Military!
Marie
I have picture and video footage of similar pictures. They were just like the video on escape channel just now. Playing leapfrog. They hovered at dusk. Changing colors between orange, red, blue, and green. My son called a tip line and we never heard a word back.. They were silent and only two of them. I would like to share but do not know how.
Mike huege
I work for Ross he is a very honest reliable source
antonio Aragon mexicaman20 @gmail
The army of the US is hiding the fact that they indeed have overwhelming technology advancement over every other governments of the world… Cant say for sure… That other creaters are involved but can say for sure that they did get the beginning of their advancement from thier spoils of war of world war 2.
Anonymus
I remember watching these lights while driving in the desert off Park Link inbetween I-10 and SR79 . I watched them as they hovered over Pinal Air Park for approx. 5 min. Then grouped into formation and then very quickly at a high rate of speed and amazing acceloration , streaking towards Maricopa then north and decelorating over Phx.
Buzz
About three or four of the ultralights or whatever they were, flew over Fain Ranch in Prescott Valley as I was heading up that night to take a friend to dinner. I told him, “That’s weird, I’ve never seen aircraft take that route before. It must be a sheriff’s helicopters looking for a girl from the girls school on Mingus Mountain.”
The next day, I saw the news and realized that is what I saw. I was looking South over Fain Ranch land toward Highway 69 because there is a stop sign in front of Fain Ranch land where you can only go right or left on Superstition Rd.
It was NOT a massive craft. It was several ultralight or other small aircraft with soft white and other little navigation lights. They were spread out in a line with a slight triangle formation (guess the joke was over and they just started flying casually). I figure they had brighter flares or lights during the prank. I kid you not. It wasn’t a large craft. the media just ran with it and UFO folks see what their mind tells them they think they see. I wish it was a UFO. I would have been in awe.