Former Arizona Governor Fife Symington ridiculed an unexplained event that took place in the skies over Phoenix ten years ago.  An event now commonly known as 'the Phoenix Lights' is actually a compilation of events and unexplained sightings that took place on March 13, 1997 from the Hoover Dam on the Nevada/Arizona border all the way to Tucson, Arizona and at several points in between.  The most publicized of the sightings that night came at around 10:00pm.  Many witnesses saw and videotaped an array of lights that appeared over the desert southwest of Metropolitan Phoenix including CK Rairden who contributes to this report.  Some believe those lights were flares, others are not quite so sure.  Those bright orbs, and the other unexplained events of that evening are now commonly known as 'The Phoenix Lights.'

The Phoenix Lights in 1997 (Image: National Ledger)

On Thursday June 19, 1997, Symington said he would order the Arizona Department of Public Safety to look into the mysterious lights that were spotted over Phoenix two months earlier.  He called a press conference and television viewers tuned in.  Instead of anything serious Symington introduced a handcuffed member of his staff in an alien costume as the culprit responsible for the Phoenix Lights.  He pulled off the 'alien mask' and it was an aide named Jay Heiler.

Many were laughing, others were a bit miffed that the governor found it necessary to waste everyone's time with such a stunt. Now in a stunning interview with the Daily Courier in Prescott, the former governor admits that he was a witness to a UFO on that night in March.  "It was enormous and inexplicable," he said in an exclusive interview from Phoenix printed in the Courier. What he saw was a V-shaped craft that witnesses reported seeing that night throughout the state.  "Who knows where it came from? A lot of people saw it, and I saw it too," Symington said.

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The report written by Leslie Kean notes witnesses described the gigantic triangular and V-shaped unidentified objects as "gliding slowly and silently across the sky." Witnesses throughout the state "estimated that the eerie, lighted vehicles were bigger than many football fields, up to a mile long." 

They reported that these were clearly solid, technological flying machines that blocked out the stars - not merely lights. So - if Mr. Symington did see this unexplained craft - why did the governor make a joke of the event?  He explains that Arizona was "on the brink of hysteria" about the UFO sighting at the time, and the frenzy was building.  "I wanted people to lighten up and calm down, so I introduced a little levity. But I never felt that the overall situation was a matter of ridicule," he says.

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In the interview Symington says that he called the commander at Luke Air Force Base, the general in charge of the National Guard, and the head of the Department of Public Safety to request an explanation. None of them had answers, and they, too, were "perplexed," he says.

That explanation jives with what most reports gave in the days after the event.  Broadcast reports after the events of march 13, 1997 asked several officials for an explanation and few were given.  Months later, a member of the Maryland National Guard claimed that a squadron from that state had been in Arizona and had dropped 'flares' over the Goldwater Gunnery Range in the Arizona desert near Yuma.  The delay in response, combined with the thousands of witnesses and the videotapes of the 10:00pm unexplained lights are what make 'The Phoenix Lights' one of the largest and most talked about sightings in UFO history.

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US Senator John McCain called for an investigation ten years ago.  Now, according to the report, the former governor also says the incident remains unsolved, and deserves an official investigation.  Don't expect one anytime soon.

CK Rairden contributed to this report

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