The Phoenix Lights: What Did Thousands of People See in 1997?

It was a Thursday evening, March 13, 1997. The sun had just set over the Arizona desert when the phone lines started lighting up. Across a 300-mile stretch from Henderson, Nevada to Tucson, Arizona, thousands of people were looking up at something they couldn't explain. Some described a V-shaped formation of lights moving slowly and silently overhead. Others saw a row of stationary orbs hovering in the southern sky. A few claimed the object was so large it blocked out the stars as it passed.

Among the witnesses were pilots, police officers, military veterans, and the sitting Governor of Arizona. The Phoenix Lights incident remains one of the most widely witnessed UFO events in recorded history, and nearly three decades later, it still doesn't have a single satisfying explanation.

What You'll Learn

• •What Happened on March 13, 1997?
• •The Two Separate Events
• •Who Witnessed the Phoenix Lights?
• •The Military Flares Explanation
• •Why Many Witnesses Reject the Flares Theory
• •Was It a Secret Military Aircraft?
• •The Governor's Confession
• •Later Sightings: 2007 and 2008
• •What the Phoenix Lights Tell Us About UFO Reports
• •Frequently Asked Questions

What Happened on March 13, 1997?

The first report came in at 7:55 p.m. Mountain Standard Time. A witness in Henderson, Nevada, about 150 miles northwest of Phoenix, saw a large V-shaped object with lights on its leading edge moving southeast across the sky. Over the next two hours, similar reports flooded in from witnesses along a path stretching across virtually the entire state of Arizona.

The object (or objects, depending on which reports you prioritize) traveled from the northwest to the southeast, passing over Prescott, Dewey, Chandler, and Phoenix before eventually being spotted near Tucson. Witnesses consistently described a formation of five to seven lights arranged in a V or boomerang shape. Many said the lights were amber or yellowish-white. Several described them as being embedded in a massive, dark, solid structure that was visible because it blocked the stars behind it.

At approximately 10:00 p.m., a second set of lights appeared. This time, a row of bright orbs hung stationary in the sky south of Phoenix, visible for several minutes before fading out one by one from left to right. This event was captured on multiple home video cameras, and the footage has been analyzed extensively in the years since.

The sheer number of witnesses is what makes this case exceptional. Estimates range from several thousand to over 10,000 people who reported seeing something unusual that night. The National UFO Reporting Center (NUFORC) received hundreds of calls.

The Two Separate Events

This is a critical distinction that often gets lost in retellings. The "Phoenix Lights" label actually covers two distinct events that happened on the same night, roughly two hours apart. Understanding them separately is key to evaluating the evidence.

Event 1: The V-shaped formation (approximately 7:55 to 8:45 p.m.)

This was the northbound-to-southbound traversal of lights in a V formation. Witnesses from Henderson, Nevada through Prescott, Dewey, and Phoenix reported it. Many described a solid object behind the lights. This event was not captured on video (or at least no confirmed footage has surfaced). It left no radar signature, according to air traffic controllers at Sky Harbor International Airport who were asked about it afterward.

Event 2: The stationary lights (approximately 10:00 p.m.)

This was the row of bright, amber lights that appeared to hover south of Phoenix near the Sierra Estrella mountain range. They remained visible for several minutes before disappearing one by one. This event was captured on at least a dozen home video cameras from different angles and distances. It's this footage that most people associate with the Phoenix Lights.

The two events may or may not be related. The military's explanation addresses only the second event. The first event remains largely unexplained by official sources.

Who Witnessed the Phoenix Lights?

What sets the Phoenix Lights apart from most UFO cases is the caliber and quantity of witnesses.

Kurt Russell, the actor, was flying his private plane toward Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport with his son Oliver when they spotted the lights. Russell reported them to air traffic control, making him one of the first people to formally notify authorities. He didn't realize until years later, during a BBC interview in 2017, that he'd been a witness to one of the most famous UFO events in history. He described seeing six lights arranged over the airport area.

Fife Symington III, the Governor of Arizona at the time, was a former Air Force pilot with extensive flight experience. He initially deflected public concern about the lights by holding a press conference where an aide appeared in an alien costume. But in 2007, Symington reversed course entirely. He admitted that he'd personally witnessed the event, stepped outside after receiving calls about it, and saw a massive, delta-shaped craft that was "otherworldly." He told CNN: "As a pilot and a former Air Force Officer, I can definitively say that this craft did not resemble any man-made object I'd ever seen."

Frances Barwood, a Phoenix City Councilwoman, was the only elected official to publicly demand an investigation. She received over 700 calls from witnesses, many of them professionals: pilots, engineers, former military personnel. She later said she was ridiculed by colleagues for taking the reports seriously.

Dr. Lynne Kitei, a Phoenix physician, witnessed and photographed strange lights near her home in the weeks before and on the night of March 13. She spent years documenting the event and produced a documentary film, The Phoenix Lights (2005), featuring witness interviews.

Numerous police officers, military personnel, and amateur astronomers also reported the sighting. The consistency across these independent accounts, particularly for the first event, is one of the strongest elements of the case.

The Military Flares Explanation

The official explanation came from the U.S. Air Force and the Maryland Air National Guard. According to their account, the 10:00 p.m. lights (Event 2) were LUU-2B/B illumination flares dropped by A-10 Warthog aircraft during a training exercise at the Barry Goldwater Range, a military training area southwest of Phoenix.

These flares are standard military equipment. They're attached to parachutes, burn extremely bright for several minutes, and then extinguish. When dropped in sequence from a moving aircraft, they can appear as a line of stationary lights that slowly fade out, particularly when viewed from a distance of 50 to 80 miles, where the parachute drift and movement of the aircraft aren't visible.

The Maryland Air National Guard's 104th Fighter Squadron confirmed that it had been conducting exercises at the range that night and that flares were deployed around 10:00 p.m. This timing aligns with the second event.

Triangulation analysis performed by Mitch Stanley, an amateur astronomer who observed the 10:00 p.m. lights through a telescope, supported this explanation. Stanley reported seeing individual lights, not a connected structure, and said they were consistent with flares at a significant distance. His telescopic observation placed the lights over the Goldwater Range area, not over Phoenix proper.

For many researchers and for the military, this closes the case on Event 2.

Why Many Witnesses Reject the Flares Theory

The flares explanation, even if it accounts for the 10:00 p.m. event, leaves the earlier V-formation sighting completely unaddressed. And even for the later event, many witnesses push back.

The timing gap. The V-shaped formation flew over between roughly 7:55 and 8:45 p.m. The flares were dropped around 10:00 p.m. That's over an hour apart. Witnesses who saw the earlier event say the flares explanation has nothing to do with what they observed.

The solid structure. Multiple witnesses to the first event described the lights as attached to or embedded in a massive, dark object that blocked the stars behind it. If these were individual lights (planes, flares, or otherwise), they shouldn't have blocked starlight. This is one of the most consistent details across first-event witnesses.

No sound. Witnesses consistently reported that the V-shaped formation moved in complete silence. A-10 Warthogs are extremely loud aircraft. Even high-altitude planes produce audible sound in the quiet desert night. A formation of military aircraft large enough to span "over a mile" (as some witnesses estimated) would have been deafening.

No radar returns. Air traffic controllers at Sky Harbor reported nothing unusual on radar during the first event. A physical object of the size described should have produced a significant radar signature, though this cuts both ways: it could also suggest the witnesses were observing lights without a solid object behind them.

The speed and behavior. Witnesses described the V-formation moving slowly and steadily, far slower than military jets, which must maintain minimum speed to stay aloft. Some witnesses said it seemed to hover or drift.

Was It a Secret Military Aircraft?

Some researchers have proposed that the V-shaped object could have been a classified military aircraft, possibly a large flying wing similar to the B-2 Spirit stealth bomber but much bigger.

There's a surface logic to this. The lights' path from Nevada (home to Nellis Air Force Base and the Nevada Test and Training Range, which includes Area 51) toward the south could be consistent with a test flight of an experimental craft. A stealth aircraft designed to minimize radar returns would explain the absence of radar contact. The slow, silent flight could indicate advanced propulsion or lighter-than-air technology.

But there are problems with this theory too. The B-2 has a wingspan of about 52 meters. Witnesses described the Phoenix Lights object as spanning anywhere from several hundred meters to over a mile. No known or reasonably speculated military aircraft comes close to that size. And flying a classified prototype directly over a major metropolitan area of 3 million people would be an extraordinary breach of testing protocol.

The military hasn't acknowledged any classified aircraft in the area that night, though that's exactly what you'd expect them to say regardless of the truth.

The Governor's Confession

Governor Fife Symington's role in the Phoenix Lights story is one of its most fascinating elements.

In the immediate aftermath, Symington held a press conference that seemed designed to mock the whole affair. His chief of staff appeared in an alien costume, and Symington joked about "getting to the bottom" of the sightings. Many witnesses felt humiliated and dismissed.

But ten years later, in 2007, Symington told a very different story. In interviews with CNN, documentarian James Fox, and journalist Leslie Kean, he admitted that on the night of March 13, 1997, he'd personally walked outside to see what everyone was talking about and witnessed a massive, silent craft.

"I'm a pilot and I know just about every machine that flies," Symington said. "It was bigger than anything that I've ever seen. It remains a great mystery. Other people saw it, responsible people. I don't know why people would ridicule it."

Why the decade-long silence? Symington said he felt his responsibility as governor was to calm public anxiety, not fuel it. He also acknowledged that the political consequences of a sitting governor saying he'd seen a UFO would have been severe. His 2007 revelation didn't change the facts of the case, but it added the credibility of a trained pilot and public official to the witness record.

Later Sightings: 2007 and 2008

Lights appeared over Phoenix again on April 21, 2008, prompting a new wave of UFO reports. This time, however, the explanation came quickly: a man named Lino Mailo admitted to attaching road flares to helium balloons and releasing them as a prank. The 2008 lights looked remarkably similar to the 1997 10:00 p.m. footage, which some argue actually strengthens the flares theory for the original second event.

In February 2007, another set of lights was spotted and attributed to flares from military exercises at Luke Air Force Base. The military confirmed the exercises.

These later incidents are informative because they demonstrate how easily flares (intentional or military) can create formations that look mysterious from a distance. They don't necessarily explain what happened in 1997, but they provide a template for how similar sightings can have conventional causes.

What the Phoenix Lights Tell Us About UFO Reports

The Phoenix Lights case is a case study in how complex UFO events really are. It wasn't one thing. It was at least two separate events on the same night, witnessed by thousands of people from different locations, angles, and distances, with different levels of optical equipment and observational training.

The second event (10:00 p.m. lights) has a plausible and well-supported conventional explanation: military flares. The first event (V-formation) doesn't. And the human tendency to merge these two events into a single narrative has muddied analysis for decades.

What's undeniable is that thousands of credible witnesses, including a governor, an actor-pilot, police officers, and military veterans, saw something that deeply affected them. Whether that something was an unknown craft, a proposed formation of conventional aircraft, or something else entirely remains genuinely open.

The Phoenix Lights remind us that the most interesting UFO cases aren't about blurry photos or anonymous reports. They're about mass sightings by credible observers that resist easy explanation. For similar cases, explore the Rendlesham Forest incident, where US military personnel reported a landed craft in a British forest. Or read about Area 51, the classified facility that fuels theories about what the military knows and isn't telling us. And for a case involving Navy pilots and declassified military footage, the Tic Tac UFO encounter represents the modern evolution of this same phenomenon.

Frequently Asked Questions

Were the Phoenix Lights ever officially explained?

Only partially. The U.S. Air Force and Maryland Air National Guard confirmed that the 10:00 p.m. lights (the second event) were illumination flares dropped during a training exercise at the Barry Goldwater Range. The earlier V-shaped formation (the first event, around 8:00 p.m.) has never been officially explained by any government or military body.

How many people saw the Phoenix Lights?

Estimates range from several thousand to over 10,000. Phoenix Councilwoman Frances Barwood alone received over 700 firsthand accounts. The National UFO Reporting Center logged hundreds of reports. The true number of witnesses is likely much higher, since most people who see unusual things never file formal reports.

Did the Phoenix Lights show up on radar?

Air traffic controllers at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport reported no unusual radar returns during either event. This is consistent with flares (which are too small for standard radar) for the second event, but harder to explain for the first event, where witnesses described a massive solid object. Some argue a stealth or unconventional craft could avoid radar detection; others say the lack of radar contact suggests the "solid object" was an optical illusion.

Why did Governor Symington mock the sighting and then admit he saw it?

Symington said he felt his responsibility as governor was to prevent public panic, not encourage it. He also acknowledged that admitting to a UFO sighting would have been politically damaging in 1997. He waited until 2007, years after leaving office, to publicly state that he'd personally witnessed a massive, unexplained craft and that he believed it was not of human origin.

Could the V-shaped lights have been a formation of conventional aircraft?

Witnesses consistently reported complete silence — and military aircraft at low altitude are deafeningly loud. They reported no navigation lights, no engine noise, and a solid structure blocking the stars between the lights as it passed overhead. No military branch has ever claimed responsibility for aircraft in that area during the first event. A sitting governor waited ten years to admit he saw it too, because he knew no one would believe him. Thousands of people across an entire state watched something cross the sky that night. Whatever it was, it wasn't a formation of jets.