US Air Force Engages UFOs Over Phoenix In Leaked Footage

Leaked classified video shows fighter jets “engaging unknown aircraft” in the skies above the southern US on the night of one of the world’s most famous UFO sightings. The Phoenix Lights (also identified as “Lights over Phoenix”) was a UFO sighting which occurred in Phoenix, Arizona, and Sonora, Mexico on Thursday, March 13, 1997.

Credit: David Collins

The Phoenix Lights were seen by thousands of Arizona residents but 17 years on what exactly happened remains a mystery.

The US military’s official explanation claimed the lights were flares from their aircraft.

The 14-second clip, posted on YouTube, shows American military aircraft on patrol during the Phoenix Lights sighting of March 13, 1997 when a series of lights were spotted above Arizona’s state capital.

The military footage was obtained exclusively by US investigative journalist David Collins, of Phoenix-based KWBV Investigations. .

Credit: David Collins

 Lights of varying descriptions were seen by thousands of people between 19:30 and 22:30 MST, in a space of about 300 miles (480 km), from the Nevada line, through Phoenix, to the edge of Tucson. There were allegedly 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 Rangein 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 at the time, was one witness to this incident; he later called the object “otherworldly.” The lights were reported to have reappeared in 2007 and 2008, but these events were quickly attributed to (respectively) military flares dropped by fighter aircraft at Luke Air Force Base[ and flares attached to helium balloons released by a civilian. 
 
Shortly after the lights, Arizona Governor Fife Symington III held a press conference, stating that “they found who was responsible”. He proceeded to make light of the situation by bringing his aide on stage dressed in an alien costume. (Dateline, NBC). But in March 2007, Symington said that he had witnessed one of the “crafts of unknown origin” during the 1997 event, although he did not go public with the information. 

In an interview with The Daily Courier in Prescott, Arizona, Symington said, “I’m a pilot and I know just about every machine that flies. 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”.

Symington had earlier said, “It was enormous and inexplicable. Who knows where it came from? A lot of people saw it, and I saw it too. It was dramatic. And it couldn’t have been flares because it was too symmetrical. It had a geometric outline, a constant shape.”

Symington also noted that he requested information from the commander of Luke Air Force Base, the general of the National Guard, and the head of the Arizona Department of Public Safety. But none of the officials he contacted had an answer for what had happened, and were also perplexed. Later, he responded to an Air Force explanation that the lights were flares: “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. And it was certainly not high-altitude flares because flares don’t fly in formation”. 

In an episode of the television show UFO Hunters called “The Arizona Lights”, Symington said that he contacted the military asking what the lights were. The response was “no comment”. He pointed out that he was the governor of Arizona at the time, not just some ordinary civilian. 

Frances Barwood, the 1997 Phoenix city councilwoman who launched an investigation into the event, said that of the over 700 witnesses she interviewed, “The government never interviewed even one”