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On March 13th, 1997, a series of events occurred in the state of Arizona that UFO proponents would declare was the most amazing UFO event of recent times. Between 8:00 and 8:30 PM (which I call the 8PM event) a dark object, the shape of a triangle or “V”, illuminated only by a series of lights, navigated across the state from northwest to southeast. At one point it passed over the city of Phoenix, Arizona, where “hundreds” of people reported seeing this amazing object. Less than 2 hours later, around 10PM, several individuals videotaped lights appearing over the Estrella Mountains to the south of Phoenix. These lights hovered for several minutes and then would mysteriously disappear. These two events would eventually be called the “Phoenix lights/Arizona UFOs”.
Seeing is believing
UFO investigators in the Phoenix area had their big break. They immediately began collecting reports, appearing on television and radio, and hurling accusations at nearby military bases for not protecting the public or covering up the fact they knew something about the events. They quickly proclaimed the case unexplainable and strongly suggested this was evidence of alien visitation.
All sorts of observations were presented concerning the 8PM event. The consensus was that there were 5-7 lights in a “V” shape, the object was very low, it flew at “blimp” speed, it was silent, and, for some, there was a mysterious dark object behind the lights. Some eyewitnesses reported a sense of fear and awe as they saw this huge vehicle flying over the city. Most of the local investigators were quick to present these witnesses but less eager to present witnesses that told a slightly different and less exotic version of events. When potential explanations were offered, they were dismissed with little thought. These explanations have nothing to do with the scientific process which involves gathering all of the data, analyzing the data, and formulating a carefully crafted hypothesis to account for the data. This process takes time and effort.
The 10PM event was equally compelling to investigators. Several actually saw and videotaped the lights. UFO investigator Bill Hamilton observed the lights with a small telescope and described them as orbs of light. It was these videos that were often shown on television to describe the Phoenix lights/Arizona UFOs even though they only showed the second event.
Military cover-up
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The first thing that UFO groups began to do was demand information from the US Military. Initial responses by the USAF were typical of a military unit. Somebody contacted an enlisted person at Luke Air Force Base (AFB) in the public affairs office and that individual made the comment that none of the aircraft were up that night. This was corrected a few days later by the officer, who was actually in charge of the public affairs office. After further investigation, they discovered that there were aircraft up but they were not involved. This was seized upon by various UFO investigators to suggest the USAF was lying. Bill Hamilton would state in his MUFON report:
It seems like the official statements made to members of the press and public by those representing our Air Force are, to put it delicately, on a course deviation from the truth.
Of course, they ignored the more likely possibility that somebody just goofed and did not know that aircraft were up that night.
Another version of the UFO cover-up story came out through the National UFO Reporting Center (NUFORC). In this instance, an anonymous individual called in and declared that F-15 aircraft were sent up from nearby Luke AFB, to intercept the UFO but they could not because their systems were neutralized by the object.
This does not agree with the fact that Luke AFB normally does not have F-15s. They were a training base that flew F-16s. Additionally, none of the eyewitness reports describe any fighter jets flying near the V-shaped formation of lights.
It is a common theme in most UFO cases to involve the USAF in some way. If there is a nearby USAF base, it can be guaranteed that UFOlogists will find some reason to suggest they are covering up the event. Resorting to conspiracy rants is a sure way to “rally the troops” and distrust anything the USAF or government was going to say.
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Jim Dilettoso was the “star” of the Arizona UFOs event. His computer analysis of the light curves produced by the lights supposedly demonstrated how unique the lights in the 10 PM videos were and that they could not be flares. This was not Dilettoso’s first experience with UFOs. He was one of many who stood by the Billy Meier and his claims of photographing UFOs. Most of UFOlogy considers them to be fake but it seems Dilettoso used his vast computer skills to determine that they were authentic.
In March of 1998, Tony Ortega wrote a piece for the Phoenix newstimes, which demonstrated that Dilettoso’s effort to examine the “spectrum” of the lights in the video tape was pseudoscientific nonsense. Diletosso repeated this type of analysis on the recent National Geographic program. Comparing images of flares he obtained and the lights, he declared the lights were not flares. This work was flawed in 1997 and continued to be flawed in 2010.
In mid-March of this year, the UFO Chronicles linked a story about Dilettoso being interviewed on “The Paracast” last August. There he revealed that somebody performed
a frame lineup with the Kryston video. Dilettoso seemed shocked that it was discovered that the lights winked off the instant they met the ridge line of the Estrella Mountains. He then complained that in 1997, they did not have this computer ability. Didn’t Dr. Rudin do the exact same thing in 1997?! The general impression given during the interview was the Dilettoso was conceding it was possible that these lights were flares!
The date of the interview seems to imply this was done for the National Geographic program. However, this was never seen and, instead, we saw Dilettoso’s pseudoscientific
analysis. If this analysis was done for the program and was cut from the show, it demonstrates a deception by the producers and all involved in the program.
Would this be any surprise?
The 10PM event debunked
In May of 1997, UFO investigator Richard Motzer began to conclude that the lights in the 10PM event were just distant flares being dropped by aircraft at the Barry Goldwater test range over 50 miles south of the City. He was immediately characterized by some UFO investigators as a “debunker”, an epithet utilized by some UFOlogists to demonize anyone suggesting a UFO event can be something other than an alien spaceship. Motzer’s opinion was ignored by those promoting these videos as evidence.
In late July, 1997, Captain Eileen Bienz “dropped a bomb” on the 10PM event by declaring they were indeed flares dropped over the Barry Goldwater test range by a visiting Air National Guard unit from Maryland operating out of Davis-Monthan AFB in Tuscon. The response by many was that it was another Air Force cover-up because the original claim was that there were no aircraft operating at the range that night. This was due to a typical foul up in that the logs checked were for the craft stationed at Tuscon. The logs for visiting aircraft were not examined and were missed. Closer examination by Bienz, resolved the mystery.
Despite this information several investigators clung to the idea that the lights appeared in front of the mountains and not over them. This was shown to be inaccurate when Cognitech examined the videos for the Discovery Channel program, “UFOs over Phoenix”. Dr. Lenny Rudin demonstrated that the lights were above the mountains when they appeared and then disappeared as they descended behind the mountains. His efforts were duplicated by Dr. Paul Scowan in 1998 at the request of Tony Ortega. Also in 1998, UFO investigator Dr. Bruce Maccabee wrote a paper that demonstrated, through triangulation, that the lights were very distant and behind the mountains towards the test range. This was all consistent with the statement by Captain Bienz regarding the Maryland Air National Guard.
Ignoring this evidence, the proponents continued to find reasons to keep the 10PM videos as proof of something exotic.
Jim Diletoso, a self-proclaimed video expert, who owned “Village Labs” attempted to prove that the lights were not flares by examining their characteristics recorded on the video. Dilettoso’s work was flawed and has long since been refuted. Still he got air time and people “want” to believe his work is valid.
Even today, the 10PM videos are considered a “true UFO” event by some. However, others now have offered the theory that the 10PM event was an “intentional diversion” created by the US military to keep attention away from the 8PM event, which was truly inexplicable. They state this despite there being no evidence and ignoring the fact that the Maryland ANG had already been scheduled for this exercise long before 8PM on the 13th of March. This kind of reasoning is based on a will to believe in conspiracies and not on any actual facts.
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The data breakdown
I realize that some will question how I assigned the values of each report. It is a subjective measure in my opinion and I tried to err in favor of caution. The reports can be interpreted in many ways. Here are two examples:
Chino Valley report
The lights moved at a relatively slow pace in comparison to commercial jet traffic in the area and as the lights passed overhead they went out as though they were all on the front edges of the object and were obscured by the object as it passed. All lights were uniform in size and all appeared white. Path of travel would seem to be from the area of Kingman, Arizona passing just west of Chino Valley and on toward Prescott Valley. Path would be slightly north and east of the Prescott airport “Love Field”.1
I had to figure out if this was a “dark object” or “light formation” report. It would have been a formation report if it were not for the statement about the lights being associated with the front edge of an object. To be conservative, I gave this a “dark object” classification even though it could easily have been classified as just a formation of lights.
Prescott report
At around 8:15 on 03/13/97 four of us observed a v shaped object coming at us with bright lights. As it got closer we got out some binoculars and looked at it, what looked like white lights were actually two lights forming one. One light being green the other one was red. During this time the oddest thing about this, was there was no noise at all. There was no moon to backlight this so we could only see the lights. I thought perhaps because there was no noise that it might have been a pedal plane that I saw on the discovery channel once. It appeared to be about 1000 feet in the air.
Here the witness describes the formation as a V-shaped object but really gives no reason to call it a V-shaped object. As a result, I chose to classify it as a formation of lights.
Looking at the reports filed over the last thirteen years, we see a fairly consistent spread of data. The original reports indicated an even distribution over the three classes. This remained the same over the years with a slight weight given to the dark object reports. This probably has to do with people being influenced by the television programs depicting a dark object. What was a formation of lights for them in 1997 may have transformed into a dark shape behind the lights through the power of suggestion.
Worried that I may have been biased in my categorizing of the reports, I chose to do some polling of various individuals in a private e-mail regarding the 1997 reports.
There was a limited response but the average of the responses I did receive were pretty much the same as I determined.
I realize that the NUFORC database is not the only source but the on-line MUFON database has only a few reports made many years after the event. Bill Hamilton’s
original report only listed a few witnesses and Richard Motzer stated he had 53 credible reports in his MUFON article from July 1997. Finally, Mike Fortson has claimed to have received hundreds of e-mail reports. The actual raw and unedited reports from all of these sources seem to be unavailable so we are left with the NUFORC raw reports as our only source of real data.
What we know from the NUFORC data is that not everyone saw a dark object and a good portion made observations that indicated there was no such object attached to the lights. Ignoring or hoping this information will not be noticed demonstrates a desire to deceive the public and accept only the most exotic reports as evidence for what was seen that night.
The 8PM event
The 8PM fly over was probably the most interesting event of the two. It had an air of mystery and awe to it that just begged for examination. When I first read about this, I was impressed but I also felt it could have an explanation.
My first attempt at reading Bill Hamilton’s MUFON report was one of frustration. There was very little useful data associated with it. Nobody seemed to obtain/list locations, angular size, azimuth, or elevation angles from the eyewitnesses even though the MUFON investigator’s manual requests it! Instead, I had to wade through all sorts of descriptions by people to try and understand what happened.
After reading the various sources, I had gathered some 26 reports of varying types from the National UFO reporting center (NUFORC) database, Bill Hamilton’s summary report from MUFON, and various accounts in the newspapers from the area. The data proved interesting in that only seven reports, in my opinion, directly indicated a dark triangular/V-shaped object behind the lights. Twelve of the reports indicated independent motion between the lights and the remaining seven just described the lights as a formation of lights.
As the years have passed more and more people have added their accounts to the NUFORC/MUFON database (See box on page 9). Curious I went through the NUFORC database again to see what the results of this search would produce. It is hard to read some of these raw reports. Some of the reports from that night do not describe the 8PM event and just describe orbs or various exotic lights. They were apparently unrelated to the event in question. When I weeded those out, I came up with a total of 47 reports. Exactly
who saw what is difficult to state but I broke up the descriptions into three groups. The first were those who claimed to have seen a “dark object” of some kind with the lights. The second were those who saw a formation of lights that was fixed but made no comment that indicated the lights were attached to some object.
The third group were those that saw a formation of lights that shifted, could see stars between the lights, or stated the lights were not attached to anything indicating a “non-fixed” formation of lights.
The fixed formation of lights is the gray area here. Do they indicate a dark object not seen or do they just indicate a pattern of lights? It is very difficult to label these reports one way or the other. However, it is interesting that 1/3rd of these witnesses made observations that there was no physical object behind the lights.
Based on the witness descriptions and observations, one can create a reasonable flight path of the UFOs. They start northwest of Kingman, Arizona indicating an origin in Nevada. The UFOs then proceeded southeast towards Prescott, where they shifted direction southward towards Phoenix. After Phoenix, they shifted their path again slightly to the southeast towards Tuscon, where they mysteriously “disappeared”.
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Mitch Stanley misunderstood and misrepresented
On March 13, 1997, Mitch Stanley was in his backyard sky watching with his 10” dobsonian telescope. What Mitch saw that night was far different than what many of the more prominent UFO witnesses stated:
That night Mitch and his mother, Linda, were in the backyard and noticed the lights coming from the north. Since the lights seemed to be moving so slowly,
Mitch attempted to capture them in the scope. He succeeded, and the leading three lights fit in his field of vision. Linda asked what they were. “Planes,” Mitch said.
It was plain to see, he says. What looked like individual lights to the naked eye actually split into two under the resolving power of the telescope. The lights were located on the undersides of squarish wings, Mitch says. And the planes themselves seemed small, like light private planes.
Stanley watched them for about a minute, and then turned away. It was the last thing the amateur astronomer wanted to look at. “They were just planes, I didn’t want to look at them,” Stanley says when he’s asked why he didn’t stare at them longer. He is certain about what he saw: “They were planes. There’s no way I could have mistaken that.”1
I managed to catch up with Mitch via e-mail in February 1998 to gather more specific details. He gave me approximate angular sizes/azimuth/elevations of the formation. Mitch reported that he saw three lights on “straight wing” aircraft and added that he fit two of them in his field of view (about 1 degree) and a third was just outside of it.
The entire formation was about five degrees in size. It did not surprise me that Mitch said that he had used his telescope previously to follow birds and airplanes. I remember being his age and doing similar observations with small refractors. I even followed a Delta rocket launch from my back yard once! It helped that I was 150 miles away.
UFO proponents have often stated there was no way that Stanley could have actually followed aircraft with his telescope because they moved too fast and the image
would be inverted, making it difficult to determine if they really were aircraft. These were comments made by people who know nothing about using these instruments. Amateur astronomers have no problem “mentally flipping” the image upright. Tracking a formation of aircraft at the angular speeds reported would not have been that hard since Mitch had about a one-degree field of view.
Witness Mike Fortson has also added some exaggerations about what Mitch supposedly stated:
But here is where young Mitch struggled (keep in mind he was not the youngest participant present). During the question and answer segment, a couple of pilots and ex-military people responded that at night no pilot would be willing to fly in such formation.
Especially wing_tip-to-wing_tip or even in tight formation, it’s just too dangerous . . . and at night this just isn’t done!
It is amazing that Fortson and the other witnesses suddenly developed a skeptical attitude towards Mitch’s observation but had no skepticism for those reporting an unworldly aircraft over a mile in size. Such is the power of belief over reason.
It is not unheard of for military pilots to fly together at night. Additionally, Mitch did not state they flew “wing tip-to-wing tip” like one would expect at an air show. Based on the descriptions he made about his observations, it seems they were about a half degree apart (which computes to over a hundred feet). Forston’s argument directly misrepresents what Stanley reported and is a poor argument at that.
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Mike Forston’s unique observations
In my opinion, Mike Fortson made one of the most interesting observations of the night (next to Mitch Stanley). He made his initial report to NUFORC on April 3rd and, despite assuring us that the object was one large craft, made some observations that indicated otherwise:
As the craft passed thru the light of the moon the color of the moon changed to dingy yellow, and we could see horizontal “waves” as it passed. These waves were similar to gasoline fumes if one to take the lid off of a gas can, and look at the reflectionof the fumes.
Fortson’s moon observation was critical in that it was a very accurate measurement for the V-formation’s angle of elevation at a specific moment in time (the elevation of the moon was about 40 degrees at the time of Fortson’s observation).
This angle indicates an object that was much higher than treetop level. Observers over ten miles west of Fortson could also see the formation of lights. If it were only a few hundred feet off the ground, that would not be possible. Back in 1997, I used the flawed data from the Hamilton report to indicate the planes were over 30,000 feet in altitude. I had assumed that when people stated they saw the UFO pass overhead, they meant the zenith. It seems that as long as the lights were high in the sky, they were considered by inexperiencedobservers as “overhead”.
The route shown on the page 12 indireceivedcates the formation passed approximately4 miles to the west of Fortson over or just slightly west of the Price Freeway (rte 101). This computes to an elevation of about 17,000 feet or slightly higher. This is the kind of altitude described in the Fitzgerald article.Mike Fortson’s other comment is important.Seeing “horizontal waves” across the moon is the exact kind of effect one would expect from jet aircraft passing betweenhim and the moon. He could not see the actual jets because they were just too small (about 4 minutes of arc or 1/8th the moon’s disc size) and the jet would only be visible in front of the moon for a second or less. However, the exhaust would linger for a few seconds and that would create the effect seen.
Clues to the 8PM event
When I first learned about this event, I was curious about it. I e-mailed the astronomy groups in Arizona if they had any reports from their amateurs. I indireceived a response from one of the club officers, who stated that one of their members had observed the 8PM lights through his telescope and saw they were airplanes. To me, this seemed reasonable and I began to look at the reports from this point of view. Was it possible that people could have seen a formation of aircraft that evening and thought they saw something more exotic?
As the months passed in 1997, I learned that Mitch Stanley was the amateur who saw the airplanes through his telescope and his story was told by Tony Ortega in the Phoenix Newstimes. I also discovered a few others, who had made observations that were indicative of aircraft that night.
Rich Contry, who was driving west on 1. Interstate 40 that night, made an unsolicited report to the UFOmind web site stating he saw the lights with binoculars and determined them to be aircraft.
The Mike Fortson observation revealed that when the “dark object” passed in front of the moon, it became translucent and left “waves” that distorted the moon. This can also be the type of description one would expect from an aircraft passing in front of the moon (see box on left).
Randy Fitzgerald, writing an article 3. for Reader’s digest, states he talked to a pilot on an American West flight, who saw the formation of lights. He and his copilot asked the enroute controller about them. The controller stated they were a formation of CT-144 Tutor aircraft flying at 19,000 feet. One of the pilots radioed and stated they were “snowbirds” flying“Tutors”(the CT-144 is an aircraft used by the Snowbird demonstration team). However, investigation revealed the Snowbird team was not in the area
Dark object witness Tim Ley also reported seeing a “distortion” waves behind the formation of lights.
Several witnesses described the 5. lights not being one light but two. One even described examining the lights with binoculars and seeing two lights, one red and one green. This is the standard lighting on aircraft wings (red-left,green-right). The Terry Proctor video confirmed 6. the observations by eyewitnesses that stated the lights were indepen
dent of each other (see box on the lower right). This critical piece of evidence has often been ignored by UFO proponents.
dent of each other (see box on the lower right). This critical piece of evidence has often been ignored by UFO proponents.
Coupled with majority of the forty-seven NUFORC reports showing no craft, it appeared that the “V-shaped” craft testimony was more wishful thinking than accurate observation. It was a repeat of the Zond IV case (see page) with a slightly different stimulus.
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The solution?
It is probably most interesting that the formation of lights followed the exact path one would expect from an aircraft that was flying from Las Vegas to Tuscon Arizona (see charts to left). They would have taken the airway to Prescott, turned south towards Phoenix and then follow the airway to Tuscon. Is this a mere coincidence?
Is it just chance that UFO chose to follow the same route an airplane or group of airplanes would take?
After reading Randy Fitzgerald’s description of the American West report, I decided to revise some of my earlier estimates and conclusions about the formation of aircraft seen by Mitch Stanley. Mitch had reported that he had spotted straight-wing aircraft through his telescope. This gave me the impression that he might have seen A-10s or T-37s at very high altitude (>30,000 feet). However, Fitzgerald’s description of Tutor aircraft got me rethinking this hypothesis. One of the programs that was in progress during the time period was something called “Operation snowbird”. “Snowbird” was a program allowing units from northern states to fly to southern states to get flying time and proficiency training they could not get because of weather issues at their home bases. It was “Snowbird” that got the Maryland Air National Guard flying in Arizona. It is likely that the formation of Canadian Tutors were transiting Arizona that evening as part of this same program, which is why they referred to themselves as “snowbirds”.
The Tutor in 1997 was a training aircraft flown by Canadian pilots. Pilots from Canada could have been flying in the southern United States as a group for proficiency and training. On this night, it is possible these pilots left Nellis AFB in Las Vegas, formed up and decided to make the trip in a V-shaped formation. Why they did this is unknown but it may have been an effort to conduct an exerThese cise in maintaining formation at night. For safety purposes, the pilots probably decided to keep the nose taxi light lit, which can be very bright (see image of the “Snowbirds” at the Grey cup on previous page).
Flying at 19,000 feet, the aircraft probably would go unheard by most witnesses and the aircraft would have appeared very small to the unaided eye. Add to this problem the light on the nose making it difficult to see any silhouette with the nake eye. This formation proceeded to Davis-Monthan AFB in Tuscon and spent the night there. The next day, they left for their next destination not knowing what had transpired (the local print media did not report the event until almost a week later). By the time it became a national news story in June, the pilots were north of the border, where they would have been oblivious to what transpired. Unless they watched these UFO programs or spent time on UFO web sites, they probably did not realize they had caused a massive UFO event. Since they were visiting aircraft, nobody probably checked the records to determine if a group of five visiting aircraft landed at Davis-Monthan around 9PM or if they were even recorded.
For those who doubt this possible answer, I suggest they watch the first two minutes of this video clip. It looks very much like what the witnesses for the 1997 event described. Kentaro Mori’s explanation demonstrates that a formation of aircraft can produce such an effect. It is a shame that the UFO groups investigating the events shortly after March 13th did not bother to request FAA radar tapes, flight plans, or anything else concerning flight operations that night. Had they done so, they might have resolved the case in short order. As it stands now, the records have probably long since been routinely destroyed.
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Tomorrow and tomorrow...
Over thirteen years have passed and the puzzle is still missing a few pieces. However, it seems that the big picture can be seen. The clues were always there for those willing to examine the case. Early on, somebody gave this explanation for the case to UFO investigators and they flatly rejected them. Writing shortly after the event, Bill Hamilton stated:
Conventional explanations that were proffered included flares or a formation of airplanes, however when all witness testimony is taken into account, such conventional explanations do not seem consonant with the facts.
Of course, Bill had his own reason to reject the potential prosaic explanation but it has nothing to do with science. Bill would eventually write a book called “The Phoenix Lights Mystery”, about his investigation. The on-line description for the book states:
Some of the largest and most impressive unconventional airborne objects flew over one of the largest metropolitan areas in the United States and the lack of response from the Air Force and local and state governments was dismissive as well as ridiculing the reports by observant witnesses. This book presents the whole story for the first time including the attempts to debunk the eyewitness testimony when the accounts show this mass sighting event to be one of the century’s unsolved mysteries.
Apparently, Bill ignored the actual evidence and wrote his book based on a desire to believe than through actual scientific investigation.
Mike Fortson has made a name for himself when it comes to the Arizona UFO event. He is considered an expert witness and defender of the case. He writes articles on-line for “The UFO Chronicles” and other blogs. Fortson also appears on UFO radio and TV programs presenting his views on the case. It has been his “mission” to demonstrate that the case deserves serious investigation by qualified people.
Over the years, he has been critical of UFOlogy’s non-investigation of the event:
How can some of these people claim the “Phoenix Lights” case was “fairly well investigated and presented?” Do they understand that no one from MUFON AZ or Sky Watch International made written reports from witnesses? How could a case be examined without written or recorded reports? Both Richard Motzer and Bill Hamilton perceived the “5” 10 PM videos as the “holy grail” and failed to start at the beginning of the first report of unusual activity. By that I mean 8:16 in Paulden, AZ. No one started there. How about 5:30 PM at Sunset Point near Crown King, AZ? No one investigated that as well. And again thru Chino Valley, Prescott, Prescott Valley, Dewey Wickenburg,
and well into the northern most part of the Phoenix metro area. No reports. They did not do a fairly good job at all. They did nothing! In fact it was done so poorly, how can these people claim to be researchers at all?
....So how can this incident claim to be “fairly well investigated?” You have to be kidding! The media didn’t investigate. The police didn’t investigate. The only investigating that was done was the two 10 PM witnesses to the diversionary flare drop. And they both wrote books and failed to share any information.
When you count on UFOlogists, you may not get much of an investigation. Far too often, personal interests interfere. There is really no control over what these individuals
write or how they investigate. My experience is that some UFO groups and people are more interested in self-promotion and less interested in “the truth”.
Since he has “gone public”, Fortson claims to have over 200 e-mails from people describing their experience that night. These reports were made over a decade later at his prompting. Are they are contaminated by the publicity on the subject and are they going to place emphasis on the “dark object” reports? Ironically, he apparently has done nothing with these reports he has collected. They don’t appear to be posted into a database or were investigated to see how accurate they might be. If this is the case, Fortson is almost as guilty as those he is criticizing.
Meanwhile, Larry Lowe has stepped in and claims that there is a group of UFOlogists who are now “finally” interested in investigating the case. Larry was showcased in the “UFOs over Phoenix” show on the National Geographic channel:
There are enough unanswered questions on this one UFO incident alone to merit a full formal series of investigation, with real resources put into both gathering material and conducting analysis.....Despite the best effort of the National Geographic, far too many questions remain unanswered.
Larry’s comments indicate that an investigation is on-going but this is almost too little, too late. Thirteen years has passed and people’s memories of the event are evolving. What would be the goal of such an investigation? Would it be an effort to debunk it or just to amplify that ET scenario that has already been promoted by so many? Far too often UFOlogists find it easier to promote a mystery than to solve one.
Non-acceptance of any answer In my thirteen years of following this case, I have come to the conclusion that UFO proponents and witnesses will never accept the possibility that the 8 PM event was, or could be caused by, a formation of aircraft. If I had all the records, including radar data, pilot names, and tail numbers for the aircraft, it still would not be good enough because they are convinced that it was something exotic. They will tell you that they know what they saw! To suggest they saw something mundane instead of exotic is the same thing as telling somebody they did not witness a religious miracle. The power of belief is far too great for them to accept anything other than an alien spaceship.
Quelle: SUNlite 3/2010
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