Night from p 25 media outlets and tabloid-style TV shows like Hard Copy and EXTRA. It also put a target on her back. Hurd: She got blasted by the media. I remember the political cartoonist for the Republic [Steve Benson] roasted her pretty good. And I feel bad for her. She basically wound up losing her Council seat and later dropped out of politics. It destroyed her career. On June 18, 1997, USA Today ran a front- page brief, complete with an artist’s depiction of a boomerang-shaped craft, teasing an inside story about the Phoenix Lights. It turned the sightings into a worldwide phenomenon overnight. Kitei: Things really took off with that article. Now, it was everywhere. It was on every national morning show. It was on Peter Jennings, Dan Rather, you name it. We were deluged overnight by media from all over the world. Networks continuously played the snippets of footage available from the sightings, including Kitei’s camcorder video of the flying V formation. Kitei: I just let them have my video and put it out there because I wanted as many people as possible to see it. Hurd: There's only one, maybe two known videos of the craft itself, including Lynne’s [footage]. And back in 1997, consumer-grade cameras, I don't even think they were digital. Everything was still on tape, and it makes for pretty poor- quality videos, comparatively speaking. But the lights [from the second sightings] over the Estrellas, was very visually stun- ning. You could see it from 30, 40, 50 miles away, and many people caught videos of it. The nationwide media attention increased pressure on local, state, and federal politi- cians to investigate the sightings. Days after USA Today’s front-page article, then- Arizona Governor Fife Symington announced an emergency news conference. Kitei: Once the networks were interviewing witnesses, their descriptions were so detailed and so heartfelt that they, too, started asking, “Why isn't there an investi- gation? Why isn't there an explanation?” So it was almost like [Symington] had to do something in response. Symington’s news conference was anything but serious. After declaring state officials had found the “guilty party” behind the sightings, his chief of staff, Jay Heiler, was perp-walked to the podium dressed as a grey alien in handcuffs before unmasking. Everyone in the room had a good chuckle. Kitei and other UFOlogists didn’t appreciate the joke. Kitei: He comes marching out and made a mockery of it, which was really discon- certing. People wanted answers after no idea what it could’ve been. Maybe no one will ever know. Hurd: [The sightings] have never been proven to be extraterrestrial in origin. They might never be. You're not going to say we have proof, until you got an actual craft, and you've got a real alien. Okay? That's proof. Anything short of that is evidence. McLennan: What troubles me is why there haven't been any true and definitive explanations after all these years. No one’s been able to state without a doubt what caused [the sightings]. Maybe that’s asking too much these days, when everything divides everyone, but it would be nice to know. Screen Capture seeing something in the sky that was two or three miles wide, and he's making jokes. On the Phoenix Lights episode of UFO in 2021, Symington says didn’t see the harm in what he referred to as “the alien caper” since it was meant to deescalate the growing frenzy over the sightings. Fife Symington, former Arizona Governor (on UFO): We weren't trying to ridicule anyone's concerns, but there was an element of building hysteria, which really needed to be dealt with. I'm sorry if I offended people, but it was a lot of fun. Barwood believes it was an attempt by Symington and his administration to steer clear of the “ridicule I got.” A decade after the Phoenix Lights, Symington had a change of heart. In 2007, he began claiming in interviews that he gave the slip to his Arizona Department of Public Service security detail on the night of the sightings, joined a crowd of skywatchers at Piestewa Peak (then Squaw Peak), and witnessed the V-shaped formation’s fly-by. Symington repeated this tale on UFO in 2021. Symington (on UFO): I remember I'd been listening to the news and people were reporting lights over Phoenix and I turned to my wife and said, “I'm going to take my car and I'm going to drive to Squaw Peak to see what all the hullabaloo is about.” There were a whole bunch of people in the park and everybody's looking for the lights. And then somebody said, “Holy cow, look at that.” And so I turned around and this great big delta-shaped thing came out of the northwest and headed down into the southeast Valley. On the same episode of UFO, Symington claims his reluctance to reveal that he witnessed the sightings was due to being under federal indictment at the time for 21 counts of extortion, bank fraud, and making false financial statements. “It was a fairly tumultuous time for me politically and I certainly didn't want to pour any kerosene Governor Fife Symington (left) goofs on the Phoenix Lights sightings at a news conference in June 1997. A decade later, he’d claim he saw the lights the night they happened. on the fire,” he said. “So the next day, I kept my mouth shut.” (Later that year, he was convicted on seven counts of bank fraud, which was overturned on appeal in 1999.) Symington claims that, as governor, he inquired with officials at Luke Air Force Base about the possibility of military exercises or flight maneuvers being mistaken by witnesses as alien spacecraft, two explanations cited by debunkers over the past 25 years. In the case of the V, Mitch Stanley’s observation of multiple planes flying in formation has been widely accepted by skep- tics. As for the nine glowing orbs near the Sierra Estrellas, then-Lieutenant Colonel. Ed Jones of the Maryland Air National Guard told the Arizona Republic in 2017 it was caused by A-10 Warthogs dropping parachute-equipped flares while conducting exercises at what’s now the Barry M. Goldwater Air Force Range near Gila Bend. Schmidt: I'm not completely sold on the alien spacecraft some people are talking about. When I saw the [Solar Impulse 2 solar-powered aircraft] fly into Goodyear Airport in 2016, the profile was remarkably similar to the V-shaped plane. The way they did the lighting and its silence was about the same, too. So it might've been something like that. Anonymous (by request): I was in the Army flying a Huey in Vietnam. Then I went in the Air Force and I flew F-15s and fighters for 17 years. I can say it was abso- lutely not aerial flares. They wouldn’t stay in formation and move and fly really slowly out of sight. And you don't fly around in a V-shaped formation at night. Holmstedt: Those [orbs] were spread out so evenly, so it looked intentional. They were all at the same height, so it didn't look like parachutes. It seemed too perfect to be flares. But it also wasn't moving like aircraft. I still to this day have The only certainty about the Phoenix Lights most people can agree on is its enduring appeal after 25 years. It’s become part of the Valley’s identity and, as former New Times and Arizona Republic scribe Dave Walker once stated, “as much of a national calling card for Arizona as disgraced politicians, mediocre pro sports teams, and soul-searing summer heat.” It’s also inspired a few horror films (like 2017’s Phoenix Forgotten). Holmstedt: It's just one of those enduring mysteries of the Valley. And people love a mystery. Nanneman: All those cable channels like the History Channel have done so many shows about the Phoenix Lights. There's been so much coverage [over the years]. Sankey: It's crazy how it all panned out and here we are 25 years later and people are still talking about it. They have that Phoenix Lights festival that [local elec- tronic dance music event promoter] Relentless Beats does. Thomas Turner, owner, Relentless Beats (in 2017): The festival is something that identifies with our city and is a fun way to play off something that happened a long time ago. We built some custom-designed art pieces to put at the [event], like one that looks like a Phoenix Lights triangle space- ship that has crashed. Justin Barber, director, Phoenix Forgotten (in 2017): The interest has persisted. It was such a big story and it remains such a big story. It’s a modern urban legend for the Southwest. For a lot of people, we remember it [more than] 20 years on, because it was such a bizarre event, and a lot of people think that it has not been fully explained. Kitei: The Phoenix Lights touched people on such a deep level. People were in awe. People were in wonder. They were curious about it and still are. I still have people, to this day, tell me that they feel blessed to have had an experience with the Phoenix Lights. Editor's note: Some quotes were edited or condensed for clarity. The Phoenix Lights 25th anniversary event, which will include a screening of The Phoenix Lights Documentary plus special guests, presentations, and a Q&A, will take place from 1 to 5 p.m. on Sunday, March 20, at Harkins Theatres Shea 14, 7354 East Shea Boulevard in Scottsdale. 27 phoenixnewtimes.com | CONTENTS | FEEDBACK | OPINION | NEWS | FEATURE | NIGHT+DAY | CULTURE | FILM | CAFE | MUSIC | PHOENIX NEW TIMES MARCH 10TH– MARCH 16TH, 2022
