(Part 1) The Phoenix Lights - Laying To Rest The Myth

a reply to: Arbitrageur

You know you've lost the debate when you're asking the guy for a part number from over 40 years ago.

a reply to: WhateverYouSay
First, there is no debate about the flares. Maybe there was at one time but the information in the OP (which has been out for some time now) settled it and nobody including skyeagle409 has said anything that effectively disputes it.

If skyeagle409 doesn't know the exact type of flares he's talking about, has no reference point to make conclusions about the Phoenix Light flares since he can't say his experience is based on the same types of flares and therefore we can't make detailed calculations of luminosity at 70 miles for the type of flares he's talking about, as we can with the LUU-2 illumination flares in the Phoenix case:

Phoenix Lights Flares Luminosity

Let's spend a moment examining the flare said to be used in the incident. The A-10 drops two different kinds of flare: a countermeasure flare, used to confuse heat-seeking missiles; and an illumination flare, used to light up the ground at night either for the benefit of troops on the ground or to light up a target so it can be visually targeted for weapons release. The illumination flare is the one we're talking about. It's called the LUU-2 air-deployed high intensity illumination flare. It's made by defense contractor ATK Thiokol. The variant in use at the time of the Phoenix Lights incident was the LUU-2B/B. It weights 30 pounds and its canister is three feet long and 5 inches in diameter. Once it ejects its parachute and ignites, it puts out 1.8 million candela for 4 minutes, or 1.6 million candela for 5 minutes. It falls in its parachute at 8.3 feet per second. At 1000 feet above the ground, it lights up an area half a kilometer wide at 5 lux. The LUU-2's pyrotechnic candle burns magnesium, which produces an intense white light. Because it burns so hot, it also ends up burning the aluminum canister, which adds an orange hue to the light for most of the burn. About halfway through the burn, enough of the canister has been burned away that it actually lightens the load and it falls more and more slowly. Once it's almost completely out, an explosive bolt disconnects the parachute and the flare drops, burning out completely sometime hopefully before landing on someone's wood shingle roof.

The Barry M. Goldwater Range is a big place — over 4,000 square miles — and the Phoenix metropolitan area is even larger, about 14,000 square miles. The distance between the two is usually cited at 60 to 80 miles, but as we can see, that's going to depend on a lot. We do know a little about where the A-10's were flying inside the Goldwater Range. The guy who was in the lead A-10, Lt. Col. Ed Jones, says they were near Gila Bend when they ejected the leftover flares, and Gila Bend is just about exactly 50 miles from downtown Phoenix. Mesa and Scottsdale are farther away, so let's take a super rough stab at it, be conservative, and say that the average observer of the Phoenix Lights was 70 miles away from the A-10's. The brightness of the LUU-2 seen from 70 miles away is roughly equal to a star with an apparent magnitude of somewhere between -3.2 and -4.3, which is significantly brighter than any stars visible in the sky, but not as bright as the full moon. The magnitude scale was developed by the astronomer Hipparchus, where +1 represents the brightest star in the sky, and +6 represents the faintest. -3.2 is quite a bit brighter than the brightest star. The noonday sun has an apparent magnitude of -26.7. Thanks to the guys on the Bad Astronomy and JREF forums who helped me with these calculations.

At 70 miles away they are brighter than the brightest star in the sky so skyeagle409 only looks foolish to claim the LUU-2 flares can't be seen at 70 miles away, although in skyeagle409's defense, there are other types of flares that can't be seen from 70 miles away.

There is no debate about the LUU-2 flares near Phoenix anymore, all that's left is ignorance of people that don't know the facts.

If people still want to debate the first incident, while I think Bonez has made a persuasive case for that, people can still cite eyewitness descriptions that don't seem to match the planes explanations because of things like "surface texture", though I would add that such eyewitness testimony is notoriously unreliable as we've seen in other cases. So at least I can understand why they don't accept Bonez' explanation even if he's probably right. But there's really no doubt anymore about the flares, except by people that don't know the facts.

a reply to: Arbitrageur

At 70 miles away they are brighter than the brightest star in the sky so skyeagle409 only looks foolish to claim the LUU-2 flares can't be seen at 70 miles away, although in skyeagle409's defense, there are other types of flares that can't be seen from 70 miles away.

The reason why the majority of Phoenix residents have never seen flare drops from 3000 feet over the BGR is because the Estrella mountains block flare drops. That explains why the majority of Phoenix residents have never seen BGR flare drops despite the fact the BGR has been in operation since the 1940's.

There is no debate about the LUU-2 flares near Phoenix anymore, all that's left is ignorance of people that don't know the facts.

Once again, the Phoenix Lights are not indicative of flares especially from 60 miles away, and additionally, the BGR is nowhere near Phoenix.

More on the Phoenix Lights can be found at this link.

www.thephoenixlights.net...

originally posted by: skyeagle409
The reason why the majority of Phoenix residents have never seen flare drops from 3000 feet over the BGR is because the Estrella mountains block flare drops.

Why don't you watch the videos in the OP? One conclusively shows that the mountains blocked the flare drop in the Phoenix lights case also, though not for the entire duration of the flare burn, but the mountain range blocking the flares explains when they winked out.

So yes, the mountain range can block the flare visibility, and yes it happened in the Phoenix lights case. But not for the entire duration of the burn, as they were falling and started out high enough to be visible initially. Maybe the flight the night of the Phoenix lights was at a little higher altitude than previous flights? You're talking about 3000 feet like it's impossible to go higher or something, why would you imply such a thing? A-10s can certainly fly higher than that.

a reply to: Arbitrageur

Why don't you watch the videos in the OP? One conclusively shows that the mountains blocked the flare drop in the Phoenix lights case also, though not for the entire duration of the flare burn, but the mountain range blocking the flares explains when they winked out.

So yes, the mountain range can block the flare visibility, and yes it happened in the Phoenix lights case. But not for the entire duration of the burn, as they were falling and started out high enough to be visible initially.

I have seen the videos and I knew that the height of the mountain tops are roughly in the 4000 feet range, which means that it was impossible to see any flare 60-80 miles away at 3000 feet, which once again, explains why the majority of Phoenix residents have never seen air-dropped flares. I have also seen flares up to 20-30 miles away whose luminosity was nowhere near the luminosity of the Phoenix Lights.

Maybe the flight the night of the Phoenix lights was at a little higher altitude than previous flights? You're talking about 3000 feet like it's impossible to go higher or something, why would you imply such a thing? A-10s can certainly fly higher than that.

Releasing such flares over the BGR at high altitude creates a safety hazards. Let's take a look at the Air Force's explanation.

Official Air Force Explanation

After denying that they had heard of the incident, the Air Force released their official explanation of the sightings - military flares. They stated that military flares had been released from a USAF A-10 over the Gila Bend Bombing Range (located 60-80 miles southwest of Phoenix, on the other side of the bordering mountain range). They explained that the A-10 had released the flares at about 6,000 feet and that the flares had ignited at around 3,000 feet. They completely burnt out at around 500 feet.

The Air Force said the flares burned out at 500 feet which obviously presents a problem for the Air Force because the lights were seen above the Estrella Mountain range, which is thousands of feet higher than 500 feet.The Air Force said the flares ignited at 3000 feet. Furthermore, dumping flares at high altitudes is a safety hazard and dangerous to aircraft flying at lower altitudes.

Generally, illumination flares are not part of the typical combat load of a typical A-10, but that of the OA-10, such as on 'Sandy' missions and targeting support. In addition, flares can be deployed by ground troops. In 2000, 3 years later, the Air Force conducted a flare demonstration that backfired and some Phoenix residents felt the Air Force flare demonstration insulted their intelligence because there was no comparison between Air Force flares and the lights they observed in 1997.

originally posted by: skyeagle409
The Air Force said the flares ignited at 3000 feet.

You're confused. They said 15,000 feet is the height where they dumped their leftovers. They dropped some flares at a lower height but it's the flares dropped from the higher altitude that people videotaped.

brumac.8k.com...

In late July, 1997, Captain Eileen Bienz, spokeswoman for the Arizona National Guard said she had learned from National Guard helicopter pilots that they had seen a group of A-10's, the aircraft which drop the LUU-2 flares, heading for Davis-Monthan AFB at about 10 PM on March 13, 1997. She then learned that the Maryland Air National Guard had used the Barry Goldwater range. According to Beinz, the A-10's dropped flares at an altitude of 15,000 ft at 10 PM over the "North Tac Range"...

I suspect that one plane ejected a single flare that became light #1. I suspect a second plane flying to the AFB (right to left from the point of view of witnesses in Phoenix) then ejected 8 unused flares, the maximum number carried by an A-10. I conjecture that plane was making a gradual turn to the right while ejecting the flares, thus making the arc of 8 lights. (I saw something similar to this while in Gulf Breeze in 1992. To the naked eye it appeared as a series of lights, one after another, appearing in a row with each one going out shortly after it appeared. A high power telescope proved there was a large airplane ejecting flares...I could see the airplane, only about 20 miles away, lit by the light of the flares because the flares ignited close to the airplane!)

That's by Bruce Maccabee who analyzed three video tapes and determined the reason the lights disappeared in different sequence in the three tapes was because of their different perspectives relative to the mountain range.

a reply to: Arbitrageur

You're confused. They said 15,000 feet is the height where they dumped their leftovers. They dropped some flares at a lower height but it's the flares dropped from the higher altitude that people videotaped.

Having flown from Davis-Monthan AFB during my TDY there, I knew that the Air Force's 15,000-foot claim was false. First of all, the Air Force initially denied that any Air Force aircraft was responsible. Then, it retracted its claim and said that A-10's were responsible after dropping flares from 6000 feet, which ignited at 3000 feet. When the Air Force found that 3000 feet was much too low for flares at 3000 feet over 60 miles away to be seen over mountain tops near Phoenix that reached on the average of 4000 feet, it went into debunk mode and somehow, 15,000 feet came up, which to me, was ridicules. Why would A-10's climb all the way up to 15,000 feet from 6000 feet to drop remaining flares during the very short trip back to Davis-Monthan AFB? It was not true because it didn't make any sense, which is another reason why no why no A-10's were tracked on radar at that time. Even from 15,000 feet and 60-80 miles, flares cannot be seen over the 4000-foot mountain tops of the Estrella mountains, so it would be silly for the Air Force to issue another revised stated placing flares at a higher altitude.

That's by Bruce Maccabee who analyzed three video tapes and determined the reason the lights disappeared in different sequence in the three tapes was because of their different perspectives relative to the mountain range.

The differences between Bruce Maccabee and myself, is that I know from experience, what flares look like and what they look like from various distances. In addition, I am familiar with the locations in question and been there. Generally, I agree with Bruce Maccabee on certain cases, but in this case, I disagree with him based on what I know and wartime experiences. I am aware of the way the Air Force dupes the public on UFOs and this is just another example. Remember, the Air Force also denied that it received phone calls relating to the Phoenix Lights, that is, until someone pulled phone records proving that the Air Force had lied. That is the way the Air Force works and I know that as a fact from firsthand experience as well. What puzzles me is just how easy some folks accepted the Air Force's false claims after its many public missteps. For an example;

* The Air Force claimed no phone calls, and later, admitted that it received phone calls after phone records were pulled

* The Air Force initially claimed that no Air Force aircraft were involved and then, turnaround and claimed that A-10's were responsible despite the fact that A-10's were already sitting on the tarmac at Davis-Monthan AFB during the time of the Phoenix Light sightings and that there was a no-fly curfew at 10:30 PM at DMAFB.

* The change in the Air Force's claim regarding flare drop altitudes was another indicator that the Air Force was lying as well. Why did it take the Air Force 3 years to come up with a flare demonstration that backfired when the flares failed to maintain alignment which was unlike the Phoenix Lights? Apparently, The 2000, Air Force flare drop demonstration proved to Phoenix residents that the Phoenix Lights had nothing to do with flares. Check out this link.

FLARE THEORY DOESN'T FIT WITNESS TESTIMONIES:

Flare theorists seem to believe that witnesses can't tell the difference between flares and something that by all accounts was completely out of this world. Many of the witnesses who came forward included active military personnel who work with flares on a daily basis. They were very adamant that what they saw were not flares! You don't have to be a flare expert to tell what they look like. The burning magnesium from the flares illuminates the rising smoke above. They flicker and move about as they fall to the ground. The military staged a flare demo in 2000 hoping to convince everyone that what they actually saw were flares. The demonstration totally backfired as it gave witnesses an opportunity to make a fair comparison and conclude that there was no similarity at all to what they saw.

www.thephoenixlights.net...

originally posted by: skyeagle409
Even from 15,000 feet and 60-80 miles, flares cannot be seen over the 4000-foot mountain tops of the Estrella mountains, so it would be silly for the Air Force to issue another revised stated placing flares at a higher altitude.

How did you calculate you can't see a flare at 15,000 feet over a 4000 foot mountain?

The differences between Bruce Maccabee and myself, is that I know from experience, what flares look like and what they look like from various distances.

I quoted the part where he said he's seen flares himself, both with naked eye and through a telescope where he could see the plane dropping them (which he couldn't see with his naked eye).

That website you keep linking has a very muddled series of statements, which doesn't make it clear there was one event at 8:30 and another around 10pm. The part you cited is referencing the fact that flares don't explain the 8:30 event; well of course they don't, that wasn't flares. The fact that you're quoting such a terrible source that doesn't even make this distinction between the 8:30 and 10pm events casts a shadow on your own understanding of events.

a reply to: Arbitrageur

How did you calculate you can't see a flare at 15,000 feet over a 4000 foot mountain?

It was simple, I went to Phoenix back in July 2011 where the lights were seen.

I quoted the part where he said he's seen flares himself, both with naked eye and through a telescope where he could see the plane dropping them (which he couldn't see with his naked eye).

He must have been look somewhere else because the Phoenix Lights were much too bright and the spacing much too far to have been flares 60-80- miles away. Once again, it doesn't make any sense for aircraft a short distance from DMAFB to climb from 6000 feet to 15000 feet to drop flares and then descend to a landing a short distance away. Secondly, no one in Tucson, which is also south of Phoenix, saw the Phoenix Lights at 10 PM.

www.bing.com...

At 8:45, the lights were seen arriving in Tucson. Around 9:00, however, several witnesses saw them again in Phoenix, where the object allegedly flew low over a neighborhood and emitted a beam of light, which a 9-year-old girl told her mother had passed through her bedroom. At about the same time, lights were reported in Oracle, 30 miles northeast of Tucson. In other words, if flares were dropped at 10 PM over the BGR, others closer to the BGR than Phoenix, would have seen the flares at 10 PM as well, but they did not, which brings up the question as to how that fact was somehow overlooked by researchers.

The Phoenix Lights are nothing new and comparisons can be made in regard to the Lubbock Lights. The Air Force try to explain away the Phoenix Lights as flares in much the same way as trying to explain away the Lubbock Lights as birds.

Lubbock Lights

www.bleakcinema.com...

Triangular UFOs are nothing new and have been reported during the 1800's and now this.

Phoenix Lights Flare Theory Finally Extinguished!

For the record, the arrays captured on film around 10 p.m. were definitely not flares, nor were they over the gunnery range. These anomalous amber orbs were balls of self contained light in rock solid, equidistant formations, hovering over Phoenix.

On the other hand, the Luu-2 flares that the military professed to be deploying over the Barry Goldwater gunnery range the night of the AZ mass sighting have characteristics unlike the true unknowns. While suspended by a parachute, these flares are used to illuminate the area. They have visible smoke trails, are white, flicker frantically, and most certainly cannot keep a formation as they drift haphazardly to the ground. I have personally seen these flares on numerous occasions prior to and after March 13, 1997. They are not what we witnessed or documented on film around 10 p.m. during the mass sighting event.

Besides a bogus analysis of the Kryzsten's large boomerang array presented during the TV special "UFOs Over Phoenix," I learned fairly quickly that no one could triangulate the March 13 videos. A Senior Geology Professor from Arizona State University stated emphatically that because the videographers took footage over a 30-40 minute span from different directions, a triangulation of the videos taken during the mass sighting was impossible. To my surprise, a Navy Optical Physicist and respected UFO researcher announced over a year later that he had triangulated the 10 p.m. videos. This alleged analysis was accepted as the final word by many. And yet, the data just didn't compute, particularly when he had analyzed a totally different sighting of January 1998, at my requestnot the March 13, 1997 event. And just because the 1998 lights seemed to be at a distance to this researcher, that revelation didn't confirm anything definitive.

It was intriguing to learn that the Native Americans living in the Gila Bend Indian Reservation, which is located in a basin between South Mountain and the Estrella Mountain ranges, saw the lights on March 13 right above their heads. They also shared with me that they have been observing these orbs for hundreds of years. They call them "Sky People" or "Light Beings." These lights have been part of their culture for centuries. They think of the Estrella mountains as a "gateway to the stars," and as my photographic evidence from 1995 to the present indicates, that might well be the case

Unfortunately, the confusing "flare" theory and its incessant dissemination by researchers and the media alike just added to the muddy waters that had already been polluted by the military announcement of the Maryland Air National Guard "Operation Snowbird" flare deployment that night. Keep in mind that this pronouncement came five long months after their denial that anything was in the air and one month after a front page USA TODAY article forced the issue of an explanation. I don't doubt that flares might have been sent off to divert attention away from the true unknowns, but that's not what we witnessed or photographed.

www.unknownco...ynne-d-kitei-md...

There was a giant UFO video while thousands of people seeing it...

a reply to: AboveBoard
The reason it was seen by so many that night is the fact that many were out that night waiting to catch a glimpse th Hale Bopp comet.

Sorry, posted in wrong thread. I moved the post to the correct location in the Kurt Russell-related thread here

This is a strenuous, desperate effort to debunk a mass sighting that you know cannot be debunked. I won't go into all the details, but two examples of your failure at "laying to rest the myth" come to mind.

First, your "Illusory Contours" explanation is at minimum, laughable. I mean, wow. That's the biggest joke in your entire "effort". Witnesses didn't only see a black mass where you contend there was none. They saw the underside of this craft and it was not black but quite visible to them. Additionally, you have a video in your post that claims to be the only video of the event. It is not.

I suggest that if people are intellectually honest, they'll take your effort with a grain of salt and weigh it against a credible witness who saw this event as it unfolded and filmed it as well and has investigated this for years. She was initially skeptical, but she was also honest:

www.thephoenixlights.net...

The government, or whoever is in the business of putting so much effort into debunking sightings that are beyond such silliness, is failing. Face it. They are FAILING. People are simply not falling for it any longer. The biggest question comes to mind: why on earth would an average person spend so much time and energy trying to "lay to rest" an event that 10s of thousands witnessed and KNOW WHAT THEY SAW?

originally posted by: PlanetXisHERE
Here is ex-Arizona governor Fife Symington on the Phoenix lights incident, and he states he saw the craft:

1. He saw the craft and it was his opinion it was not of human origin (he is an ex air-force officer)

2. His office received hundreds of calls from people who saw something similar

3. He says yes the military did shoot up some flares, but that was much later than the majority of the sightings, and said what he saw definitely wasn't flares (again, ex air force officer)

4. People were panicking thus he did the press conference spoof, just to reduce the panic

5. Any debunking "explanations" that this was some kind of jet "V" formation are ridiculous and pure disinformation. Many witnesses were close to the craft, heard no noise at all before, during and after the craft passed over, and the craft was moving quite slowly, slow enough to stall any jets.

UFO debunkers want proof but always ignore it when it occurs. And ex air force officer and ex governor, you don't get much more credible than that.

The second video contains many more witnesses to this incident.

Arizona lights witness reports are throughout the documentary, but many start at about 1 min 25 secs in:

I guess the OP was unaware of the ex governor statements when the thread was created, because it seems if we gather all the facts this was a genuine unidentified aerial phenomena, and not any of the usual misinformation put out by the military such as flares or jets or missiles.

Yes, all of this. These "debunkers" are a bad joke and becoming an embarrassment to themselves. The desperation in their efforts is really quite pathetic to witness.

An eyewitness here...

They were flares.

However many people incorrectly focus on that and not the giant black triangles many of us saw in the desert north of Phoenix.

I remember it distinctly to this day.

originally posted by: SpartanStoic
An eyewitness here...

They were flares.

However many people incorrectly focus on that and not the giant black triangles many of us saw in the desert north of Phoenix.

I remember it distinctly to this day.

There are two opening posts, the first one talks about the flares.

If you read the second post you can find out what the triangles were. This guy got a look through his telescope so he had a much better view than other witnesses.