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

a reply to: AboveBoard

I can't speak for anything military-related. Those questions would have to be directed towards them. There doesn't seem to be much reason for their silence, but they also don't publicly advertise their missions or training exercises. Security being one of those reasons.

The military doesn't normally, to my knowledge, fly formations at night. It's mostly done during the day. So unless John Q. Public has been to nighttime airshows and have seen a night formation first-hand, which most people have not, then a formation of lights at night will automatically raise eyebrows. Especially when those lights can't be immediately identifiable as aircraft lights.

The aircraft did have their red/green navigation lights on according to witnesses, but did not have their strobes on. And were at a high altitude, removing the clear nature of how many lights and what configuration the lights were in to the naked eye.

If they had had their strobes on, this would have played out totally differently.

a reply to: _BoneZ_

I think some people are just skimming over the evidence, instead of actually reading and taking in everything that is available.

Agreed.
I think the problem is people hold cases like the Phoenix lights and Roswell so close to their hearts that no end of evidence will ever change their belief that ET was involved.
I liked the theory that the flares were a diversion to cover the first event but if it aint so then it aint so , the giff you posted is the nail in the coffin for that theory for me.

originally posted by: gortex
a reply to: _BoneZ_

I think some people are just skimming over the evidence, instead of actually reading and taking in everything that is available.

Agreed.
I think the problem is people hold cases like the Phoenix lights and Roswell so close to their hearts that no end of evidence will ever change their belief that ET was involved.
I liked the theory that the flares were a diversion to cover the first event but if it aint so then it aint so , the giff you posted is the nail in the coffin for that theory for me.

I actually know quite a bit about the Phoenix lights and have done quite a bit of research. It seems yourself and bonez have skimmed the evidence are the ones spouting ignorant opinions.

I wish it were a large flying ship, the things described by another member called Astr0 were certainly amazing sounding but I just can't believe it even though I want to.

just for the record I do think the Phoenix lights were Of this world and probably A-10s.

My thoughts on the flares, they are big units, the size of a small bomb, they are used to illuminate the ground so the Aircraft can attack at night, needed less nowadays with Night Vision but this even was a while ago so suspect they were used on night training.

But here is what I don't understand and maybe our airforce experts can help.

1. I read somewhere that on the way back from a mission the pilot realised he had not dropped all his flares and couldn't land with them because. It wasn't allowed at the base.

Really?? He forgot he had not dropped 5 flares! oops.

They decided to load an aircraft with 5 more flares than needed in a training exercise knowing that they couldn't land with them?.

2. Couldn't land with flares?

Really? Why not? Unless armed them all and forgot and you can unarm them? Again, oops, why would you have more flares than you need, arm them all, then forget to drop them?

It sounds to me that the training mission was a bit slapdash. Yeah just load them up with as many flares as possible and go and light up the desert fora few hours and make sure you drop them all because you can't land with them....

request landing, denied you have 5 live flares on board at a cost of $100,000 each, duhhh oh yeah, silly me, huhuhu...it's right here in front of me too, pilons 4 & 6 are still lit up, I wonered what that meant, I'll just drop them all here.

Sarcasm mode off!,

originally posted by: Forensick
I wish it were a large flying ship, the things described by another member called Astr0 were certainly amazing sounding but I just can't believe it even though I want to.

My thoughts on the flares, they are big units, the size of a small bomb, they are used to illuminate the ground so the Aircraft can attack at night, needed less nowadays with Night Vision but this even was a while ago so suspect they were used on night training.

But here is what I don't understand and maybe our airforce experts can help.

1. I read somewhere that on the way back from a mission the pilot realised he had not dropped all his flares and couldn't land with them because. It wasn't allowed at the base.

Really?? He forgot he had not dropped 5 flares! oops.

They decided to load an aircraft with 5 more flares than needed in a training exercise knowing that they couldn't land with them?.

2. Couldn't land with flares?

Really? Why not? Unless armed them all and forgot and you can unarm them? Again, oops, why would you have more flares than you need, arm them all, then forget to drop them?

It sounds to me that the training mission was a bit slapdash. Yeah just load them up with as many flares as possible and go and light up the desert fora few hours and make sure you drop them all because you can't land with them....

request landing, denied you have 5 live flares on board at a cost of $100,000 each, duhhh oh yeah, silly me, huhuhu...it's right here in front of me too, pilons 4 & 6 are still lit up, I wonered what that meant, I'll just drop them all here.

Sarcasm mode off!,

Let's not forget that these were also magic flares. The kind that stay in formation, fall at the exact same speed and leave no smoke.

The pheonix lights tho wern't really all that amazing to begin with.

Could be ufos could not be. It happened a year after the internet was released so the propaganda on it i would imagine would be huge

Do i trust these people who feared YK2 would be imenant in 3 years? Not really.

originally posted by: CallYourBluff
Let's not forget that these were also magic flares. The kind that stay in formation, fall at the exact same speed and leave no smoke.

There's no such thing as "magic flares". Parachute flares, like the one's the A-10's dropped, will fall at the same exact speed, and stay in relative formation:


Can you see the smoke when the camera is far from the flares in the video? No you cannot. When a low-quality camera is being used from miles away, you will see the light but not the smoke.

a reply to: CallYourBluff


I don't know how fast they can get them off the racks but you would expect the first be lower than the last. Not saying they aren't, it would depend on the angle it was filmed, here is a video that shows similar spacing and no smoke:

a reply to: Forensick

Flares are tiny and fit into a small unit under the tail on fighters. There's no reason they can't land with them. In fact during Vietnam three B-52s were destroyed on the ground, because during the post flight check, the crew chief accidentally discharged the entire dispenser.

www.hobbyeasy.com...

kfir.hobbyvista.com...

The flare discharge was planned as part of the flight. They frequently drop them in training so it becomes second nature in combat.

a reply to: Forensick

If they hold the button down the dispenser will rip them off until they let go. It's almost at the same time.

SO how did the flares stay in formation again?
Saw plenty on the front lines of Desert Storm but ,funny ,THEY never were level or stable in flight.

Please note this is not my information, I have borrowed it from the internet, the guy writing it claimed personal operational experience of handling these and watching them. If you copy and paste the text it is available on many sites, I have read up on the LUU-2 and this sounds correct.

The illumination flare is ... 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 weighs 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 dispenser has four tubes, each of which receives eight pyrotechnic munitions, four forward and four aft. The flares are launched by a combination of electrical and mechanical actions controlled by an intervalometer and ram-air / launch spring. When the flare is to be loaded in the corresponding tube, the large coil spring in the tube is compressed and held in the retracted position until the flare is inserted.

These are not the counter activated flares or decoy flares used to confuse heat seeking missiles, these are flares to illuminate ground targets at night. Now, imagine a A-10 Warthog flying at 5000’ feet, it’s dark and the pilot selects flares. In “ripple” mode, the flares eject from the canister, idividually in timed intervals, until all 8 are released. Now, imagine a string of illuminated beads, spaced out evenly, falling at the same rate of speed, the same illuminated candle power off in the distance, say 20 miles or so. Do you think it might be construed as a huge flying object

a reply to: Forensick

Forgot all about those. The A-10 stopped using them not long after. Now they're mostly used on AC-130s.

Don't forget about the flash when fired by the way.

Well, planes in formation seems far fetched to me. I can't see how this can fool people. They said it was slow moving . If the formation was high up, then it would not be as big as they said it was. If they were low, then they would have zipped by fast, and they def would not be silent.

Seems like people like to think that when it comes to UFOs, then we are the worst witnesses ever!

While one of the two is def flares in my opinion, the other one is def not solved. Unless you want to completely disregard what people said they saw.

a reply to: CallYourBluff

It seems yourself and bonez have skimmed the evidence are the ones spouting ignorant opinions.

Video analysis of the lights shows the second event were flares and they were behind the mountain , this video shows the lights going out because they are descending behind the mountain.


You are free to believe as you will but to call other members opinions ignorant when they are based on the facts is ignorance in itself.

originally posted by: gortex
a reply to: CallYourBluff

It seems yourself and bonez have skimmed the evidence are the ones spouting ignorant opinions.

Video analysis of the lights shows the second event were flares and they were behind the mountain , this video shows the lights going out because they are descending behind the mountain.

You are free to believe as you will but to call other members opinions ignorant when they are based on the facts is ignorance in itself.

Yes, I believe they were flares, but the other sighting a formation of planes, that just does not make sense.

The event will forever be enshrouded in mystery regardless of all the debunkers in the world....that's just the way thing go.....nice try though....

a reply to: _BoneZ_ watched so many documentarys on this case and no matter how much i want to believe it was out of this world i have to agree with everything you have posted,if you look at the evidence then you can come to no other conclusion.

people want to believe so much they don,t want to accept whats staring them in the face cause accepting it would mean the possibility of nothing out there.

where as i believe there is deffo something out there and every possibility they are visiting but we just don,t have that definite proof yet.