Spent my first 20 years in Phoenix. Not the first time we have had "visitors".
I saw the Phoenix Lights back in 97, here is a link to the wikipedia article.
en.wikipedia.org...
Even the governor at the time has admitted that he saw the lights. Luke AFB, the National Guard and DPS had no idea what it was.
Personally, I think it has something to do with the large military test ranges in the state and the large number of military contractors.
The first sighting of the object was in Henderson NV, 5 mi south east of the Las Vegas Strip. It was headed from somewhere NW of Vegas(I'm not going
to say it without proof, but I think we are all thinking of the same place). It went across the state with in an unknown path, but with a general
southeast bearing. Crossed over Prescott and Prescott Valley, continued south to Phoenix, south through Ahwatukee and Chandler, and down to Tucson. It
was then spotted by someone on the way to LA, which would mean that it turned to the west, which is coincidentally the direction that the Barry
Goldwater Air Force Range and Yuma Proving Grounds, two major testing areas for new materiel.
YPG is used to stress test basically all of our military equipment. It is hot as heck, dry, and sandy, the perfect area to stress test a new weapon or
vehicle. Goldwater AFR is used for bombing training, and lots of it. I know that most AF pilots drop bombs here at some point in their careers(most
environmentalists get mad if you bomb an old growth forest, but nobody minds if you blast the hell out of the desert). Surely there are areas of the
base that are off limits, but having never been there more than passing over, I wouldn't know directly.
I know a bunch of video and photo evidence was available from the first visit, front page news. There was a prank done probably 6 mos ago where
someone released flares on balloons, but it was nothing like the first time. If someone got pics of this one, I would certainly like to have a
look.
Disclaimer: This should be construed as pure speculation but basically, it sounds like they needed to test out their new toys again.