The 'Phoenix Lights' March 1997

[dks13827 3]

I was playing tennis that night, it was about 8 pm. I looked up and saw a V shaped aircraft with lights on it fly directly over me. Maybe 2,000 feet or less above the ground, speed.. about 100 knots. There was NO SOUND whatsoever. It was headed directly for Deer Valley airport. I fly from that airport. Oddly,, it never landed there, ha ha. I think it was a secret aircraft, possibly a drone, who knows?
The flares were seen in several places, one of which was 20 miles west of my location, near Luke AFB. My parents saw the flares...... 20 miles west of me.

[quade 3]

Oh really?

How is it even conceivably possible that a person using just his own eyes can even vaguely judge the height and speed of an object at night in the sky when he has no idea how large the object is?

If you're telling me it's possible, I'm calling bullshit.

Or did you have some sort of radar at your disposal?

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[dks13827 3]

Mr. Quade, yes of course it is difficult to judge, those were my guesstimates. I meant only to convey the approximate parameters. In other words, I could tell it was not at 10k feet, nor travelling at 200 knots. I do have the background, you know. Geeeezzzz !!!!

[quade 3]

What background? What background makes a person able to judge that?

For the folks lost on this; it was a "UFO event" that took place a couple of times in 1997. There have been several documentaries made about it, but the reality is it was a set of training missions where the military was dropping flares.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenix_Lights

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[AggieDave 6]

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For the folks lost on this; it was a "UFO event" that took place a couple of times in 1997. There have been several documentaries made about it, but the reality is it was a set of training missions where the military was dropping flares.

Sort like the Stephenville event in which the US Military wasn't flying, then was flying, then not flying in the area but further away?

I have no doubt that a large number of UFO sightings are real, except they're simply unidentified to the observer or to the public in general.

I don't instantly believe the grays have left their underground base at Denver International Airport and started flying around (as some believe).

(I love reading UFO and conspiracy theories, even if I don't personally believe 99% of it)

--"When I die, may I be surrounded by scattered chrome and burning gasoline."

[quade 3]

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Sort like the Stephenville event in which the US Military wasn't flying, then was flying, then not flying in the area but further away?

The military has a LONG tradition of using UFO sightings to confound attempts to understand their activities. To them talk of UFOs is a very useful tool of disinformation going all the way back to Roswell. I like to think it kind of started out as a joke that got out of hand and then when they realized it was in fact useful, they "sort of" promoted it with the Project Bluebook stuff.

They generally neither confirm or deny, but when they can 100% reproduce the effect in the sky and tell you exactly what they did to make that happen, ya kind of have to take them at their word for it. That's exactly what they did with Phoenix.

To think otherwise leads you down the rabbit hole and into crazy town.

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[downwardspiral 0]

When I was a kid walking home from a friend's house at night I witnessed what could be described as Northern Lights in the upper atmosphere but significantly smaller. Scared shitless I boogied home. The news at the time said it was a residual effect of a rocket launched from Vandenberg that had to be detonated during its flight.....uh huh.

www.FourWheelerHB.com

[quade 3]

Pretty typical "cave man" response to something a person hasn't seen before. Fear the unknown, make up some sort of mythology about it.

Pretty silly once you hear the real explanation to it too.

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[chasteh 0]

>the reality is it was a set of training missions where the military was dropping flares.

Uh oh...

So you must have knowledge as to what type of flare they could be, how long those types of flares burn for, and for what were they burning in that location of the sky?

Do you have some sort of information available to make us understand what kind of flares they were? Can we compare the activity of a flare to what was observed in Phoenix?

UFO Conspirators vs. Military conspirators...

(Ready!)

Fight!

[warpedskydiver 0]

I know someone who lived up in Scotland and saw the same shooting star for almost two weeks in a row, at exactly the same time each night.


Must have been Santa Claus

[downwardspiral 0]

Try to imagine being 10 or 11 years old and seeing this in the sky when you are all alone on a dark street.

http://images.ibsys.com/2005/0923/5011085_320X240.jpg

www.FourWheelerHB.com

[quade 3]

I don't have to imagine. I grew up in SoCal in the 60s. We regularly saw missile launches, heard sonic booms, Civil Defense sirens . . . anybody that has lived in SoCal for any appreciable time should be familiar with these launches.

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[quade 3]

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So you must have knowledge as to what type of flare they could be, how long those types of flares burn for, and for what were they burning in that location of the sky?

The military admitted it and recreated it. I'd say that's good enough.

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[rivetgeek 0]

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I don't have to imagine. I grew up in SoCal in the 60s. We regularly saw missile launches, heard sonic booms, Civil Defense sirens . . . anybody that has lived in SoCal for any appreciable time should be familiar with these launches.

Hell I grew up in SoCal in the 70's and 80's and saw these all the damned time, its just a trail of unburned jet fuel vapor. I never even considered aliens.

Mostly because I was a science nerd and knew while the likelihood of extraterrestrial life is almost a certainty, the likelihood of them being willing and able to cross the vast distance is laughable at best. Much less to go to all that effort to anally probe a bunch of rednecks.

~Bones Knit, blood clots, glory is forever, and chicks dig scars.~

[chasteh 0]

>The military admitted it and recreated it. I'd say that's good enough.

Uh huh. And others wouldn't.

The military's claiming responsibility does not provide us evidence with which to recreate the lights, nor to explain how they were able to hold formation, move, pause, and then relocate.

Where is this re-creation?

[chasteh 0]

>Mostly because I was a science nerd and knew while the likelihood of extraterrestrial life is almost a certainty

There are "aliens" that exist on the floors of our seas that look, behave, and live in ways that we could never have imagined. (Even more bizarre than the wildest of science-fiction novels)

The likelihood is extremely high... but you are right... it is so unlikely that they are even near our solar system, let alone any distance close enough to reach us within the lifetime of any intelligent species we know of - even by traveling the speed of light. The likelihood that those same aliens 1) breathe oxygen, 2) function within a society, 3) are advanced enough to have vessels with which to travel on their own planet, 4) have vessels with which to travel in space, 5) can travel at the speed of light, and 6) are able to survive long enough to make such a journey, and 7) be able to survive in our own atmosphere is horribly [un]likely, at best. Yet, it seems much more likely, now, that they have been "here" all along.

[quade 3]

Believe what you will then. Obviously no amount of admission by the government nor recreation by them is ever going to satisfy you.

I'd hunt down the story myself, but Google is swamped by the "True Believers" on this and I really don't have time to filter through that noise.

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[chasteh 0]

>Obviously no amount of admission by the government nor recreation by them is ever going to satisfy you

Really? Re-creating the same event and being able to describe the technology used while also showing how that technology behaves in the same way as was observed, and you will convince me. Where are these infinitismal flares?

Oh yea... at what point does admission from the government make something legit, again? I mean... the government spent a great deal of time trying to convince us that there was a link between 9/11 and Iraq... Uh oh, that one didn't work out so well for the government's credibility, now did it?

edit:

Oh yea! And it was the same Department of Defense that is in question now as was in question concerning the 9/11 - Iraq link.... Interesting.

[quade 3]

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Really? Re-creating the same event and being able to describe the technology used while also showing how that technology behaves in the same way as was observed...

Yes, they flew the exact same mission and released the exact same flares and video shot from various locations returned the exact same results.

As far as I'm concerned, that's as good as it gets.

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[FallingOsh 0]

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>Obviously no amount of admission by the government nor recreation by them is ever going to satisfy you

Really? Re-creating the same event and being able to describe the technology used while also showing how that technology behaves in the same way as was observed, and you will convince me. Where are these infinitismal flares?

LUU-2's actually. http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/dumb/luu2.htm Think about a string of flares all burning out within a second of each other and falling from their canopy. Might look like they were flying away from you in formation, wouldn't it?

Extremely common with night military flights as explained here:

The United States Air Force (USAF) identified the second group of lights as flares dropped by A-10 Warthog aircraft which were on training exercises at the Barry Goldwater Range in southwest Arizona. Witnesses claim to have observed a huge carpenter's square-shaped UFO, containing lights or possibly light-emitting engines. Fife Symington[6], the governor at the time, was one witness to this incident.

Go look up the location of the Barry Goldwater Range and let us know how it's situated in relation to Phoenix and Tucson.

An analysis of the luminosity of LUU-2B/B illumination flares, the type which would have been in use by A-10 aircraft at the time, determined that the luminosity of such flares at a range of approximately 50–70 miles would fall well within the range of the lights viewed from Phoenix.

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Stay positive and love your life.

[rivetgeek 0]

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>Mostly because I was a science nerd and knew while the likelihood of extraterrestrial life is almost a certainty

There are "aliens" that exist on the floors of our seas that look, behave, and live in ways that we could never have imagined. (Even more bizarre than the wildest of science-fiction novels)

The likelihood is extremely high... but you are right... it is so unlikely that they are even near our solar system, let alone any distance close enough to reach us within the lifetime of any intelligent species we know of - even by traveling the speed of light. The likelihood that those same aliens 1) breathe oxygen, 2) function within a society, 3) are advanced enough to have vessels with which to travel on their own planet, 4) have vessels with which to travel in space, 5) can travel at the speed of light, and 6) are able to survive long enough to make such a journey, and 7) be able to survive in our own atmosphere is horribly [un]likely, at best. Yet, it seems much more likely, now, that they have been "here" all along.

the most logical proof would be that any intelligent species that would be advanced enough to have interstellar craft would pretty much HAVE to have some sort of radio footprint. We have been looking for 50 years and found nothing of the kind. This pretty much rules out anything within at least 400 light years.

There are TRILLIONS of galaxies though, each with billions of stars, many of those with tens of planets. It would be a statistical impossibility that NONE of those harbor life.

HOWEVER there is NO reason to believe we are not the most advanced civilization in the universe. Is it likely? God I hope not, but chances are that the majority of all life that has ever existed in the universe never even made it as far as we did.

~Bones Knit, blood clots, glory is forever, and chicks dig scars.~

[quade 3]

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the most logical proof would be that any intelligent species that would be advanced enough to have interstellar craft would pretty much HAVE to have some sort of radio footprint. We have been looking for 50 years and found nothing of the kind. This pretty much rules out anything within at least 400 light years.

Uh, no. At the very most it suggests technological life isn't closer than 50 light years away. Unless of course you know about some magic radio that travels faster than the speed of light.

That said, since we ourselves only became capable of looking recently they could have been right next door somewhere in the Alpha Centauri system and we JUST missed them on a cosmic scale of time or maybe tomorrow they become capable of sending.

Not that it matters anyway. 4.5 light years is much, MUCH farther than is even vaguely conceivable to travel physically.

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[rivetgeek 0]

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the most logical proof would be that any intelligent species that would be advanced enough to have interstellar craft would pretty much HAVE to have some sort of radio footprint. We have been looking for 50 years and found nothing of the kind. This pretty much rules out anything within at least 400 light years.

Uh, no. At the very most it suggests technological life isn't closer than 50 light years away. We -may- hear the knock at the door tomorrow.

That said, since we ourselves only became capable of looking recently they could have been right next door somewhere in the Alpha Centauri system and we JUST missed them on a cosmic scale of time.

Not that it matters anyway. 4.5 light years is much, MUCH farther than is even vaguely conceivable to travel physically.

Any civilization that could possibly create interstellar travel would have a radio footprint hundreds if not thousands of years before such invention.

But you are correct, any feasible means of inter-solar travel (much less intergalactic) would have to make use of some form of faster than light travel (wormholes, spacebending, etc) which, so far, exist only in theory.

~Bones Knit, blood clots, glory is forever, and chicks dig scars.~

[quade 3]

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Any civilization that could possibly create interstellar travel would have a radio footprint hundreds if not thousands of years before such invention.

Yes, but you're assuming quite a bit there. It's a huge assumption to even begin to think they would have, for instance, the financial interest to do so. Look at our own space program. Interstellar space travel is just not justifiable in terms of cost/benefit under any circumstance.

Also in the time HUMAN civilization has been technologically capable to detect some limited frequencies or modes of alien transmission, we'd only be receiving the waves of information from the last 50 years out. If they were 51 light years out and either just started or had just finish 51 years ago, we'd hear nothing.

Remember we ourselves are precariously balanced in time. At just about the moment we became able to detect these things, we also became able to completely destroy ourselves.

Fairly intelligent life and entire civilizations could be winking in and out of existence all the time and we'd never know if we just missed that few years of radio transmission.

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[chasteh 0]

>Think about a string of flares all burning out within a second of each other and falling from their canopy. Might look like they were flying away from you in formation, wouldn't it?

Why did they "burn" for ten minutes?

Why did they stay situated for so long?


"The LUU-2 has a burn time of approximately 5 minutes while suspended from a parachute." - from your own link.