File 052 · 13 March 1997
Phoenix Lights
Phoenix, Arizona, United States · Region, not street
Opened 9/4/2026
Ledger illustration of the file — not a photograph of the object. Ledger illustration of the report. Phoenix grid looking toward dark mountains. — Night Ledger illustration of the file
Standing
Unidentified
On the public record, and still open. A claim, paper, or film — not a finding that it was ours, and not a finding that it was not.
What was claimed
Thousands of people across Arizona described a long V of lights, or a dark mass with lights, passing over the valley. A later set of flares was widely seen.
What is on the record
The later lights were identified by the Air National Guard as flares. The earlier, larger formation is still a mass witness event without a public craft identification. News film exists; it is not an official sensor release.
Between 8 and 8:30 p.m., people from Paulden through Phoenix to Tucson reported a large, silent, V-shaped or triangular formation of lights, some saying a dark mass joined the lights. Witnesses included police, pilots, and then-Governor Fife Symington, who years later said he had seen a craft “otherworldly” and had held a joking press conference because he did not know what else to do.
A second event after 10 p.m., lights dropping over the Estrella range, was later identified by Luke Air Force Base as LUU-2 illumination flares from Maryland Air National Guard A-10s on the Barry Goldwater range. The earlier V is not so easily packed into that box: it was seen over a 200-mile path, slowly, without the sound of a formation of heavies.
Video of the later lights is plentiful. Video of the 8 p.m. V is scarcer and grainier. The written reports from that first pass fill boxes.
Could this have been ours?
The known sky, that night.
Satellites were already up. The station was not. Starlink was not.
Always
Aircraft, balloons, meteors
Landing lights, flares, lanterns, reentries, fireballs. They are on the known sky. They do not close a file by themselves — they are what a serious look has to hold the claim against.
Orbit · Space — the desks for lights that are already named.
Sources
- Contemporary news and USAF statements
- National press / Symington statement
Related files
Same craft, same place, same years. A neighbor in the catalogue — not a conclusion.
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Two witnesses (mother and son) observed three points of light in a triangular formation moving slowly and smoothly across the western sky while maintaining relative positions. The mother began recording video shortly after noticing them.