Those of us who were in Phoenix, Arizona, in the spring of 1997 were treated to a still-baffling phenomenon. Unlike many other UFO sightings, the one on March 13, now famously called “The Phoenix Lights,” was undeniable in its length, breadth, and duration. Thousands of people stood in astonishment as a gigantic alien craft hovered without a sound, in plain sight, catching the attention of the local and national news media, as well as the governor. But this was no once-in-a-lifetime event — just before the close of 2019, Phoenix was again visited by what many witnesses say were extraterrestrial spacecraft.

When events such as these mass sightings occur, the official reports are quite predictable. Regardless of what thousands of people attest to, government and military officials release statements that are beyond absurd to those whose experiences are undeniable. In the 1997 incident over Phoenix, the US Air Force attributed the sighting to flares dropped by an A-10 Warthog military aircraft engaged in training exercises at the Barry Goldwater Range in Southwest Arizona. However, eyewitnesses know what they saw: five lights in a formation that slowly loomed over Phoenix like a cloud for more than three hours, from 7.30 p.m. to 10.30 p.m. 

Arizona’s governor, Fife Symington, later testified that he witnessed a massive delta-shaped craft silently navigate over the Squaw Peak mountain range. “It was truly breathtaking… I was absolutely stunned… As a pilot and former Air Force officer, I can definitively say that this craft did not resemble any man-made object I’d ever seen.”

Closing Out 2019 With a Series of Sightings

On December 8, 2019, yet another remarkable visitation caught the attention of thousands of people when multiple witnesses reported and recorded a lighted orb over the busy city of Mesa. The larger orbs appeared to have produced smaller orbs. So far, officials from government, law enforcement, and the military have not replied with their usual “weather balloon” or “flare” explanations. They seem to be just as puzzled as the witnesses are.

British media outlet Express, wrote, “A STRANGE orb-like appeared in the skies above Arizona – and no one knows what they are, leading to theories of alien visitation…On Sunday, December 8, a couple in Mesa, Arizona, spotted the strange lights hovering near high in the sky. The object, which has caused confusion among the public and the military, was seen moving erratically and in all directions.” There is no official explanation of what the oddity is.

Regarding the December 8 Phoenix UFO, one eye witness told a local television station that the orb “started kind of moving diagonally across, trying to figure out which way it was heading. And as it did, that’s when we noticed it started dropping things from it…It was a cloudy night and had drizzled off and on. Regular planes had been flying by since we can see the flight path for the airport … Then ‘boom;’ it started dropping what looked like orange fireballs or something that traveled for a few seconds before they faded out and disappeared … All of a sudden I saw this bright glowing orange light. I thought it was a planet or a star at first and then I realized ‘oh that’s close and it’s moving towards us.’”

Arizona, a Hotbed of UFO Activity

The Patch, an online newspaper out of Tucson, noted that thousands of Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs) are reported every year. Just in 2019, more than 200 were witnessed over the skies of Arizona. The National UFO Reporting Center’s website noted that Phoenix had five UFO sightings reported in December, including one on December 20. The report read, “Bright lights hovering – There were 2 bright lights in the sky hovering, then suddenly vanished.”

One of the last Phoenix UFO sightings of 2019 was reported on December 12: “30 lights in a perfect line heading from NNE sky to SSE horizon over Phoenix, AZ at 6:15 a.m. on 12/12/2019.” An eyewitness said, “I saw the first light as it came into view in the NNE sky. It was a light; I thought it may have been the ISS [International Space Station]. I have witnessed this before. Usually, I would watch the light pass over until it vanished in the SSE sky, then go inside to the computer to check my sighting. This morning, however, the lights kept on coming. They were spaced apart and formed a line. I thought maybe satellites or possible commercial flight paths, but they kept on coming. I then thought military but they kept on coming. There were two instances when there were two lights moving parallel with each other. They all were moving in a perfect line perfectly spaced. I counted at least 30.”

Phoenix’s Channel 12 News reported that discs, triangles, lights, and fireballs are among the objects reported by witnesses in Phoenix and throughout Arizona. The objects last anywhere from seconds to more than an hour.

Peter Davenport, director of the National UFO Reporting Center in Harrington, Washington, said that there were 221 sightings of UFOs in Arizona in 2019. Many of the sightings were in metropolitan areas rather than rural locations. On December 18th, a witness said, “I was sitting at my kitchen table and I saw a saucer with blue lights, ran outside, it was cruising low and slow from South Mountain traveling Northeast towards Scottsdale.” Two separate reports filed on the same day, December 12, detailed a similar event, with both parties describing “thirty star-like objects traveling in a line.” 

Two months earlier, in September 2019, at least one person reported “Six silver irregular flying objects zig-zagging over Scottsdale, AZ.”

Davenport said, “We are being visited routinely by these things that since 1947 we’ve called UFOs…Nobody knows exactly what they are, but many believe these UFOS might be signs of life beyond our planet. If this is true, if there’s even a shard of a possibility that this is true, it is the biggest scientific question that has ever confronted mankind.”

One Question Lingers: Why Arizona?

Many areas of Arizona do not have the same number of city lights as other largely populated places, making objects in the sky much easier to see at night. And, because Arizona’s climate is so dry there are often very few clouds to obscure stargazing — or UFO-spotting. In any case, with such a dazzling display of the heavens over the still desert landscape, what you see flying across the sky is often unmistakably otherworldly. 

And then there are claims that Arizona contains a number of unusual vortices, including many in the mountain town of Sedona, 115 miles north of Phoenix, said to be sights of powerfully attractive energy currents emanating from the mountainous terrain. 

Preston Dennet, author of UFOs Over Arizona: A True History of Extraterrestrial Encounters in the Grand Canyon State, wrote that Arizona has been a UFO hotspot for more than 100 years. He noted that there are 81 locations that “provide a dazzling array of sightings, landings, face-to-face encounters, abductions, and even UFO crash/retrievals.” Among the incidents of UFO and alien sightings are the Paradise Valley UFO crash, the Travis Walton Abduction, and the Phoenix Lights. 

Jim Dobson wrote for Forbes that, according to the National UFO Reporting Center, there were more than “4,881 reported sightings in the United States in 2017, imagine how many were not reported.” In Sedona, tourists head into the night, equipped with night vision glasses, binoculars, and telescopes. The amount of activity recorded is tremendous, with reported sightings of orbs, portals, and aliens all within the high desert.

In March 2018, two airline pilots at 30,000 feet over Arizona reported an unidentified flying object as it flew over their planes. The incident made the national news. CBS News reported that both pilots, one of a Learjet operated by Phoenix Air and the other of an American Airlines flight, independently called in the sighting. Coincidentally, the UFO sighting took place just 500 miles away from Roswell, New Mexico. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) subsequently released a recording of the radio broadcasts.

Perhaps one of the most notorious UFO incidents occurred when a forestry worker named Travis Walton claimed to be abducted by aliens on November 5, 1975, in the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest three hours Northeast of Phoenix. Walton reappeared after a five-day search and his case remains one of the most famous abduction accounts. Walton’s experience was scripted into the 1993 film called Fire in the Sky.

Too Many Sightings to Deny

Accounts of UFO activity over the Grand Canyon state go on and on and on. Testimony is given by seasoned military personnel, commercial and private airplane pilots, Native Americans gazing up at the stars, amateur, and university astronomers, and homeowners casually glancing skyward on one of an endless string of crystal clear evenings.

While the Phoenix Lights incident was amazing by any standard, odds are that if you desperately want to see a UFO, Arizona is one of the best bets for you to realize your dream. But you may want to bring along a really good camera and a steady hand because a long history of official denial has shown that you’ll be singing into the wind, or at least preaching to the chorus when you see something that your eyes and brain are telling you cannot be anything from this planet.