I’m a filmmaker who spent months interviewing witnesses and government officials about the Phoenix Lights. Today is the 29th anniversary. AMA.

Today marks 29 years since the Phoenix Lights mass sighting on March 13, 1997.

Last year I spent 6+ months researching the case and interviewing witnesses while making a documentary about the event. I specifically spoke with witnesses who didn’t just see lights in the distance, but rather saw a physical object passing directly over their heads. I had several of them take me to the exact locations where they were standing that night. 

I also spoke with government officials who tried to raise questions about the sightings, as well as analysts who were involved in examining the available videos and witness reports at the time.

One thing that quickly became clear during my research is that two separate events happened that night, which are often blended together in most retellings of the story.

Event #1: Around 8:15–8:30 PM
Thousands of witnesses across Arizona reported seeing a massive object moving silently overhead. Witnesses often disagreed on whether there were 5 lights or 7 lights, or whether it was V-shaped, or Boomerang-shaped. But the one thing they almost all agreed on was that there appeared to be structure between the lights that blocked out the stars behind it.

There is only one widely known video from around this earlier timeframe, filmed by a retired police officer named Terry Proctor, showing a V-formation of 5 lights moving together across the sky.

Event #2: Around 10:00 PM
A row of bright lights appeared over South Mountain in Phoenix. Four well-known videos exist from this timeframe (Tom King, Chuck Rairden, Mike Krzyston, and Dr. Lynne Kitei). These are the videos most people have seen, and the ones often associated with the military flare explanation.

One interesting observation from my investigation is that you almost never hear from witnesses who were standing directly under the row of lights seen at 10PM. Most eyewitness accounts (other than the four videos) come from earlier in the evening.

While digging deeper into the story, I also ran into a number of lesser-known aspects of the case that most people never hear about:

• Military response: Multiple witnesses reported seeing fighter jets responding to something in the sky that night. One report came from an airman who called the National UFO Reporting Center at 3AM the morning of the event and claimed two F-15s had been scrambled and the base went on lockdown. That call was recorded and later released by Peter Davenport of NUFORC, who personally took the call.

• Frances Barwood: A Phoenix city councilwoman who asked questions about the Phoenix Lights in a city council meeting was quickly ridiculed in the press and politically isolated after bringing the issue up publicly. According to Barwood, after that meeting another government official privately told her, “You didn’t hear this from me, but you’re on the right track.” Witnesses began contacting her directly with their reports, which she collected and stored at Village Labs in Tempe, a facility that had been analyzing Phoenix Lights video footage at the time. A break-in would later occur where the only items taken were Barwood’s Phoenix Lights files.

• Men In Black: One witness claimed to have recorded the craft passing directly overhead, but later said the tape was taken by unidentified individuals who claimed to represent the city. According to the witness and staff of the apartment building, these two men arrived in a black SUV wearing black suits and sunglasses. After the witness spoke publicly about the incident – according to the apartment manager and front desk staff – these “men in black” returned, and this time took the witness with them. He never returned for his belongings, and has not been seen since. Barwood later stated she also discovered her phone had been wiretapped around this time. Individuals described as “men in black” were also reportedly seen visiting Village Labs shortly before Barwood’s records went missing.

The Phoenix Lights is often dismissed today. But when you start speaking directly with the witnesses and looking into what happened afterward, the story becomes far deeper and more complicated than most people realize. 

I’ve only barely scratched the surface here, but I’m happy to answer questions about the investigation, the witnesses, or anything else about the case.

If anyone wants to watch the documentary I made while investigating this, here it is:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7y1XhyTe4Zs

Ask me anything.