Pheonix Lights Identified
April 26th, 2008
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Turns out they were not an alien space craft and are no longer a UFO. I had mentioned in a previous post that I could make out some strobes, which indicates an aircraft, and theorized they were all aircraft.
Well, it turns out I was wrong on this, but the explanation is even more mundane. It turns out it was a hoax. Someone had attached some flares to helium balloons. This was confirmed by his neighbors, who saw it happen. The fire department was also aware of the flares and had concerns it might spark a brush fire. The flashing strobe associated with the lights may have been a police helicopter which was apparently in the area to check out the flares. And yes, the crew of the chopper and the fire department have confirmed that they were indeed flares. They came in for a close look and no doubt about it: flares on balloons.
The video has been taken down. It’s a shame because I wanted to see if that really may have been the helicopter or whether I was seeing strobes where there were none. It’s not too surprising the video is down now, because it would seem those who rushed to jump on this hoax are now looking like some pretty big fools. Doubtless there will be a few who hang onto it though, and will claim the balloon-flare explanation somehow was fabricated.
This entry was posted on Saturday, April 26th, 2008 at 8:10 pm and is filed under Conspiracy Theories, Misc, Paranormal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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April 26th, 2008 at 8:28 pm
This sort of thing has been done before. i wonder why the police aren’t pressing charges. Surely sending balloon-borne flares aloft is a significant fire hazard.
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April 26th, 2008 at 10:26 pm
Well that was boring! I did see a news report a few days ago though where they said the FAA “refused” to investigate and had “ordered” air controllers to not talk to the press on it. The article had a strong undertone that they knew something and were hiding it for the government. Of course, I don’t buy that. The FAA probably didn’t want anyone speaking on their behalf and didn’t see a need to investigate but it was already being suggested it was a conspiracy.
Oh well. The UFO and CT’ers look like idiots but they always do anyway. I doubt this will stop them from jumping on the next time someone has a shaky video of a light or something.
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April 27th, 2008 at 12:06 am
Finrod said:
Perhaps they are hoping to just have this story go away because it makes the population of Phoenix appear to be completely gullible idiots to the rest of the world?
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April 27th, 2008 at 1:54 am
Such an underwhelming cause. I was hoping it would be a flight of F-117’s flying off to the boneyard for retirement with their lights on or something interesting like that. This is just a disappointment. I’m not saying that I thought that it was an alien space craft but I a guy with balloons is just too lame. People are really gullible.
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April 27th, 2008 at 1:58 am
It seems to me that a lot of people are the kind who look up at the sky and if they see a light they assume it is a UFO until they are proven otherwise. I’m sure many never even considered the possibility it might be something really mundane.
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April 27th, 2008 at 3:14 am
Yeah, you are probably right. Which is particularly hilarious, when you consider how many things there are that can actually be seen in the sky, moving in ways that would seem odd if you only expect airplanes. Plenty of satellites can be seen, as well as the ISS and the space shuttle. Small meteors are not too uncommon. Since it can be hard to judge distance when looking up, there are even a number of surface phenomenon that can seem like something funny in the sky. Even a kids model rocket at night would have the potential to seem like a flying object.
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April 27th, 2008 at 4:07 am
I remember one night when I was in my early twenties (about 20 years ago now) walking out the front door to get something from the downstairs room I used as a study and looking up at the sky, as I was something of an ametuer astronomer in those days. There was a complete horizon-to-horizon cloud cover. The cloud layer was very thin, illuminated from above by moonlight from a moon that was near to if not actually full, so it had a sort of soft glow to it right across the sky. Then I saw something startling.
For nearly half the length of the sky ran a solid, razor-sharp, ruler-straight black line, at least half-a-degree wide. It hung there like some celestial highway, defying gravity and rational explanation alike. For several seconds I did not know what to make of it.
Then I saw something else; a band of white, slightly thinner, running parallel to the black band through the heavens, offset from it by a few degrees. Then the solution was obvious.
The white band was a jet contrail. The black band which had puzzled me was the shadow of the contrail cast by the moonlight onto the thin cloud layer below.
I wonder what someone a bit less observant would have made of it?
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April 27th, 2008 at 11:35 am
Yes. but was the guy who perpetrated the so called hoax really an alien who was trying to divert attention from the many million aliens from outer space, who live in this country illegally? These space aliens are just so sneaky, and has anyone ever checked to see if they take baths?
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April 27th, 2008 at 1:44 pm
Charles Barton said:
Hey, look, they came here just because they wanted to make an honest living and there’s not enough good paying jobs back on their home planet. 99% of them are good honest decent life forms which come to earth just hoping to make the money to support their families in a job most of us probably would not take.
Oh sure, you hear about the ones who are abducting people and giving them anal probes, but do you really think that is what most of them are like? No. They might not speak the language and they might look different, what with their giant eyes and massive heads and scrawny bodies with pale gray skin, but deep down they’re just the same as anyone else, except for the green blood and stuff.
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April 27th, 2008 at 3:17 pm
I was expecting that a boring and mundane explanation would come out for this, but considering how it got some national news coverage I thought it would be at least a little less boring and mundane than this. My money would have been on a small military exercise of some type or possibly flares dropped from planes again, but flares on balloons is disappointingly unimpressive.
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April 27th, 2008 at 8:24 pm
An Actual Scientist said:
Me too
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April 27th, 2008 at 8:46 pm
It was a UFO.
Now it is an IFO.
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April 28th, 2008 at 6:53 pm
A couple of years ago I saw at the supermarket checkout the headline:
Space ship with 10 aliens on board intercepted off the California coast!!!
It turned out, that the ONLY thing wrong with the headline was the word “Space”.
It was actually a ship with 10 illegal immigrants from south-east asia on board.
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April 28th, 2008 at 7:10 pm
KLA said:
Well the ship takes up space. The ship had space on it. The ship was on the earth which is part of the Milky Way Galaxy which is part of space.
So it was not entirely wrong.
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July 30th, 2008 at 4:36 am
As an actual occasional UFO hoaxer, (I’ve sent a few balloons with blinky lights attached over crowded areas just to guage reactions. (Most don’t even get NOTICED, BTW(!!))) I can say that this Phoenix Lights hoax was incredibly irresponsible. Sending open flame into the air, not knowing where it will come down? Not cool! In fact, more specifically, as a FORMER RESERVE FIREFIGHTER: NOT COOL!
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