UFO’s over Phoenix? Again?
April 22nd, 2008
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You may remember a few years ago there were a series of lights seen over Phoenix Arizona. It was pretty conclusively identified as being flares dropped by the military in an exercise not far from the city, although many people claimed that it was one object with a solid structure miles across (analysis of the video was not consistent with this).
Last night it apparently happened again. This time it was only four lights which clearly are not connected due to the fact that they move relative to eachother. People are already crying “UFO OMG ALIENS!” Luckily a few voices of sanity prevail, one being the Village Voice, which is not generally known for standing out as a voice of sanity. Apparently the FAA is not too concerned about it, although as of yet, no planes have been identified as the source of the lights.
There have been several videos sent to news agencies and posted online. Here’s one of them:
If you look closely one thing you’ll notice is that in some of the steadier frames you can clearly make out a strobe light effect on at least some of the red lights. There appears to be a brief flash followed by a double-flash. This is the textbook sign of the strobes required on all civil aircraft in the United States, and also common on military aircraft when flying in civilian air space.Whether this is a group of civilian planes, flying in formation or a group of military planes is not known. I would bet it is military as civilian aircraft rarely fly in formation, except for the occasional aerobatic team and almost never at night. The military, on the other hand, does this quite commonly. Although there has been no confirmation of military aircraft in the area, it would not be the first time that a military exercise was not reported right away or a paperwork error lead to the military incorrectly stating the location of their aircraft in such circumstances.
This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 22nd, 2008 at 7:16 pm and is filed under Bad Science, Paranormal, Space. 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 22nd, 2008 at 7:41 pm
Once I saw what I thought was a UFO. I was in Maine on the South Coast several year ago, in the town of Kennebunk. One night I saw a strange group of lights in the sky, forming a slow moving sphere. They were very bright and strangely silent. I was totally unable to identify these lights, and as I was a couple of drinks over the legal limit, my imagination kicked in and I began entertaining the possibility that I was seeing a UFO. At that point my host joined me on the lawn and told me that this was George Bush Senior’s helicopter escort leaving Kennebunkport, surrounding the bird carrying the President, and indeed at that moment the sounds of choppers made it’s way up wind.
But for a minute there I was bracing myself for something stranger.
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April 22nd, 2008 at 8:30 pm
There’s a saying: when you hear galloping, think horse, not zebra. Kinda seems to fit here.
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April 22nd, 2008 at 9:19 pm
I sometimes think I might attract UFO’s because I’ve seen strange blurred lights that are hard to keep track of or identify. For some reason it only happens when I’m really really drunk. Maybe the aliens like to party!
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April 22nd, 2008 at 10:54 pm
If these clowns actually cared about having their video used as “evidence” or having the object identified they should use a tripod or at the very least lean the camera on something to steady it. “UFO Videos” are consistently the worst camera work I have ever seen.
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April 23rd, 2008 at 4:23 am
Dr. Buzzo, there you go again, with your science and reason business, thinking that you can kill a myth. Lights in the sky at night? Of course they are alien spaceships. The government knows all about UFO, they just won’t tell us, They are trying to keep us in the dark. You are probably a government agent. In on the conspiracy of silence, Keeping the information from the people. Keeping the people from finding out that the president is one of them. Keeping us from finding out that George W. Bush is an alien from outer space, who doesn’t even have a green card.
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April 23rd, 2008 at 3:06 pm
It is a bit odd to see those lights so close and in that kind of pattern but the strobe lights are a dead giveaway and it’s clearly aircraft lights. Phoenix is not far from several military bases and formation flying at night is difficult, even with night vision and collision avoidance so I am going to guess that the reason for the odd lights is that it is a training flight and they are starting the crew off with lights to make it easier before they go to close-in flying on instruments and night vision.
That would explain why the navigational lights are on and why there is the red glow. I recall hearing about something like that before.
One article said the Air Force had no aircraft in the area but they could be wrong if they called the wrong base or it could be army choppers too which would explain the slow flying.
I don’t know, but it’s so obvious those are aircraft!
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April 23rd, 2008 at 3:33 pm
Why does everyone think “UFO” = “Alien Space Craft” UFO means Unidentified Flying Object. I don’t have a problem calling these UFOs because until the aircraft are conclusively identified then that’s what they are by definition.
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