Tonight, a shocking event
sends the city of Phoenix into a panic.
More than 100 witnesses called the UFO hotline.
Some believe it's one of the largest scale UFO sightings
in history.
They were about 3,000 feet high, approximately.
They looked as though they were kind of hovering.
But the question is, what the heck is it?
Now, we reveal the top theories behind this phenomenon.
JASON McCLELLAN: What we find out is this
isn't an isolated incident.
These phenomena happen all the time.
Is the government covering something up?
MICHAEL J. CARTER: Is Phoenix in the crosshairs
of a possible interstellar war?
Are we being targeted for some reason?
What could possibly account for the mysterious Phoenix Lights?
[music]
New York, New York, December 16th, 2017.
News breaks of a secret Pentagon program
investigating unidentified aerial phenomenon,
also known as UFOs.
AMORY SIVERTSON: The New York Times publishes
a bombshell report that details the work
of the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program,
a shadowy government group that has spent 10 years
investigating military encounters
with strange unknown objects in the sky.
Here is another UFO bulletin.
AMORY: For years, people have reported encounters with UFOs.
Roswell, Lubbock, Belgium-- the list goes on and on,
and stretches as far back as antiquity.
JASON: Acknowledging this program's existence
is huge, because up to this point
the government's position
has been deny, deny, deny.
AMORY: And now, they're not only admitting
that these lights in the sky really are something,
but that they are, in fact, unidentified.
LAURENCE: Within months the government
declassifies videos of some of these encounters.
PILOT: Look at that thing, dude.
LAURENCE: Including one captured by the Navy in 2004,
known as the "Tic Tac Video."
PILOT: My gosh.
100 miles off the coast of San Diego,
radar tracks the object descending from 15 miles high
down to 50 feet in about one second.
PILOT: Whoa, got it!
[laughing] Woohoo!
No known object
can fly that fast.
PILOT: Oh my gosh, dude.
- Wow. - What is that, man?
Look at it fly!
When jets intercept it, the cylindrical craft
drops down below the water...
What the -- is that, man?
AMORY: ...then flies up into the air,
and then disappears.
LAURENCE: When radar detects the object,
it's already 60 miles away.
The video causes a sensation when it's released.
It's not only massive international news,
it's also vindication--
vindication for people who have seen these craft
and have spent years swearing that they exist.
LAURENCE: Perhaps none feel more vindicated
than the citizens who witnessed a strange event
on March 13th, 1997.
On the night of March 13th,
reports come in from Phoenix,
as well as California, Nevada, and New Mexico.
People are describing
a huge V-shaped craft
moving southeast along the region.
SHANE: Around sunset, a man in Henderson, Nevada,
observed and reported a triangular-shaped aircraft
with lights underneath it hovering over the desert.
MICHAEL: He moves in closer to get a better look,
and the object starts to move.
Now, he doesn't know what he's looking at,
but he does know this is not an airplane.
LAURENCE: The sighting of the unidentified craft
is quickly confirmed by others.
Twenty minutes later, a retired police officer
calls to report that he's seeing the same object
200 miles south of Henderson.
AMORY: He follows it with his car,
and he's never closer to it than about a mile.
And yet, even from there, he can tell it's gigantic.
MICHAEL: Reports continue to flood in.
At 8:20, Prescott Valley,
20 minutes later, downtown Phoenix.
JASON: I was kind of surprised to see it on the news,
but at the same time, I was excited,
because I thought I would get some answers
to explain this strange thing that I'd just seen.
These were incredibly bright lights.
They were completely motionless, made no sound,
and these lights just hung there
directly over me, and I was awestruck.
I observed these lights for a period of about 30 minutes,
went inside, came back out later,
and 45 minutes later, this string of lights
is still in the sky.
LAURENCE: Also among the eyewitnesses,
Dr. Lynne Kitei.
LYNNE KITEI: On March 13th, 1997, the Hale-Bopp comet
was in clear view
on a beautiful spring night
in the northwest sky.
Thousands of people went outside to catch a glimpse of it.
I go outside, and suddenly I notice
three amber orbs.
Every other light out there glared.
These did not.
The light did not extend outside the edge.
It was self-contained.
They were very soothing, very mesmerizing.
And then, the top orb started to shrink
very, very slowly,
until it was pea-size, and then disappeared.
But it felt like it was still there.
LAURENCE: As Dr. Kitei watches the sky,
calls pour in to local police and news stations.
We start tonight with those strange dots of light
that were the talk of the town.
More than 100 witnesses called the UFO hotline.
LAURENCE: For answers, authorities immediately
reach out to Luke Air Force Base.
ALEJANDRO ROJAS: Luke Air Force Base is a base
right in the heart of Phoenix,
and they fly a lot of advanced aircraft.
So, obviously, if anybody knows what's going on,
they would be someone you would call
to find out what the heck this is.
So, police, reporters, and even the governor
are calling the base to find out what's going on.
SHANE: Luke Air Force Base
indicated that they had no planes
up in the air at the time,
and they didn't know anything about it.
It was basically, "Nothing to see here, move along."
LAURENCE: But four months later, the base offers an explanation.
SHANE: They indicated that a team of A-10 Warthogs
from the Maryland National Guard had deployed flares
over the Estrella Mountains at that time.
LAURENCE: Footage from that night
seems to support this theory, at first.
It's getting closer and closer, and we're saying,
you know, that thing's coming right at us!
AMORY: When you look at the witness video,
I guess it's possible they do kinda look like flares.
And military activity is pretty prevalent in the area.
In addition to Luke, there's Davis-Monthan Base,
also in Arizona.
And then there's Kirtland and the Holloman bases
not too far away in New Mexico.
LAURENCE: But eyewitnesses quickly raise doubts.
So, the Phoenix Light event really had two phases.
One was the large V-shaped craft flying across the state,
and the other was the lights over the Estrella Mountains.
However, when you look at the flare theory,
the flares might explain the lights over the mountains,
but it doesn't explain the V-shaped aircraft
witnessed by thousands of people.
LYNNE: It was so awesome and so mind-boggling.
Massive, massive craft right over people's heads.
It was silent.
Took off at blank speed without even dispersing the air.
If you're trying to tell me that flares
that are dropped from an aircraft on a parachute
that drop haphazardly with the wind,
have huge smoke trails that are illuminated
by the flare itself,
and illuminate the area around it.
They're heat-seeking for missiles
that are coming towards aircraft.
And not one person described any of that.
LAURENCE: And there are other red flags.
The Air Force claims that the A-10 Warthogs
deployed the flares over the Estrella Mountains
around 10:00 p.m.,
which is not typically standard operating procedure.
In addition to that, those flares--
the LUU-2B/B flare--
falls at a rate of about eight feet per second.
And from the time the first flare was dropped
to the last flare, those flares would have dropped
some 1,500 feet.
Yet the video shows those lights in a stationary position
for about 30 minutes.
LYNNE: And these amazing amber orbs
were just mind-boggling,
so different than anything you've ever seen,
different from any other light out there.
It definitely wasn't flares.
LAURENCE: The massive craft also leaves no trace on radar.
Air traffic controllers at Sky Harbor International Airport
check their call logs and their radar,
and found no indication of these aircraft.
And if that's not the definition of a UFO,
I don't know what is.
LAURENCE: To silence the skeptics,
the Air Force decides to conduct
a flare-drop demonstration for the public.
LYNNE: We get a very public announcement
that three Air National Guards were coming into town
to show everyone the Phoenix Lights,
and we were ready.
ALEJANDRO: And a lot of people felt that exercise
didn't look similar to what they had seen on March 13th.
LYNNE: Talk about a joke. [chuckles]
They tried to make a triangle.
It was upside-down and fell apart immediately.
One of them just fizzled out.
Had huge smoke trails, just what flares do.
It really put the nail in the coffin.
They had their shot.
To date, the Phoenix Lights have never been recreated
or explained.
JASON: It's almost comical that this is what
they expect us to believe.
But fortunately, I and many others in Phoenix
who saw the Phoenix Lights that night
weren't about to take the Air Force's word
at face value.
We were ready to dig in and get answers.
LAURENCE: After thousands witness unexplained lights
in the sky above Phoenix, Arizona, in 1997,
the city is desperate for answers.
The March 13th, 1997 Phoenix Lights incident
was probably the largest UFO mass sighting
in UFO history.
But the question is, what the heck is it?
AMORY: The military says it's flares,
but almost nobody in Phoenix believes it.
They know what they saw,
they know what flares look like,
and these weren't flares.
MICHAEL: One of the things that I think bothers people the most
is the behavior of our military.
AMORY: Initially, the Air Force denies having any involvement
with the event, but four months later
they come out with this flare story.
Why is that?
SHANE: Even Governor Fife Symington himself,
a former Air Force pilot,
tried to make inquiries
to the military as to the identification
of this object, and he himself
got the runaround.
And he's the governor of the state of Arizona.
Symington was also skeptical of the flare explanation.
He claimed that, you know, flares don't fly in formation.
LAURENCE: Is it possible the military
has something to hide?
SHANE: So, many people feel that Luke Air Force Base
is not letting on everything they know.
And the reason they could be doing that
is because they're protecting some secret military technology.
LAURENCE: Located 20 miles northwest of downtown Phoenix,
Luke Air Force Base is home to the most advanced aircraft
in the U.S.
AMORY: Luke Air Force Base is affectionately called
"The Home of the Fighter Pilot."
It's where the 56th Fighter Wing is based.
And this is the Air Force's version
of what the Navy famously calls Top Gun.
RICHARD HOFFMAN: Back in '97, it was the F-15,
the F-16s were coming out.
There were a whole bunch of other kinds of aircraft
that could potentially be seen
being flown out of Luke Air Force Base.
AMORY: Basically, any fixed-wing aircraft
in the U.S. arsenal has flown at Luke,
plus a few that we don't know about,
because they're top-secret.
JASON: We know for certain that the U.S. military
has tested top-secret weapons and aircraft
in this area for decades.
LAURENCE: Among the state-of-the-art aircraft
initially flown here, the X-1, the X-15,
and the Blackbird.
Each test is classified and top-secret,
and for some, that's a clue.
These are all aircraft that were developed
and tested in total secrecy up over the deserts here.
If you would ask the military about any of these
back when they were still being developed,
you would have heard the same kind of subterfuge
and denial that we heard with the Phoenix Lights incident.
SHANE: There's a high presence of the military
in the state of Arizona, and perhaps they were testing
some secret technology.
So, it makes sense that people might have mistaken
what they saw on the night of March 13th, '97,
for a UFO.
LAURENCE: It wouldn't be the first time that's happened.
SHANE: In the 1980s there were many UFO reports
in the state of Arizona.
However, those reports ended up being identified
as the F-117A and the B-2 Bomber
that were in development at the time.
When you look at these aircraft, what do you see?
You see V-shaped aircraft that look similar
with what they reported in the Phoenix Lights,
albeit smaller.
AMORY: More recently, we've had some UFO sightings
that actually turned out to be advanced spy drones,
like the Air Force's RQ-170 and RQ-180.
Engineers contracted by the government
are currently at work on a new stealth bomber,
the B-21, which is scheduled to be operational
in the mid-2020s.
That project wasn't greenlit until 2015,
so it's not responsible for the Phoenix Lights.
But it just goes to show they're always working on something.
ALEJANDRO: If nothing else, we know that the Southwest
is a hotbed for innovation for aerospace
in the public and private sector.
LAURENCE: Even so, some doubt the military
has the advanced technology witnesses say they observed
in Phoenix in 1997.
Witnesses describe something out of a sci-fi movie.
They see this giant V-shaped craft
which was hundreds and hundreds of yards across.
SHANE: By comparison, known aircraft
such as the B-2 Bomber,
the wingspan is only 172 feet.
Or the largest plane known to be flown,
the Stratolaunch, only had a wingspan
of 385 feet.
Our government has never flown anything this big.
AMORY: The Phoenix Lights craft also moved slowly.
Estimates place it at about 15 to 30 miles an hour,
and it was maybe 100 to 200 feet off the ground at times.
He thinks that-- he said if he had a tennis ball,
he could have hit it.
He could have thrown a tennis ball at it,
- it was that close. - It was very close.
I just could have nailed it.
LAURENCE: Others report seeing the object
come to a stop and hover in place.
AMORY: Airplanes can't do that.
There's not enough airflow to produce loft
with their wings.
Helicopters can, but the Phoenix Lights craft
moved silently.
The flight characteristics that they describe
are unlike any other machine we have in the air today.
And keep in mind, this is back in 1997,
so 25 years ago, they had something this incredible,
and it still hasn't ever seen the light of day?
LAURENCE: But John Powell, a private defense contractor
for JP Aerospace, believes this capability exists,
and will soon be made public.
Powell and JP Aerospace were awarded a grant in 2014
to develop slow-moving, top-secret classified
triangular aircraft.
So, Powell believes that perhaps what they saw
during the Phoenix Lights was something similar
to what he's been developing.
AMORY: The specs of these are highly classified,
but JP Aerospace was able to get a prototype
of this thing going.
LAURENCE: Meanwhile, Arizona lawmakers
continue to press the military for more answers.
SHANE: So, Frances Emma Barwood
was a City of Phoenix councilperson.
She launched an investigation into the Phoenix Lights
because no one else would.
She interviewed over 700 witnesses.
She offered to let the military talk to those witnesses,
and they chose not to interview a single person.
ALEJANDRO: Then-Senator John McCain
put in a formal request for more information,
but that request was denied.
LYNNE: If it's military, show me.
We have not seen anything technologically
even close to what thousands saw
on March 13th, 1997, right above their heads.
The technology has never been seen.
If it was military experimental aircraft, show me.
ALEJANDRO: Until really the government comes out
and says this was them,
and it is some sort of classified project,
people just still aren't gonna know what to believe in,
and it'll remain a mystery.
LAURENCE: Phoenix, Arizona, April 21st, 2008,
nearly 11 years after an entire city
witnesses a strange UFO event, it happens again.
So, on Monday at about 8:05 p.m.,
again, you know, the police, the Air Force,
authorities are being inundated with reports
that there's another set of lights hovering over the city.
It's unbelievable, or maybe it's totally believable.
If it happened once, why couldn't it happen again?
REPORTER: Live and late-breaking right now, they're back.
Did you see them tonight?
Many people called our news room about lights in the sky.
SHANE: People reported that there was a series
of four or five orange-red lights
over the north valley.
It's like a repeat of the 1997 incident.
People come out running out,
and they see a V-shaped formation of lights.
Initially there was four lights.
They were about 3,000 feet high, approximately.
They looked as though they were kind of hovering or floating.
LAURENCE: But as it progresses, this event plays out differently
from the 1997 sighting.
AMORY: As this 2008 formation hovers,
the shape changes from a triangle into a square.
The previous lights just remained uniform
in their V-shape.
Lights in the sky, did you see them tonight?
Many people were calling our news room.
And if you missed it, take a look.
One man in North Phoenix caught the lights on home video,
15 minutes' worth.
Whatever you believe happened back in 1997,
people are convinced that it's happening again.
LAURENCE: This time, they won't have to wait long for answers.
Unlike the Phoenix Lights, the mystery to this event
only lasted about 12 hours,
because the next day, April 22nd,
a man called in admitting that he was responsible.
It was all a hoax.
The whole thing was staged.
The man tied flares to helium balloons,
and then let them go one minute apart.
AMORY: Is this a relief? Is it disappointing?
Does it make people angry? It's hard to know how to feel.
But one thing it does is it makes people
look back at the real Phoenix Lights event
11 years prior, and think,
"Well, wait, what if that was a hoax too?"
Back in 1997 while they're looking for answers
and people are going to the government,
there are a lot of people that think
the whole thing was just a gag.
LAURENCE: A 1997 press conference
held by Arizona's then-governor, Fife Symington,
seems to bolster that theory.
We're initially excited and think we're finally gonna
get a real investigation.
And Fife Symington saw it, and he's one of us.
And now, I'll ask Officer Stein and his colleagues
to escort the accused into the room
so that we may all look upon the guilty party.
Don't get him too close to me, please.
It's... you know.
In walks Governor Symington's chief of staff, Jay Heiler,
dressed in an alien suit and handcuffs.
JASON: It's met with laughter and applause.
It really does the whole thing a huge disservice.
The problem with the press conference
was it made getting answers so much harder.
If you ask any questions about it,
you were labeled a crackpot.
Those kinds of things are not helpful.
And for people who are really interested
and they wanna find out what's going on...
[laughter]
Thank you.
MICHAEL: You can't get to the bottom of anything
because no one is taking it seriously.
SHANE: After that news conference,
the national media picked up on that,
that it's a joke and not a serious event,
and that became the story.
LAURENCE: It's a story some refuse to accept.
Most people who thought it was a hoax and laughed at it
didn't actually see it happen.
But unfortunately, I think that laughter
and skepticism was loud enough
that it kept many of us from finding more answers.
It's unlikely that the Phoenix Lights
could be explained as a hoax,
because you would need someone to convince people
along a 400-mile length of desert
that they're seeing an object as large as a cruise ship
with lights on it as large as swimming pools.
Then you would have to pull a second stunt
and convince a population of 2.5 million people
that, you know, this large V-shaped group of lights
flew over the city.
That would be awfully difficult to hoax.
LYNNE: Twenty-five years later, if it was a hoax,
I would think that someone would have come forward
now that it's become world-renowned.
That has not happened to date.
JASON: The individual responsible for the 2008 prank
can't even hold his tongue for 24 hours.
Saying it's a hoax is really saying
that all of the witnesses
didn't understand what they were seeing.
It's saying that they were gullible rubes.
LAURENCE: Then, 10 years after the 1997 sighting,
Governor Symington changes his story
and challenges the hoax theory.
So, in 2007, Governor Symington came out to indicate
that not only was the Phoenix Lights not a hoax,
but that he, in fact, saw the craft himself.
Well, I saw a-- a huge craft
just kind of come right over Squaw Peak...
that was-- you know, it was just breathtaking.
SHANE: At the time people in the city of Phoenix
reported a UFO sighting,
Symington was under such political pressure
as governor of the state,
he did not want to add to those political woes
by claiming to have seen a UFO himself.
JASON: Thanks to him, for about a decade
the Phoenix Lights is really largely viewed as a hoax.
But his abrupt about-face
creates renewed interest in the case.
It returns to the news cycle, and it comes at a time
when people are more willing to believe.
It's no longer a joke or a source of embarrassment.
It's a genuine mystery.
After news of the Pentagon's secret UFO monitoring program
makes headlines in 2022,
Congress vows to investigate further.
That spring, the House holds the first public hearing
on UFOS in more than 50 years.
Those who witnessed the Phoenix Lights
hope it can finally lead to answers.
AMORY: Congress talks to dozens of defense
and intelligence officials,
and collects thousands and thousands of documents.
All of that research is compiled into a House Committee report
about UFO encounters like the one
that happened in Phoenix.
And while we know that people have seen UFOs
from time to time, what we didn't know
is that the military themselves have had hundreds
of their own UFO encounters
which they've been keeping quiet until now.
UAPs are unexplained, it's true,
but they are real.
They need to be investigated,
and many threats they pose need to be mitigated.
JASON: This is huge.
This is the U.S. government going on record
to say these things are real.
MICHAEL: They've collected 144 incidents
about these UAPs.
Eighty of those they have data on,
infrared, sensory,
and of course, video.
Well, describe what we have seen in that.
What are we observing?
What you see here is aircraft
that is operating in a U.S. Navy training range
that has observed a spherical object in that area.
And as they fly by it, they take a video.
LAURENCE: Several declassified government videos
are released, all seeming proof
that extraterrestrial encounters exist.
And suddenly, we have all the evidence we need
about what happened in Phoenix.
JASON: Thanks to the hearings, we find out
that these encounters aren't isolated incidents.
They happen all the time.
MICHAEL: I mean, how else can you reconcile the facts?
A silently floating, hovering craft
the size of several football fields,
invisible to radar.
There's nothing on Earth that fits that description.
LAURENCE: Believers like Michael Carter
cite a 1997 call made to AM radio show
Coast to Coast as further evidence
of an alien encounter over Phoenix.
The call is from a corpsman,
someone who actually works at Luke Air Force Base.
He has an incredible story about what happened on the base
when this object appeared over the sky
of northern Arizona.
The corpsman said the base gets a call about 8:15
about a large object moving out of the sky in the northwest.
Soon afterwards, an alarm goes off,
and all hell breaks loose.
Luke Air Force Base keeps
two F-15s on standby
for emergency use.
And on the evening of March 13th, 1997,
allegedly they scrambled those two F-15s
to intercept the object.
The radio caller doesn't know what it is,
and to be frank, I don't think the pilots do either.
ALEJANDRO: The caller claims that the event
had scared the hell out of the pilots,
but they had gotten some gun camera footage
of the object.
LAURENCE: If the caller is telling the truth,
the Air Force may have actually recorded
the Phoenix Lights UFO.
Which means, possibly locked away
in some secret vault somewhere,
we may actually have footage.
We may have proof of what these pilots actually saw.
LAURENCE: Unfortunately, if the video exists,
it's never released, and the anonymous caller
has no additional information.
JASON: He isn't one of the pilots sent out.
He's just on the base when he hears all the commotion
and the base goes into lockdown, so he can't say exactly
what the potential spacecraft was doing in the area.
LAURENCE: Some theorists believe it's not there by coincidence.
SHANE: Within a 500-mile radius of the city of Phoenix,
there are several secret military bases.
Area 51 to the north,
Edwards Air Force Base to the west,
and White Sands Missile Base to the east.
JASON: If aliens were scouting Earth and its defenses,
this would be a perfect place to go.
LAURENCE: Arizona is also home to several nuclear sites,
areas that recent evidence suggests may attract
unidentified aircraft.
MICHAEL: We're having more and more sightings now,
and within those sightings there are certain patterns.
And what we're seeing is that there are more events
where these UFOs are hovering
over our nuclear military instillations.
LAURENCE: The phenomena isn't limited to the United States.
There are sightings in Mexico, Italy, and even Iran.
AMORY: There's a series of UFO-related events
that happen in Iran in 2004 and 2005
over one of their secret nuclear sites.
Several times during that two-year period
pilots near the Bushehr Nuclear Facility
have encounters with large luminous cylinders
that look and sound similar to the quote-unquote "Tic-Tac UFO"
that U.S. Navy pilots saw in San Diego.
And in one of those encounters, an Iranian pilot
actually engaged with the object.
LAURENCE: As news of such events continues to spread,
more become convinced that what happened in Phoenix
isn't an isolated incident.
LAURENCE: Arizona's vast desert has been home to humans
for many thousands of years.
And according to some, there are signs
in the archeological record
that suggest the Phoenix Lights incident
is far from unique.
MICHAEL: When you look back into the history of this region,
it dawns on you that before
we even had the technology
where we could take pictures of this,
and videos, and what have you, this part of the country
was always having these kinds of sightings.
AMORY: The Native Americans who live in this part
of the Southwestern United States
have a very complex mythology
in which we see numerous references and stories
about the so-called "star people."
These are powerful, yet benevolent beings
arriving from other worlds.
Both the Hopi and the Zuni trace their ancestry
back to beings that they believe arrived
from the region of the Pleiades,
which is a star cluster about 400 light years away
near the constellation of Taurus.
MICHAEL: We see myths and legends
about the star people, a benevolent but powerful people
that these tribes have interacted with.
AMORY: These myths and artwork suggest this area
has been a hub for extraterrestrial activity,
and that the Phoenix Lights incident
is just part of a repeating pattern,
that these star people have been coming back
time and time again.
JASON: Some believe the Phoenix Lights incident
is just one in a series of extraterrestrial encounters
that have been going on for a long time,
but started to increase in 1995.
AMORY: The March of '97 event was certainly seen
by the most people, but some believe
there were several previous fly-bys.
One of them was witnessed by several people.
They stated that on January 21st, 1995,
they saw a triangular formation of large lights.
They weren't bright, necessarily,
but they were really big.
They looked odd.
LYNNE: I step out on the balcony
and immediately notice
an eerie silence.
The entire object turned against the wind,
elevated slowly, and then moved
in synchrony behind South Mountain.
But it felt like something was watching me.
LAURENCE: According to the National UFO Reporting Center,
the sightings in Arizona grow increasingly frequent
in the two years before the 1997 Phoenix event.
ALEJANDRO: Researchers have found that coming up
to the 1997 event,
that there was an increase
of sightings of triangular craft.
JASON: In fact, in January and February of 1997
we have multiple reports
from multiple locations
of the same formation of lights over Arizona.
SHANE: Air traffic controllers
at Sky Harbor International Airport
observed five equidistance lights
that rose about 1,000 feet
above the deck,
they floated back behind South Mountain,
and dropped out of sight.
They had no idea what they saw.
It wasn't on radar, and they behaved in a way
that was unexplainable.
LAURENCE: And right before the Phoenix Lights,
a tiny Arizona town is treated to an encounter of their own.
SHANE: On March 12th, 1997,
the night before the Phoenix Lights incident,
a group of people made reports of UFOs
in a town called Leupp.
JASON: Leupp is 200 miles north of Phoenix,
south of the Grand Canyon and the Hopi Indian Reservation,
who as we've seen, share a rich mythology
of alien visitation.
SHANE: A large V-shaped aircraft appeared in their valley
with about a dozen other small craft,
and they began to float and engage each other
almost like an extraterrestrial ballet.
And these people pulled out their lawn chairs
and watched it like they were watching the fireworks
on the 4th of July.
LAURENCE: But why did these possible visits ramp up,
and why did they stop?
JASON: That's the real question.
Let's say Arizona has been getting regular alien visitation
for millennia.
What's so special about the mid '90s
that we start to get a flurry of activity?
We go from a few visits per century
to a few visits per year, to several in the same month.
Then, absolutely nothing.
Can anybody explain that?
LAURENCE: Despite the many thousands of eyewitnesses
to the 1997 Phoenix event,
the cause of the incident remains a mystery.
It's military flares, it's an experimental aircraft,
it's a hoax, it's aliens.
Is the government covering something up?
Are we being targeted for some reason?
JASON: Each theory has some arguments for it
and some against it,
and each by itself leaves a lot
of unanswered questions.
MICHAEL: Many theorists say, "Wait a minute,
"we've had these answers here
the whole time."
The events on March 13th, 1997,
isn't just about just one of these theories.
It's about all of them.
LAURENCE: It all begins around 8:00 p.m.
This is the period when people actually see the spacecraft.
The hull of it and the structure of it is visible.
AMORY: The silent movements, the anti-gravity technology
it seems to exhibit.
Knowing what we now know about the long history
of UFO contact in the United States,
many are convinced that this is an alien ship.
It does a low slow pass across Nevada and Arizona,
sparking hundreds of reports to authorities.
MICHAEL: As we know from the Luke Air Force Base
radio caller, these UFO sightings
get the attention of the military.
JASON: They scramble their jets on a course to intercept.
According to that airman, they actually see the craft,
and perhaps even film it.
MICHAEL: Now, the airman claims that F-15s
were sent out to investigate.
But simultaneous reports here, here, and here
show that that may not have been so.
AMORY: Many don't believe they sent F-15s
next to the alien ship.
People didn't see any F-15s,
radar didn't pick up any F-15s,
nobody heard any F-15s.
MICHAEL: These are pretty loud fighter planes.
You know when an F-15 is flying overhead.
One thing that characterizes this whole event
is how quiet the whole thing was.
The military actually sends out a top-secret experimental craft.
People over here are seeing an alien ship,
while people over here are seeing
a top-secret military aircraft.
LAURENCE: Is it possible that the U.S.
scrambled a top-secret experimental craft
to intercept the alleged alien vessel?
One thing is certain,
whatever is in the air doesn't stay around long.
JASON: Why it leaves, we don't know.
Were they spooked by the military intercept?
MICHAEL: Are they trying to gather intelligence
on our defense capabilities?
Whatever the reason, they took off.
AMORY: Now, if this theory is correct,
the military has a problem on its hands.
They know a large amount of the population
in the Phoenix area has seen this alien spaceship.
But in 1997, the government's policy on UFOs
is very clear-- deny, deny, deny.
LAURENCE: Thanks to recent congressional hearings,
it's clear the military has a long clandestine history
of encounters with UAPs,
as well as a history of cover-ups.
Perhaps the Phoenix Lights is one of them.
And Luke Air Force Base is a possible ground zero.
JASON: So, the bigwigs at Luke Air Force Base
speak to their superiors,
and they realize they have precious little time
to figure out how to deal with this situation.
MICHAEL: Within a half hour or so,
they come up with a plan, a subterfuge,
which is a little hoax of their own.
JASON: They send up A-10 Warthogs
to drop a series of flares right over Phoenix.
They choose a very visible place where everyone will see.
MICHAEL: So, if they were going to do
a secret quote-unquote "training exercise,"
why would they drop these flares
in front of 2.5 million people
knowing they were gonna freak out about it?
JASON: If it was what they say it was,
they would have done it in seclusion.
They choose to drop the flares
in front of the whole city on purpose,
because it's not a training exercise,
it's a distraction.
LAURENCE: Their explanation works initially.
MICHAEL: While 1,000 people are seeing an alien spaceship,
a million-plus people are seeing flares in the sky.
JASON: That's the story the Air Force releases,
and they're able to convince people for a while.
MICHAEL: They at least confuse enough people to create doubt.
They even convince the governor to ignore what he saw
and call the whole thing a joke on national television.
If it is just military flares
and I come out screaming about aliens,
I'm gonna be a laughing stock.
Once you have people thinking in that way, you've won.
MICHAEL: So, there's an alien encounter.
Then it's the sighting of a top-secret military aircraft.
Then it's flares used to create a hoax
and then to cover up the truth.
LAURENCE: Thanks to new government transparency,
believers are optimistic the truth
will someday be known.
Now that the armed forces are more open
about UFO sightings, there's renewed hope
that they might come out with more information
about what actually happened in Phoenix.
What did they encounter in 1997?
Did they actually capture it on film?
As they continue to declassify these files and videos,
maybe we'll find out.
As congressmen, senators, and even presidents have said,
the focus of their research is to determine
if UFOs pose a threat to America.
MICHAEL: Some people are curious,
and then there are some people
who are really scared.
Is Phoenix in the crosshairs of a possible interstellar war?
Well, the public would like to know that.
JASON: It's a hard thing to explain,
but a lot of people who experienced this event
came away feeling something,
wondering if they were meant to see it,
meant to feel it, meant to experience
some sort of connection with what they saw.
Some even describe feeling calm
or even being told to not be afraid.
People were in awe and in wonder, curious.
So many cars pulled over
to watch this amazing,
extraordinary sight.
In real time and in long term,
it affected the experiencers very profoundly.
Who are you? What are you?
Do you know that I'm here? I'd love to meet you.
Today, the U.S. government's tracking
and studying of UFOs
continues under the authority
of the Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon Task Force.
There's even a new branch of the military to assist--
the United States Space Force.
And perhaps together they'll gain insight
into what really happened in Phoenix.
I'm Laurence Fishburne.
Thank you for watching
"History's Greatest Mysteries."