The Phoenix Lights

The following is an excerpt from the Arizona Daily Star. It basically says that the governor of Arizona recently admitted to seeing a UFO and covering it up so as not to create a state-wide panic.

The sighting took place in Phoenix Arizona, circa 1997, during an event which is generally referred to as "The Phoenix Lights". Here is a still shot from amateur footage:


And here is the excerpt:

Former Gov. Fife Symington says now that those strange lights that appeared over Phoenix a decade ago were from another world and that he had a close encounter with an alien craft on March 13, 1997.

"I'm a pilot and I know just about every machine that flies. It was bigger than anything that I've ever seen. It remains a great mystery. Other people saw it, responsible people," Symington said Thursday. "I don't know why people would ridicule it."

Symington, who was in his second term as governor of Arizona during the Phoenix Lights incident, recently told a UFO investigator making a documentary that he had kept quiet about his personal close encounter because he didn't want to panic the populace.

He repeated his story Thursday on CNN, saying the craft he saw was "enormous. It just felt other-worldly. In your gut, you could just tell it was other-worldly."

The governor didn't let on at the time, instead poking fun at the whole thing.

He hosted a press conference a few months after the mass sightings to announce that his Department of Public Safety had arrested the culprit responsible — a very tall bug-eyed creature brought before the media in handcuffs.

He then unmasked the creature to reveal his chief of staff, Jay Heiler, who at 6-foot-4 made an imposing, somewhat comical space alien.

Symington said the producer of the film "Out of the Blue," James Fox, originally sought him out to talk about why he had spoofed the sightings but then asked if he had seen the lights.

"I said, 'Yeah, I got a good look.'"

Heiler said Thursday he isn't surprised Symington believes in UFOs.

He said his boss was a "Trekkie" who enjoyed discussing space travel. Heiler said Symington was convinced that earthlings would be traveling to distant solar systems at speeds exceeding the speed of light "in our lifetimes."

We should probably mention that Symington was arrested on charges of wire and bank fraud during his tenure as governor and asked to vacate his public office, which he did last September.

Still, though.

UFO's.
The Truth is Out There, Motherfucker.