[ PSYCHIC VIBRATIONS ROBERT SHEAFFER Sheaffer’s “Psychic Vibrations” column has appeared in the SKEPTICAL INQUIRER for forty years. His new book, Bad UFOs, is available through his blog, BadUFOs.com. His website is www.debunker.com.

The ‘Phoenix Lights’ Become an ‘Incident’

ne of the best-known UFO by the Air National Guard out of mode, they did not have on their sightings in recent years—the Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in familiar blinking collision lights but Oso-called “Phoenix Lights”— Tucson, . In the first incident, instead their formation lights, which took place on the evening of March something described as a large “flying look like landing lights (in any case, 13, 1997. They were very widely seen triangle” was sighted during the eight Federal Aviation Administration rules largely because that was one of the o’clock hour. Five A-10 jets from concerning private and commercial best nights to see the bright naked-eye Operation Snowbird had flown from aircraft lights, flight altitudes, etc., Comet Hale-Bopp, and large numbers Tucson to Nellis Air Force Base near do not apply to military aircraft). The of people went outdoors to observe it. Las Vegas several days earlier, and A-10s flew over the Phoenix area They were surprised to see something because this was the final night of the and flew on to Tucson, landing at else in the sky. (There were later, unre- operation, they were now returning. Davis-Monthan about 8:45 PM. Some lated Phoenix Lights events as well; see, The A-10 jets were flying under VFR witnesses claim that it was a single for example, “The Mysterious Phoenix (visual flight rules), so there was no huge solid object, but the sole video Lights,” SI, July/August 2008.) need for them to check in with airports existing of the objects shows them The Phoenix Lights episode actually along the route. They were following moving with respect to each other, and consists of two unrelated incidents, the main air corridor for air traffic hence were separate objects. although both were the result of traveling that route, the “highway in In the second incident, starting activities of the same organization: the sky.” (Why a UFO would follow around 10:00 PM that same evening, Operation Snowbird, a pilot training U.S. air traffic corridors is a mystery.) hundreds if not thousands of people program operated in the winter Because they were flying in formation in the Phoenix area witnessed a row of

The Phoenix Lights episode actually consists of two unrelated incidents, although both were the result of activities of the same organization.

A-10 jets like those whose flight with their bright formation lights on caused the first sighting.

16 Volume 40 Issue 4 | Skeptical Inquirer brilliant lights hovering in the sky, or additional sighting reports from addi- The Phoenix Incident is a fictional- slowly falling. Many photographs and tional witnesses, including accounts of ized heart-pounding thriller based on this real-life event. Written and videos were taken, making this per- a giant UFO a mile wide hovering over directed by gaming talent director haps the most widely witnessed UFO Phoenix’s Sky Harbor Airport. Keith Arem ( Call of Duty , Titan- event in history. This was a flare drop But now the Phoenix Lights are fall ) and starring Troy Baker (famed practiced by different A-10 jets from growing to even more gigantic propor- gaming actor) this one-night event the Maryland Air National Guard, also uses whistleblower testimony, recov- ered military footage and eyewitness operating out of Davis-Monthan from accounts to create a sci-fi thriller that Operation Snowbird. And since this examines the US military’s alleged was the last night of the operation, they engagement of alien spacecrafts. seem to have had a lot of flares that (http://goo.gl/RdMLDm) needed dropping. On my Bad UFOs The movie received its premiere Blog, I have written a detailed analy- public showing at the UFO Congress sis of each incident (see http://goo.gl/ at the close of the Friday session. It’s 5g4zE5). mostly shaky, dark “found footage,” The “flare drop” explanation is less supposedly left behind by four guys controversial than that for the “flying who were eaten by aliens. The plot: triangle,” but even the former is often As Comet Hale-Bopp passes Earth, challenged. Dr. Lynne D. Kitei, for it is followed by a companion object, a one, isn’t having any of this “flare drop” UFO, which falls to Earth and lands in business. On her website ThePhoenix- Arizona. Out pour scary aliens, looking Lights.net (which claims to promote somewhat like the creatures in Alien , “Evolution to a New Consciousness,” who start to eat people. Somehow the whatever that means), she claims she military covers it all up. The irony is was watching the Phoenix Lights two this: while everyone was inside watch- years before everyone else, and that her ing the premiere of this silly movie, the research proves “we are not alone.” By Air National Guard was busy dropping some complicated analysis, she claims flares again over the Barry Goldwater to have proven that the objects pho- range. And we didn’t see them. tographed could not have been flares, Until now, the Phoenix Lights were although I haven’t run across anyone simply that: they were just lights in who understands what she’s saying. While everyone was the sky, skeptics and proponents could I heard her speak at the 2012 In- agree. But this movie, by mixing actual ternational UFO Congress near Phoe- inside watching the photos and video of the lights and ac- nix, and some of her photos of UFOs premiere of this silly tual witnesses’ accounts with dramatic appeared to me to be lights on the movie, the Air National fictional elements, has succeeded in ground. Giving up her medical practice muddying the waters. In the movie, to become a full-time promoter of the Guard was busy drop- four men disappear in the desert, be- story, “Dr. Lynne” (as she is sometimes ping flares again over coming lunch for sinister-looking called) has made a documentary film, aliens, while the footage they sup- The Phoenix Lights , and has often ap- the Barry Goldwater posedly left behind becomes the basis peared on Coast to Coast AM , the well- range. And we didn’t for this mockumentary. The military known late-night paranormal and con- somehow knows all about these aliens spiracy-fest hosted by George Noory, see them. and apparently drives them off. Oper- to tell her version of the story. ation Snowbird appears in the film— Each year in March around the an- not as the pilot-training program it is niversary of the incident (“We’re com- but instead as a sinister coverup agency ing up on the twentieth anniversary that is sent out to disseminate confu- next year!” she excitedly told me at this tions, if that is possible. A new motion sion and falsehood whenever aliens year’s UFO Congress), she hosts an picture, The Phoenix Incident , was being pop up. Relaxing outdoors at the UFO event in an auditorium in Phoenix in promoted in a big way at this year’s Congress the evening after the showing which videos are shown, and witnesses UFO Congress, with a large desk in of this film, I heard a certain know-it- new and old relate their stories. Dr. the vendors’ area proclaiming “The all discussing it and telling the people Lynne is a sweet lady who is unfailingly Truth is Coming” and handing out who had gathered around him, “Our cheerful and polite, even if you disagree cheesy little boomerangs labeled with planes engaged the Triangle!” In other with her (or don’t understand what the film title. According to the movie’s words, he claimed that U.S. Air Force she’s saying). She has accumulated promotional material: jets fought off a gigantic alien triangu-

Skeptical Inquirer | July/August 2016 17 [ PSYCHIC VIBRATIONS ROBERT SHEAFFER lar craft nineteen years ago. [Vallee] wasn’t able to sell more than cal roots and development of UFO The claims of a “companion ob- 150 of the 500 future copies of Wonders mythology, so whether anomalous ject” following Comet Hale-Bopp were in the Sky he put up for sale late last year” phenomena have acted as stimuli or not isn’t as relevant to me as it was in made by an amateur astronomer who (http://goo.gl/dJYHZZ). 2009. claimed to have a photo of it. The claim was promoted on the Coast to Coast This statement sounds like Aubeck AM all-night, all-high-weirdness radio backtracking and washing his hands show, then hosted by , and of Vallee’s claim that this material rep- set off a sensation lasting two months. resents a Challenge to Science (an inside The photo shows nothing more than a joke; that’s the title of one of Vallee’s misidentified star, but this was enough early books). Kottmeyer has also shown to trigger thirty-nine members of the that the “primary source” consulted for Heavens Gate UFO cult, led by Mar- Vallee and Aubeck’s description of a shall Applewhite, to take their own lives sighting of anomalous objects by the on March 26, 1997, so they could “rise famous French astronomer Charles up” and join the object supposedly fol- Messier (entry # 358) was not any con- lowing the comet. temporary eighteenth-century source but Charles Fort’s Book of the Damned. * * * The description of the incident in Vallee Jacques Vallee, a Silicon Valley venture and Aubeck differs from that in actual capitalist who sits on the board of a half- primary sources but matches Fort’s fan- dozen such firms, wants you to send him ciful description of it. So much for a money. Vallee, a leading UFO author book boldly heralded by its authors as “a for over fifty years, is crowdsourcing breakthrough in UFO research”! funds for 500 copies of the new (and * * * hopefully revised) “collector’s limited Since that was written, Vallee and edition” of the 2009 book he coauthored Aubeck have sold two more; there are In other news, UFOlogist Richard with Chris Aubeck, Wonders in the Sky. now only 348 copies remaining for sub- Dolan recently declared his belief in The book deals with unexplained reports scription. For the specifics of Cola vito’s chemtrail conspiracies. On March 30, of things reportedly seen in the sky be- criticisms, see http://goo.gl/X1VrfN. he wrote on his Facebook page: Researcher Martin Kottmeyer noted fore the modern UFO era, going all the All day long, I have been watching way back to ancient Rome and Greece. that alleged sightings of “Neith,” a sup- the aircraft stream across Rochester’s Vallee says that he will present the book, posed moon of Venus, were cited nine skies. Most of them have been with its “facsimile commemorative coin” times in the book as unknowns. How- leaving behind trails that do not ever: go away, simply spreading across and “artistic beauty and scientific merit,” the sky. For those who do not pay “to science” to show that UFO sightings Neith had been debunked in Nature attention, these look like ordinary have been around for a long time and magazine back in 1887. The Nature clouds that have come in. But most should be taken seriously. I don’t think author looked into 33 observations/ of this is not natural. . . . I believe claims that Venus had a satellite. All “science” will ever get to see this pur- that geo-engineering is real. When but one had a good solution along the I grew up in the 1970s, this type portedly marvelous book, with only 500 lines of either the positions of known of nonsense did not occur. And I copies of it ever to be printed, and all of stars or suspicions of optical ghosts lived just outside New York City, them presumably in the hands of peo- and artifacts of the telescope lenses in watching major airline traffic every use. The final one was guessed to be day go over my house. Such artificial ple who have contributed $220 to the a minor asteroid passing near Earth. effort. This fundraising scarcely seems clouds never existed back then. This (http://goo.gl/n8CSlt) phenomenon is real. necessary since the $110,000 this effort is hoped to bring in ought to be small As for Vallee’s coauthor Chris Aubeck, UFO buffs sometimes describe change to someone like Vallee. he recently posted this to a Facebook Dolan as “cautious” and “thoughtful,” And that part about the “scientific discussion of apparent errors in the even though he has long been promot- merit” is also pretty dubious. Blogger book: ing loopy stuff such as the “secret space Jason Colavito, who has been studying Over the last eight years my inter- program.” Last year, he took a big hit the claims in Wonders in the Sky, calls it a est in UFOs has changed so that I from his participation in promoting the “demonstrably false and generally quite approach the subject as an observer/ “Roswell slides” (see this column, Sep- folklorist/historian/archivist of the unreliable anthology of badly translated evolution of itself, not to tember/October, 2015). I don’t think and frequently fictitious documents re- defend individual cases. I am deeply we’ll be hearing that kind of talk about ■ cording premodern UFO sightings. . . . involved in plotting the histori- Dolan any longer.

18 Volume 40 Issue 4 | Skeptical Inquirer