The Phoenix Lights: Unravelling the Greatest UFO Mystery in History
HTML-код
- Опубликовано: 6 сен 2024
- In 1997, a mass sighting of a UFO event occurred in Arizona, known as "The Phoenix Lights". Witnessed by hundreds, the phenomenon was deemed the most credible UFO sighting in modern history. Despite the public's interest, officials were unwilling to investigate the occurrence, leading to ridicule and dismissal of those who sought answers.
Simon's Social Media:
Twitter: / simonwhistler
Instagram: / simonwhistler
Love content? Check out Simon's other RUclips Channels:
SideProjects: / @sideprojects
Biographics: / @biographics
Geographics: / @geographicstravel
Casual Criminalist: / @thecasualcriminalist
Today I Found Out: / todayifoundout
TopTenz: / toptenznet
Highlight History: / @highlighthistory
XPLRD: / @xplrd
Business Blaze: / @brainblaze6526
The drilling next door to Simon is most certainly the aliens constructing their underground base. Where best to hide an entrance than next to an extreme paranormal cynic.
Keep up the good content Simon!
🤣🤣🤣
Don't come crying to us when you get probed! 🤣
Or Danny trying to great escape himself from the basement.
Darkest part of a room is under the candle.
damn i wish he would shout at them and call them infidels like he used to
Involuntary colonoscopy imminent D:
Simon: "Why would aliens be interested in us, we're like ants to them."
Simon always seems to forget that entomologist exist
Or the line from the movie "Contact". Ellie: we pose no threat. It'd be like going out of our way to destroy a bacteria in an ant hill in Africa Drumlin: Interesting analogy, Ellie. And exactly how guilty would we feel about destroying that bacteria?
And we split atoms.
@@robertcooney1938 So? Literally any advanced species would be able to do this. We did it before we had modern computers, it's not that difficult a task in theory.
@@tonymorris4335 before you comment on someone else's, remember that their comment is an answer to a question, perhaps, like in this case.
@@benjalucian1515 but how can we make that assumption?
Scientists: dedicate their entire lives to studying ants and amoebas/ Simon: aliens would have no interest in us like ants and amoebas
Yeah maybe the Aliens have a Human Studies department.
@@chill_yall6439 most likely. Also probably a botanical one too.
@@sebs29 Yeah there are so many reasons not to mention nukes and now the thing we're working on that's gonna be 1000 times smarter than us (Ai)
@@chill_yall6439 downfall of mankind is trying to run before you can walk with AI.
Agreed. I also think the argument of distance to travel is absurd. It's far for us, but so was traveling around the world until we invented tech to make it faster. Just like traveling to Mars is really far, but decades in the future we might create some new tech to make it faster. Aliens probably got that figured out. Like flying from the UK to Brazil to abduct some ants for research, traveling from Andromeda to here might just be that easy for them. Who knows...we certainly don't.
A friend of mine saw the Phoenix lights, she said it looked like a giant black ship that didn't make any noise.
So the flares floated from Phoenix to Tuscon in 90 minutes?? Those are some impressive flares. And they're testing some secret stuff when literally the entire country is looking up and the sky for the Hale-Bop comet? Did nobody check the calendar before they scheduled this?
started way north of phoenix too..
You seem to be forgetting altitude and line of sight in your little "equation" there.
I drove from phx to Tucson going 140mph, yes I know not smart, I was like all young people young and dumb, however I promise you I got to Tucson in less than 90mins lol
So flares floated in perfect formation for at least 90 minutes, and stayed lit the whole time, the wind never blew them even slightly out of a perfectly shaped triangle… I’m gonna need you to come up with a better shitty excuse than that.
@@BeatsAndMeatsyou're conflating the two different incidents, the triangle of lights that flew by was explained as jets flying in formation, the flares are an explanation for the line of lights that floated largely in place until they sporadically disappeared
It's hard enough finding intelligent life on this planet
That’s an understatement
ba-dum-tiss! Heyyoooo!!! 😉
Agreed
Could not agree more
Depends on if looking for a mayor or a city manager
Simon's guesses of American geography has shown an improvement - Arizona is in fact near Vegas, and Vermont is definitely in the North East, and Washington is definitely in the North West. Good for you, fact boi!
He said he only knows Arizona because they make iced tea... but Arizona iced tea isn't made or headquartered in Arizona lol.
@@rubiconnn Arizona iced tea is ironically make in New York.
I'm so proud of him 🥲
100 miles east of Las Vegas
Brits have a problem generally with our geography. I once told British friends about doing a driving tour around the whole country, they figured it would only take "a week or so" .
First, Simon a mayor is pretty much the CEO of a city or town. Next, I was extremely intoxicated on that day, as per it was my birthday week. Friends explained it to me later like I missed the greatest event of human history. I saw something very similar in Colorado Springs(home of Norad and several other military bases) years later. I assume it's some really really cool military toy.
I spent most of my teenage years in Colorado springs and I can promise that there are all kinds of weird lights in those skies that people just tune out because everyone assumes it's the military.
My first year there, I was in middle school and my friends and I were doing a weekend sleep over where we got to stay in the yard of my friends trail park out on the east side of town. All of a sudden, we saw what looked like the spotlight of a helicopter sweep overhead, but with zero sound, and it dipped and dived all over the sky like a drunk mouse in a maze. I was blown away and all my friends were like "man that's just the air force doing something" and went back to trading Pokemon cards.
I felt like an idiot for a minute, and then rejoined them playing Pokemon cards while they made fun of me for believing in aliens
don't they have mayors in the uk? i seem to remember a lord mayor when we put up your bridge. p.s. it hasn't fallen down. p.s.s. I've lived here since 1966. i didn't see anything unusual, try as i might. i suspect they are full of our biggest commodity - bullshit.
@@mta4562 he's not in the UK. He is also not a mayor there.
@@Lunch_Meat yeah, saw weird shit in the AF. Never saw any UAPs or "Aliens" or technology for that matter.
@@RECTALBURRITO i'm given to understand he grew up in the uk.
the lord mayor of london visited arizona when somebody bought the london bridge and set it up at lake havasu. i didn't think he was mayor in a country to which he is not native. are you quite sure you can really read?
I witnessed the Phoenix lights, on my wedding night ...coming out of the Olive Garden at Metro Center off the 17 Freeway and Northern Ave in Phx when I was 19 yrs old.
It happened, period. Thousands of us saw it.
I spent my wedding night watching it...best night of my life in so many ways ❤.
I love when people try to debunk it though....Simon (smh) when they arent even old enough to remember it or even in the same state/city, let alone country lol...yeah😂😂
Sure, it happened. Who's saying it didn't? That doesn't make it aliens.
The 97' phoenix lights were the best evidence of aliens to me as a child.
Pausing to say as a New Mexican who's had to deal with people in my own country not knowing where New Mexico was and telling me I spoke English real good, Simon's rant on Arizona and where it is felt really really good lmao
older people know, its the college kids who think new mexico in not in the us LOL
@@justaguy-69 I grew up there and am 40+. It was way more prevalent then that it is today.
I certainly don't know where to look for a state in the South Western US that was acquired following a war with Mexico after which they were forced to cede vast territories of land in addition to Texan land claims. I'm a Millenial, you see ;)
And Arizona? Mr. Whistler mentioned it himself, you find it in the 'Juice' section of the coolers in the local convenience store.
Due to loow humidity and often high visibility distance 50+, you often see many optical illusions. I am on the flight path for one of the local airports and I often see all kinds of light patterns. But the light is normally white green or red. My favorite daytime optical illusion was seeing a mountain range some 100 miles away appear to be floating in the air like magic.
I believe that particular optical phenomenon you're referring to is called "Fata Morgana"
From other videos, it seems like traffic on a mountain highway somewhere close by, and by what you say about optics in the atmosphere over there, seems entirely possible
Mass hallucination caused by swamp gas?
@@SilentRacer911 We dont have mountain highways anywhere in the PHX area
@@Moestradamis the same effect can be caused by refracted lights which are below the horizon. I dunno, I think Thomas Mackerley’s explanation might be worth checking.
Im a pilot and I happened to have also witnessed this when I was 8 years old in Phoenix. I’ll never forget it. What is being left out is that there were certain orbs that were moving around in ways that would be absolutely impossible for flares. They would appear and then disappear, and move in zig zag patterns. It was unbelievable.
So you saw military aircraft break formation, perform drills, and rejoin the formation.
Could they have been early prototype military drones?
@@Midorikonokami 1996 - The Predator Drone is Developed
You've had over 25 years for those memories to be muddled.
I’m fairly certain I know what you’re taking about, they looked more like stars than. The same thing but they definitely weren’t stars. It was weird. .
In 2015, I saw a Trident missile test, fired from a US submarine off the coast of Malibu, California. I was ~500 miles North (near San Francisco), and the night conditions were perfect to see an eerie blue triangle, silently moving toward the horizon. Gave me goosebumps, even though I'm a skeptic like Simon!
I saw it also! No one else I was was were the slightest bit interested.
Saw the first falcon heavy launch from Phoenix and my phone was dead.
The crazy ionization as it broke through the magnetosphere looked fucking insane. Like really insane. Even as a modern human, it really looked like aliens or the end of the world for a split second. I did have to get to a McDonald’s and get my phone plugged in for peace of mind though 😅
@D.Ambrose Do you have an IPhone?
@@JesseG085 yeah I did, I didn’t have service at the time so I needed Wi-Fi as well, if I recall correctly
@D.Ambrose It sounded like an IPhone problem. 😁
The big issue with the "explainable but top secret" is that if it was supposed to be secret and they didn't want people to be talking about it, they wouldn't be doing it right over dense populations.
I'm a fan of the "Black budget hypothesis" for UFOs but, yes, that issue isn't easily discounted.
The ufo phenomenon is now regarded as a serious acknowledged phenomenon,I don't appreciate Simons take on this event.
Unless they wanted to test how far they can gaslight people 😂
@@stephenpomfret5068it always has been an acknowledged phenomenon, also noone has ever identified one as an alien spacecraft. Even the recent famous ones behave suspiciously like ducks, airliners and satellites
Ya this is such a bad explanation, absolutely stupid
Hey, if I see a bunch of burning lights floating in the air, maybe I'd get a bit concerned and ask someone wtf. Regardless, the council woman that brought it up shouldn't have been treated that way at all. She was just asking what they were because people kept asking her. How's that not a legitimate safety concern?
I think people like to act like stuff is silly when they’re trying to not get creeped out? Like hahaha she’s crazy amirite? Right? *sweating* RIGHT?!! Gulp I totally agree with you. People scoff when they don’t understand something. I feel bad for her. I bet she was seething.
@@Redkrovvy it's "group think". A couple of people started making fun of her so the rest wanted to belong and join in because it felt "normal" to bully someone who had legitimate questions.
anything hanging over a city thats 2 miles wide and big enough to land 50- B52 bombers on is a concern..espacially if it has no wings or engines and you cant tell how its not falling on top of hundreds of houses..
3:55 - Chapter 1 - The phoenix lights
15:35 - Chapter 2 - Explanations
22:30 - Chapter 3 - Secret military tech
24:45 - Chapter 4 - Operation snowbird
26:30 - Chapter 5 - The rub
36:40 - Chapter 6 - The V shaped craft
Thank you. I like to jump to the topic.
Wonder how much shorter his videos would be if he didnt go on a tangent every other minute
@@ronaldyuzicappi8331he would have more views, since a lot of kids now have little to no attention span
@@ronaldyuzicappi8331I like the tangents because i use these to help me focus on work.
@@ronaldyuzicappi8331I like the tangents because i use these to help me focus on work.
Have to say the editing of this episode was fantastic- the clips used were spot on. From here on whenever Simon yells at the camera I’m going to forever see is a screaming goat.
My favourite part of the video
33:11 This story reminds me of that time when there was a major power outage in California and the whole LA suddenly went dark at night. As a result, everyone started calling the police saying that there are millions of weird lights on the sky. What they saw, were just stars on the night sky, something they had never seen before, having lived their whole lives in a huge city with major light pollution.
Are you serious?? Hadn't they left the city and saw the stars??
@@jrmckim LA and its surrounding cities are a major source of light pollution, plus there's actual pollution in the air which also makes it harder to see the night sky. As such, the sky you can see in the city is nothing like what you can see, for example, in the middle of the desert, which is why telescopes are usually situated on a mountain peak or in the middle of nowhere to avoid that. And since most Americans don't really travel much, and even if they do, it's usually to other places where there are people (and light pollution), they rarely have a chance to see the night sky in all its wonder.
I saw it with my own eyes. The lights stayed perfectly still in perfect formation for about an hour. NO CHANCE those were flares.
I saw this UFO in 1995 in El Paso, TX. Since I was surrounded by military bases and saw the Stealth bombers before their existence was even announced, I always assumed it was military testing something.
Yeah exactly, which is honestly likely why she got shut down and mocked. "HAHA aliens" is a lot easier to say than "what new fighter plane?!"
The B2 stealth bomber entered services in January 1997, at least according to a quick Google search, just a few months before this particular UFO sighting. My immediate thought for a "flying boomerang" UFO with some extra lights tailing it in a V formation is a B2 with a pair of fighter escorts.
Yeah. The boomerang shape is way bigger, quieter, and slower, but it seems so similar to the Stealth Bomber I can only imagine it's a DARPA project. In combat theaters, US military tech lets us own the sky and the dark. I don't think it's any coincidence that this craft was spotted in the air, at night.
I routinely used to drive from Dallas to Albuquerque in the mid 90s. Military planes would frequently be tested over west Texas. I saw heaps of random lights in the sky.
@@phoenixmercurous884 neither the b2 or fighters have downward facing lights. They also cant fly that slowly or silently. Jets make a lot of noise even from large distances. Its far too obvious.
The problem with the phoenix lights is not that we know what it is, its that we know what it wasnt and that doesnt leave many options.
Lights in the dark can be very hard to accurately identify without perspective, such as a solid reference point.
Years back a friend of mine called me up to tell me there was a huge alien mothership floating over my home... when I stepped outside to see what he was talking about, I saw it -- floating above me, quietly moving a few hundred feet above the trees, was.... the Goodyear Blimp. It was in town for the Superbowl that weekend, and its flight down the coast had been widely publicized.
My friend refused to believe that tho -- and, honestly, I can understand why. He lives a good 10 miles away -- while I was just hundreds of feet away, and could clearly see the ginormous "Goodyear" lettering, from his vantage all he could see was the lighting rig. And while he refused to ever admit it, I'm pretty sure his vision wasn't anywhere close to 20/20 hehe! So all he could see was an oblong blob of light slowly crawling across a dark sky -- which is a classic UFO description.
Naturally, as time went on, his retellings of his "alien encounter" grew ever more detailed, eventually culminating in a fleet of alien ships (directly over HIS home, not mine hehe!) engaging in combat with military jets before shooting off in a streak of light, leaving him with several hours of "missing time." I'm pretty sure something like that would have been noticed in an area as heavily developed and populated as Tampa tho :P
Simon don’t feel bad about not knowing American geography. I only just found out that stone henge was in the south of England. For some reason I always thought it was in Scotland
Atleast I’m not the only one that thought it was in the midlands or Scotland lol
wait what?
@@elizabethchandler4573 oh yeah, it’s totally in the south. Google maps says it’s about an hour and a half drive south west from London
To be fair, there's quite a few megalithic sites up here
Simon's as keen to believe anything that isn't aliens as some people are as keen to believe it is aliens.
because he understands how far away the moon is, let alone the next star…
As an Arizona resident (in the greater Phoenix area). I got so excited when I saw that Simon did this video.....before reminding myself that Simon likes to DESTROY EVERYTHING WHIMSICAL. THIS IS WHY WE CAN'T HAVE NICE THINGS!!! 😂😂
There’s also a ratheon site in Tucson which builds stuff for the military so it definitely wouldn’t be surprising if the military was testing out secret stuff in that area
Yeah, but they don’t normally fly that stuff over the heart of a major city.
My cousin was driving home from Luke air force base and saw the lights. she called them 'spooky'. Her husband was a high ranking military officer. He knew of no military projects at that time over phoenix. I believe that several hundred thousand people saw those lights. when they were irst spotted people ran out into their yards and streets to watch them.
I lived near Luke AFB as well and saw them also!
They clearly never read Day of the Triffids. If the lights had radiation that damaged the eyes they'd look pretty stupid.
Same. I was only 13, but I remember the lights very well
The video dude is a tool...
I saw them as a senior in h.s. out to view Hale Bopp comet for Physics class extra credit paragraph (I needed the help!)
I didn't get lucky enough to experience a flyover but saw an enormous string of orbs, and each orb must've been huge since I was miles away from them. (Atop a hill in Sunny Slope area of PHX at the old Glass Park).
The flare thing isnt plausible but if they were dropped, they weren't what I saw.
It's great to know that Simon still goes crazy about the imagined drilling next door
Once I could hear it I couldn't unhear it. It's faint, but it's there
@@cleverusername9369 you're losing it too
There's a hidden plug with an old Nokia plugged in, set to vibrate. Someone just calls it every so often to f with him.
I saw this in the desert between Tucson and Phoenix that night- east of Marana. It rattled me then I am still seriously weirded out by the experience now. The key thing was the size and shape neither of which you could make out conclusively. But you could tell it was unnaturally and incomprehensibly “big”. Like the size of 10 city blocks or more as it passed (about 1 to 2 miles away and at about 3000 ft of elevation- just estiamted). We thought it might have been a big black blimp or something but was simply too big. I have never been able to explain it. No noise at all, but when it passed the desert went quiet and it smelled like it had just rained.
With many of the flares I’ve seen and used at night, you can absolutely see the smoke at night Simon.
Video of the same flares has been taken, you can't see the smoke or the parachute, they look exactly the same as the pheonix lights.
@@MrRecklessryanThey literally do not.
@@White_Breeder You would have to be extremely close to see the smoke and shute. Go and look at some illumination flares being dropped from aircraft at night, why would I lie 🤣
@@White_Breeder The twentynine palms UFO was also flares, you can't see any shute or smoke, see Mick West debunking of the twentynine palms UFO for more flare footage.
@MrRecklessryan I don't know why you would lie, I just know that you're wrong. Flares were deployed by the Air Force after the incident to try and debunk it, and they don't look remotely similar. You could just be a bot for all I know.
I lived in Arizona and remember when this was on the news and lots of people were legit freaked the fuck out. There were a LOT of videos on it and a lot of debunkers have tried to come up with a reason and have had difficulty explaining what it was because it definitely doesn't tick the boxes of the usual explanations for UFO/UAP's.
I still haven't heard a convincing arguement that these are anything other than massive lights attached to an even more massive single craft.
It's like Simon can't handle the idea the plant is being visited by extraterrestrials.
@@SystemLost
A blimp.
@@supermexicanroboninja3116 A V-SHAPES blimp?! Get over yourself.
This one hits close to home. Lots of strange things happen here from time to time, Fallout's Wild Wild Wasteland perk is always active, especially in the desert areas.
The funny thing about saying aliens don't care about us because we're like ants discounts the fact that humans have an entire field that studies ants. Having said that, yeah, it's very unlikely we've been visited.
But also people don't really interact with ants very stealthy.....
Proof that we haven't been visited: 0, proof that we have been visited: *maybe* 0 lmao how unscientific to say it's unlikely, just say you dont know how likely it is if you dont know lmao
@@herzkine lol what part of things like the phoenix lights are stealthy
That's a really good point.
No one has to cross the vast vacuum of space to look at ants though.
Simon’s snark is why this channel just shuffles along vs. the enormous growth in The Why Files channel.
Why Files does a better research investigation as well.
You leave my Tangent Boi alone!
Dude, have you checked just how many channels Simon has?
Cumul them and then check the numbers again. ..
The governor apologized for the media stunt with the alien suit on his assistant. He said he saw the lights himself and that he shouldn't have been so dismissive, as it was offensive to the people taking the sightings and an explanation seriously.
He should of. Wasn't he under investigation for some Federal Charges when all this happened?
One of the most honest old people I know says she was traveling down "the 17" with about 20 cars doing over 100mph chasing this thing.
Simon's neighbors trying to save us from his tangents by interrupting his thoughts but it's only making it worse! 😂😂😋
Simon should get a proper recording studio. No one cares about noise from his neighbors.
@@billolsen4360 I mean, I do. They're in the process of trying to bust Danny and co out of Simon's superbasement. They sound like lovely people
I LOVE Katy's meta/editorial comments throughout and Simon's utter lack of knowledge about America 😂
There are videos and photos!! I saw the Phoenix lights myself with my family. My friends saw them. Thousands of people saw them that night. There is absolutely no way that they were military aircraft in flight formation. The people at sky harbor airport saw them also and receives many calls. They were as puzzled as the rest of us. They were moving slow and low through the whole valley, north to south. They did not speed off at incredible speeds but stayed low and slow the whole time. The amber lights were oval and moved in a V formation. Too slow and coordinated to be separate crafts. You can make a video that discounts what we all saw but that doesn't make it true. All you have to do is do a search on RUclips for the Phoenix lights and the videos are there.
Mr. Biggs mentioned the Phoenix Lights at the UAP House hearing too, we live in an exciting time.
It's so funny that now that we have high definition cameras in our pockets, nobody sees or is kidnapped by aliens, Sasquatch or regional legendary creatures anymore.
Oh, it still most definitely happens. If you think it doesn't, you're just not looking for that information. 😊
@@SystemLost Please do enlighten us. Where is this information? Every time I look for it, I find conspiracy grifters and grainy photos of bears.
I remember seeing a news report about this incident vividly. I was traveling with a group of people and when we were in a city near phoenix we saw footage of it on the local news. There was definitely video of the incident but you'd have to hope the news has archives of their broadcasts to see it. It didn't look like flares at all; from what I remember the lights had a crisp circular look.
Of course the video is low quality and you can't see anything in it. Funny, how most mid to high end range phones today have cameras that can see very well in low light and somehow nobody ever films UFOs anymore.
the coverage included several eyewitness interviews as well, and they all said it drifted across the sky slowly and the lights stayed in the v shape the whole time. Bombers don't slowly drift
They were definitely in a V shape. I have a video of the second time they came by. But I saw them the first time in 1997 too
there are literally hundreds of videos of this event..easily available..
I haven't finished the video yet,but I'm curious if you include the fact that the first pilot to report the lights to traffic control was none other that Kurt Russel, the prominent actor. He reported it and proceeded to forget it. He was flying into Phoenix to take his son to visit the son's girlfriend. He didn't find out about the wider news until years later when his long term partner, Goldie Hawne was watching a tv show about the lights and told him about it and he connected what he reported to the lights.
For my money, the first set of lights was the stealth bomber that left lights on. The second set of lights was a followup by the Air Force to fly drones to confuse the story. The Stealth Bomber was revealed a few months later in one of international coordinated bombing runs.
43:00 hey you got the story
Kurt Russel was the original Jack O'Neill in Stargate. Coincidence? I think not. (just kidding...)
The partially visible (and SILENT) craft that had the lights on it that flew over was HUGE!! While the B2 is larger than most realize, this thing was HUNDREDS of feet long.
@@kidwajagstang Or it wasn't a single craft. We've all seen the drone swarms doing exactly as was described, and from a few hundred metres up, they would have also been silent. Nothing that's been presented is completely without a logical explanation, so I'm yet to be convinced.
@@Chris-hx3om individual crafts in a perfect, consistent line? Riiight.
@@teaspoonsofpeanutbutter6425 clearly you know nothing about aircraft if you think thats somehow noteworthy lol. Have you seen air to air refueling?
Lol, Simon, remember that episode of STTNG where picard is captured by cardassians and his interrogator tries convincing him there are 5 lights....THERE ARE FOUR LIGHTS!
“As far as I know, they make iced tea” -Simon 😂😂😂
The problem with him saying "we are like ants or amebas to them" is people study ants and amebas. Why wouldn't we be studied even if it's from afar?
The sheep scream got me rolling. Oh man. I love Simon but the edits make it so much more fun.
I disagree with the amoeba or ant analogy. I feel it would be closer to we are apes or dolphins or octopi to them. Capable of some interesting tricks but not really all that intelligent on their own 🤷🏻♂️
I think if we evolved to the point where everything is solved. You would have to seed a planet for entertainment and something to watch grow. Maybe👽🛸
I could imagine a species that has mastered interstellar travel looking at humans like that video of David Attenborough watching the orangutan "using" a hammer.
We all are...
And therefore
I agree, he stole that line from NDT cause it sounds smart. But it’s ridiculous. Our scientists would be so excited to find a simple bacteria on another planet, to find intelligent life elsewhere would presumably be ground breaking for any extraterrestrial.
Completely agree. We would warrant a brief inspection at the very least. They may not care about our earthly affairs, but I think they would at least check us out if they chanced upon us. If they were real.😅
Arizona is next to California and under Nevada (Las Vegas). Lived here my entire life. I remember the lights pretty well. Was massive like explained here and had no sound when it was over you head. Not seeing stars was a thing talked about too and I remember the lights not being bright enough to displace your eyes.
To answer some other questions: Why didnt more people film it? The 90's, while yes we had cameras, we weren't filming stuff like we do today. For instance, check out pictures of social events like sports or wrestling (which was insanely popular back then) and youll see EVERYONE recording now and nobody recording then. It was more of a live in the moment atmosphere. How many people called in? I'm sure it was a lot, but my experience was a bunch of people on our street just coming out, talking, watching it go over head, and then watching it keep moving away. Same direction, never turned, just kept going straight. But like someone else mentioned, you could see fighter jets and helicopters a short while later so it wasn't like people felt they had to call in all night. You could see that they were on it.
I remember the lights too. It was really rather interesting to me.
"I don't know much about Arizona. As far as I know, they make iced tea."
Hahahaha, awh bless you, Simon! Arizona Tea is a pretty good affordable tea btw. Howdy and cheers from Texas, y'all.
the flares that people saw and photographed were hours after the actual Phoenix lights, after many, many calls came in the military went and dropped some flares as their cover story.
the actual Phoenix lights that were originally seen, were measured for size and altitude based on the numerous reports that people made, where they were located and where in the sky they saw them. Not to mention that these lights were seen traveling horizontally across several states; unlike the later flares that were just seen dropping to the ground, as flares do.
how do you know
@@031767sc how do you not know?
The initial calls were just past sunset reporting the lights flying over hundreds of miles across multiple towns including Phoenix. a few hours later near midnight the airforce drops flares and they get even more calls because now people are outside looking for the lights reported earlier.
How do I know? because this story has been reported on for decades. The question is, how do you not know?
It's an interesting case but hardly the greatest mystery in UFO history!
Whenever I hear about alien abductions I think about this tv show that some guys in a helicopter, tranquilized a deer and took it to a lab, did some tests, tagged it and then they let it go.... That deer definitely told its deer friends it was abducted lol
After all these years, I actually *heard* the drilling! Very quiet and cleverly covered by the music, but I heard it. All this time I thought Simon was just imagining his neighbors drilling.
It’s Danny trying to great escape out of the basement again.
@@xyrt99 🤣🤣🤣
Oh good, I thought it was just me! 😂 It was driving me nuts
We need a decoding the unknown on why Simon’s neighbours keep trying to smash “the bank heist” style into his basement of facts.
Or is it Danny breaking out great escape style.
They are obviously trying to rescue the writers
I wonder if aliens on other planets are like, "Of course we haven't found aliens. We're complete idiots and they have no interest in us." It's similar to what we think, but do aliens have their own version of this? In my imagination, yes.
Former theatre nurse here: wouldn’t believe how many times people “accidentally fell” onto various household objects that had to be surgically removed (coca cola bottles, golf balls, ketchup, NutriBullets, the list goes on..) because they/we couldn’t get them out manually 😅
And the number of men who happen to vacuum their house while naked!
I have a theater nurse friend who has said the same😂always "accidentally fell"
Nutribullets? Impressive.
I think the writer means NASA base, not Space Force as Space Force definitely didn't exist in 1997.
Not officially anyway 👀🛸
I lived less than 10 miles from the lights on that night. I could see them from my roof. What I found to be very odd about to this day. It was less than 15 miles from a Luke air force base, and nobody thought to turn on night vision or thermal cameras at the base or other places? It did block the stars behind it so something solid but definitely black and quiet.
Woah! That’s really interesting! I remember obsessing over them as a kiddo. What a cool thing to see that live. Don’t leave 12 year old me hanging dude! Tell us more!
@@Redkrovvy Well it begins with my mom telling me there's a news report of saying there's lights near south mountain. Me my mom and sis run outside to see. Well you could see them from my house but I got a better view from the roof. The news was telling people don't shoot at them, they told everyone that a no fly zone was issued for people not to go near it. The lights stayed there before quietly moving away. It was blocking lights behind it like watching a ruler go across of TV that's showing snow. The next day the official story of where the lights were and how the air force using flares was BS. I lived less than 15 miles from a major afb you hear those things around the clock day and night sometimes. There were no jets in the air. The reports of where the lights were and flares being used was BS they changed little details to throw people off a little. But I was there. It someway it kinda felt like the movie independence day, minus humanity being attacked lol.
I feel like there has to be something to this. There were probably 50k people that seen both events that day and all these people are saying the same exact thing, all describing the same thing. No way something didnt happen if that many people agree on the details. Hundreds of people if not thousands of people also say they seen the thing fly away at an amazing speed.
Something just occurred to me- drones. They're common in the military now, but anything like modern military drones would have been considered pretty experimental high-tech stuff back in the late 90s. It's not a perfect theory, but I think one worth considering. Even non-military drones these days can be programmed to fly in various formations. I imagine that's what they might have been experimenting with back then. Although it still doesn't explain why they'd do such a thing over a densely populated area if they still wanted to keep it secret, but I suppose it could have been an unplanned programming or communication error.
So excited tou covered this one! I've lived in Phoenix my whole life and actually got to witness this event, I was about 6 at the time
#1 A-10 Thunderbolt is loud AF.
#2 Flares could have different burn rates, but you can't make them hang in the air for 20 minutes. A 20 minute flare would still be burning when they hit the ground and that would likely be an issue with homes burning down, wildfires, etc.
THERE....ARE....FOUR....LIGHTS!
I remember when this incident occurred. Very cool👽
I wanted to wait until later in the video to comment lol but i'm just gonna say it now. Simon by himself is already funny and then Katies edits lol Love it. I'm only 15 mins in and i've already been smiling the whole time 😂😁 You guys are brilliant. I'm so glad I subscribed!!
I think my favorite theory for why we haven’t discovered intelligent life is that we’re just early. The universe is still relatively young and conditions in our galaxy weren’t always stable enough for intelligent life to arise. Space is also huge, so unless they’ve reached the alien god stage and are just about as advanced as we are, we’d have no way of seeing them.
As an epilogue, my brother was commissioned to add artwork to a train station near Henderson, and decided to use the Phoenix Lights as inspiration
So as of last month, their station has a bunch of aliens and lights over the top of the station
Check it out, it's pretty wild
I don't think we should make fun of people that believe that aliens did that to them because chances are that is some serious unresolved trauma and that's the only way they can equate it. Walk a mile in someone else's shoes.
Simon, developing and producing flares is literally rocket science. 😂
In my opinion, Richard Feynman said it best, as he so often does..."these occurrences are better explained by considering the known irrational behavior of human beings, than the unknown rational behavior of extra terrestrials." I paraphrased a bit but this was basically the gist.
I lived in Apache Junction when the incident occurred, which is 30 miles or so east of Phoenix. Now granted I didn’t see the triangle of lights but I did see the falling lights for like two months before the before the triangle showed up. A lot of people said that the falling lights were parachute flares but I knew they weren’t because I had seen parachute flares on a number of occasions because my dad was in the army and they used them for night exercises. He was in for 20 years. I don’t know what the following lights in Phoenix were but I do know they were not parachute flares.
My problem with the “secret military technology” explanation is that I can’t see the military going “we’ve got this secret airship we want to test, where shall we do it? I know, let’s put bright lights on it and fly it over a major metropolitan area!” It’s just not sensible.
But of course, there’s always gonna be those type of people out there, like the one in the video above, who takes mysterious stuff that happened with no answers for it and turn into some kind of ‘Hey it’s a government thing’ it’s all government shit these people care about.
I love the presumption that alien spacecraft would have LIGHTS on them. They can fly across space and time at will but they’re still relying on vision to not crash into other interstellar ships.
I think it probably had lights just in case it had to fly over New Mexico.
I love Simon's geography lessons. 😂 Always a good laugh.
Everything is a UFO if you are bad at identifying flying objects
ET obviously forgot to switch the lights off 😂
Btw, the Mayor recanted and thoroughly apologised some years later, to camera, for bringing his assistant on to the stage at the press conference dressed as a green alien. He said it was an insult to the people who had honestly reported the unexplained sighting, and said he had seen it too and was baffled by it.
The man you're referring to, Fife Symington, was the Governor of Arizona, not the Mayor of Phoenix.
I was listening to a radio show when it broke out in the news and it went live...I watch it the televised for about over an hour and it moved slowly and it seem pretty high in the sky..moving in exact formation. The military denied any practice night sortie but later the changed their mind saying it was parachute maneuvers, which was later debunked and the cover up began.
I went to flight school in the Phoenix area. There is ZERO chance this was a military test. There is a gigantic military test flight area right outside of Phoenix that they would have conducted any test flight in. They would never done it over downtown Phoenix, it makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.
The A-10’s flew in the same path about 5 to 10 minutes after the lights. You couldn’t hear the lights, the A-10’s were loud. My neighbors and I watched them pass over the mountain range that runs alongside the Agua Fria freeway. The v was way higher than 150 feet from the ground.
Firstly, I want to say I love Simon's take on things. this phenomena reminds me of an aircraft's anti-missile defense system going off accidentally. A pilot or crew member on a military flight accidentally set it off, and they deny doing it, ergo the mystery.
No fool. It flew from north Phoenix down to Tucson.
30,000 people: Report seeing the same thing flying over the city
Government: No you didn't.
You guys should do a video on the skull & bones or the bohemian club.
Great stuff btw. Love your videos.
Bohemian would be really cool tbh
I prefer Simon the way he is... alive and spouting tangents
Yeah, bohemian grove would be great. I have talked with several attendees and one guy who tried to sneak in with his buddies. The guys I knew who'd been there said it was networking old home week, mostly fat old white guys, choir practice, and skits in Latin. Guessing they downplayed it, this was in the 70s.
Well this channel never clears up anything, but how would that be different from Anything you didn't see on Alex Jones already 😂
@@AnamLiath no they uplayed a college white gay elite party with some boys. Which is a rather basic GOP thing in the days.
I experienced something very large block out the stars one evening, and curiously, it got unusually quiet just before I didn't witness it. Lol. And then when the stars reappeared, the crickets and highway noise curiously returned shortly thereafter. Yep. I'm nuts.
My wife and I saw one +17 years ago. It wasn't aliens, it waited for the air traffic to stop at the airport (starter home on a deafening landing route) and crossed perpendicular to the landing pattern. It was near midnight and then after it silently passed, airplanes started landing again. No probing so it was a real letdown.
I seen something really weird. It looked like it was extremely high in the atmosphere, or just out of it. It almost seemed like the flashing runway lights that start on one end, and flash along a line lighting the direction for incoming planes to enter for landing. So I would see this light flash in a line. Then shortly after, in the opposite direction of the flash movement, it would flash again with the flash moving in the same direction. So it was like a runway in the sky (or in orbit) moving north with the line of light moving south.
Not saying it was aliens, but… my first thought was meteorites. But this happened 5 or 6 times, with the same length between the flashes, and streaking for the same small length, all in a perfectly straight line. The odds of meteorites accomplishing this are virtually impossible.
My second thought was a satellite, but this would have had to have been ridiculously huge. This seems unlikely as well. My best guess is, some really large secret plane, a really large secret satellite that could be a part of a secret space program, or… aliens 👽 😮
My grandpa saw the Phoenix lights. Just so you know, it is always aliens. 😃
Would Emily's grandpa lie?
Is anyone else entertained that Simon referenced lightening bugs as something airport controlers may confuse for UFO's?
Yeh. Skeptics should be more educated about general things.
I saw it. I’m from Phoenix and remember it well. It flew right over my house.
Always a good day when you see uploaded 10mins ago ❤
One thing that I haven't heard mentioned was the atmospheric conditions. The desert in Winter can make for VERY clear skies, especially at night. But at other times there can be a haze that you might not recognize from the ground, but limits visibility (the sky would still look blue during the day, but you couldn't see very far). If the visibility was especially good, that could account for seeing the flares dropped from a high altitude, as opposed to other times when flares are dropped with lower visibility, they may not be seen and burn out before they would become apparent to a potential viewer. I've had experience as a pilot flying in that area.
but what about the huge ufo? it was seen by thousands , hours before the flairs were dropped..
Why don't we see lights above of the lights in question or hear any noise from the aircraft dropping the flares? If they are running a stealth mission/exercise then why are they conducting it over a major city?
The arrogance of humans like this thinking they know what aliens would think or want.
This dude is the biggest pseudo intellectual human urinal on RUclips
NEW MERCH IDEA SIMON T SHIRTS “Leave me the f@ck alone… I’m watching Decoding the Unknown…” 😂
Arizona resident here, and I remember this story very well, as I was in high school at the time (secondary school to you, Simon). That poor congresswoman was so ridiculed for being concerned about safety, it was disgusting. I do, however, recall that the official explanation was indeed military flares, after endless months of speculation in the papers and on the news. Think of that what you will, I still think it was aliens 😂
the flares story never made any sense seeing as they scrambled 2 jets to investigate the lights. If they knew they were flares why scramble the jets?
I kinda hate to say it, but its kinda scientifically impossible for Aliens to reach us. The thing is we as Humans can only see about 46.5 billion light years. In those 46.5 Billion Light years we have not encountered any Alien Life.
I have been chasing the Phoenix Lights ever since I first heard about it, and I do not buy the Flare Story one bit. But at the same time since we haven't discovered any Alien Life in as far as we have reached and seen out into the Universe, its gonna make it even more difficult to give a coherent explanation as to what these lights and even aircraft were because they defy all logical and scientific explanation.
She was a member of the Phoenix City Council, not a Congresswoman.
Just to let your editing peeps know, on your podcast version the background music is almost as loud as your voice, so it's very hard to hear you over there! Xx
The only true UFO experience I've had in my life was when i looked out my window and saw a literal flaming crescent slowly moving across the sky.
Yes, I do have a photo. No, Its not a horrifically bluirry mess (My hand was somewhat steady, for a change).
Fairly sure it was either a satelite re-entry or meteorite skimming the atmosphere. Either way, was a cool thing to see.
Sounds quite the sight!
If you're the History Channel than it is the Aliens.
Or Giorgio Tsouklos's hair.
Simon completely missed the Men in Black/Orion's Belt reference, which I'm sure was expected 😂
“I know you guys can’t here the drill”
Meanwhile, us: “brrrrrrrrrrrrt brrrt brrrrrrrt brrt”
Not only is Simon brilliantly hilarious but the editor(s) are equally as well. Such a phenomenal team
seriously? laughing at your own ignorance of general knowledge makes for good content in your world? wow
Don't forget the Kurt Russell bit. He called it in to the airport, as his plane was in the air when the phenomenon happened.
I live in Nevada and witnessed the lights with a group of several people. One retired Air Force and a couple pilots. They all agreed they were some kind of ships NOT flares.
An early drone test makes the most sense to me. Ufo's are possible but in all the official government footage the ufo's don't act anything like the lights did (btw ufo doesn't mean aliens). There's a lot of issues with flares being the answer.
In 1997, our video camera would've been inside, in a closet, in a bag, with the battery pack separate, with the tape in a case also separate, if we even had a blank one available. It was for special occasions, not spur-of-the-moment recordings.