Phoenix Lights Redux

Not a very imaginative title; I just like using "redux" and here's the opportunity. Anyway, I told myself I wouldn't comment on the return of the Phoenix lights, for the same reasons I told myself I wouldn't comment on the Stephenville lights. Everybody else is already commenting, and, I'm not there. I can only do armchair punditry. Though it can be said that punditry is just that; commenting on things just because you feel like it.

I haven't even read much about the new lights over Phoenix, just casual glances. Even with that, some things about this are interesting:

The timing. A month or six weeks or so after the "first" sighting years ago.

The expected responses that the lights are flares, military planes, lanterns -- anything but a true UFO.

Visitors from outer space. In other words, aliens.

The lights, if they are the same -- and how can anyone know? -- are interesting to be sure, if for no other reason than they have everyone very excited. (And for the jaded faux UFO "researchers" and snarly skeptics, bored.)

It's an interesting look into UFOlogy itself, the infrastructure in its responses to the lights, and the witnesses; then and now.

One thing to remember is that, like many areas (Montana, Utah, Colorado, just to name three) UFO sightings, strange lights in the sky, go back hundreds of years in some cases. Same with Phoenix. Ten years ago wasn't the first; things like that have been going on in that region for a very long time.

Regardless of what this new incident in Phoenix turns out to be, it does seem we're in a "flap" UFO wise, and have been for awhile now.

Fife Symington on C2C Tonight

The first hour of C2C (Coast to Coast, syndicated radio) will have on Arizona ex-governor and UFO witness Fife Symington.

Symington's been making the news lately, due to his recent admission he saw a large triangle UFO over Phoenix during the "Phoenix Lights" event.

I don't think I'll be able to hear that however; in Eugene, Oregon, where I live, the station that carries it (KPNW) has, in their wisdom, decided to cut off the first hour of coast to coast and air, of all people, the misogynistic right wing blow bag, Lars Larson. Sometimes I'm able to get a station from the Bay Area up here, and can listen to the first hour of C2C that way. Between KPNW cutting off the first hour of C2C, and their competition, KUGN canceling Jeff Rense. As much as I loathe Rense, that purple tinted, yellow journalistic, anti-Semitic misogynistic blow bag, as least it was another source of UFO-conspiracy-Fortean mind rot for us flying saucer junkies.

You know, it's a good thing I'm not a strongly opinionated person or anything. I should work on that.

Lesley of The Debris Field blog has written an article on ex-Arizona governor Symington, who recently announced that he did see a UFO ten years ago during the Phoenix Lights UFO event. Lesley's article is More Proof that Politicians are the Lowest form of Life and she doesn’t hold back in her disgust at his past behavior (ridiculing witnesses, etc.) and the decade long silence on his part.

Notes
Lesley: More Proof that Politicians are the Lowest form of Life, Grey Matters, for Binnall of America.
http://binnallofamerica.com/gm3.27.7.html

Now WE KNOW, Politicians LIE about UFO’s - Phoenix Lights Confirmed, Heavy Stuff blog
http://theheavystuff.com/

Regan Lee, Be Honest About What You See . . .” Cooper and Symington, The OrangeOrb
http://orangeorb.blogspot.com/2007/03/be-honest-about-what-you-see-cooper-and.html

Binnall of America website, or BOA:http://binnallofamerica.com/

“Be Honest About What You See . . .” Cooper and Symington

Looks like both The OrangeOrb (er, me) and the Heavy Stuff blog were wrong; Anderson Cooper has picked up on the Symington story. Actually, to be specific, the author of Heavy Stuff wrote that Cooper probably won’t ask Symington who ordered him to pull that trivializing stunt with his aide in an alien suit. Good question.
While Cooper does a good job of reporting on Symington’s sighting and what Symington has to say without stopping to mockery or lame little green men jokes, he didn’t ask that question.

The Stories

“Be honest about what you see, get out of the way and let the story reveal itself.” ~ Anderson Cooper

When it comes to UFOs and related experiences (Forteana, etc) this is the starting point for all of us. For many of us it is all we have. It’s all I have, regarding my own experiences. I don’t have bits of a spaceship, a photograph of an alien (assuming those two things were ever part of the events -- who can say?) I don’t have “proof.” (See Stanton Friedman’s articles in the March issues of UFO Magazine and MUFON Journal for his perspective on the demands for proof.)

The more conservative skeptics, who are perennially affronted at the likes of us, basically tell us to just shut up. They have many tactics for doing this, including trotting out the more garish and embarrassing characters in UFOlogy as proof the whole thing is nonsense. They’ve set up a closed system: anecdotal evidence isn’t evidence at all, therefore unless you have bits of a spaceship from Mars, go away.

So while the anti-UFOists, the chronic skeptics, debunkers and the like continue to mock and chide, the rest of us are left with our experiences. Getting no help from them (quite the opposite much of the time) we’re left with a hodge podge of UFO witnesses. Some have mind up their minds, sure, and that’s not good. Some believe they’re been in contact with extraterrestrials, and maybe they have. Maybe the beings have told them as much. That doesn’t mean they’re telling the truth: they could be anything from a mind control black op Dr. Evil government experiment to inner earth entities. Whatever they are, those of us who’ve experienced weird things are trying to figure it out. And all around us are people who feel they have some sort of intellectual -- moral, even -- imperative to insult, mock and harass. Or we have institutionalized science telling us, from afar, what it is we experienced.

The majority of the time, all we have is anecdotal evidence. Intuition. Imagination. Our own inner dance. Perceptions. And while I’m not so naive -- nor ignorant -- to think institutionalized science should suddenly get happy and embrace these feel good concepts, it wouldn’t hurt for the individual humans involved in these projects to check in with themselves from time to time.

UFO witnesses, experiencers of the weird in general, need to tell their stories, and their stories need to be listened to without rancor or ridicule.

Notes:

Lesley, of Debris Field, has written her new column for Binnall of America will be on the Phoenix Lights/Symington revealation, but it wasn’t up last time I checked. Keep checking BOA though.
BOA: http://binnallofamerica.com/
Debris Field: http://thedebrisfield.blogspot.com/

Heavy Stuff blog:http://theheavystuff.com/

On The Brink Of Hysteria. Really. They Were.

Among Big UFO News is the admission by ex-Governor of Arizona Fife Symington, who now says he saw a UFO that night of ‘the Phoenix Lights” in March ten years ago. (Former Arizona Gov. Admits UFO Sighting On Night of Phoenix Lights
By Jon Shanks
Mar 18, 2007)

And in a touch of irony, in typical Trickster fashion, it was Symington who was responsible for the pedestrian and lame “alien in a costume” stunt. Symtington publicly made fun of the whole UFO event, and in one bit of bozo like behavior, introduced an extraterrestrial, as being responsible for the lights. Har har. (The costumed individual was Jay Heiker, an assistant in the governor’s camp.)

As I’ve written before, one of the aspects of the PHoenix Lights case that always intrigued me was the lack of response, and interest, from authorities.

In the interview Symington says that he called the commander at Luke Air Force Base, the general in charge of the National Guard, and the head of the Department of Public Safety to request an explanation. None of them had answers, and they, too, were "perplexed," he says.

Now, that’s the kind of response I want from our government agencies: weird things flying over our cities, and all they can offer us is that they’re “perplexed.”

When asked about his ridicule factor back then, Symington says:

He explains that Arizona was "on the brink of hysteria" about the UFO sighting at the time, and the frenzy was building. "I wanted people to lighten up and calm down, so I introduced a little levity. But I never felt that the overall situation was a matter of ridicule," he says.

Nice spin. But no cigar.

Of course, I wasn’t in Phoenix, Arizona during these sightings, and so I can’t say if the state was “on the brink of hysteria” or not. It does seem to me, from what I’ve seen and read from the media (I’ve been following this event closely ever since the first day) that people were more likely intensely curious, as well as frustrated with the non-response of those in authority. From their Governor, who publicly made a joke out of the whole thing, to the Air Force, etc. no one took the citizens seriously.

We can't be too hard on Symington. He is, was, a politician. Enough said right there. And look at the junk still flung around about Jimmy Carter's sighting, for example. He's come out now with it, that's something. According to him, he was seeking answers behind the scenes.

But as the author of The Heavy Stuff blog wrote, don't expect Anderson Cooper to come along and do a news story on this.

However, I've noticed that the Phoenix story, like its namesake, doesn't ever really die. There's hope yet.

Look, It's Crash Test Dummies! No, er, Balloons! I Mean, Flares! Yeah, Flares!

Lights over Phoenix, again. Nothing new, it's been going on for ten years, and more. Previous to what we call "The Phoenix Lights," UFOs, strange lights, have been seen in the area for a very long time.

But with the classic UFO Phoenix Lights event of ten years ago, as we know, the official explanation -- when they finally got around to releasing one, as silly as it was -- was "flares."

And so, once again, the official explantion is: yes, flares.