Somewhere in the Skies - I Saw the Phoenix Lights | Featuring Jason McClellan

Episode Date: August 22, 2022

On episode 279 of SOMEWHERE IN THE SKIES, we are joined by listener favorite, Jason McClellan. To celebrate their appearances on the August 24th episode of Mysteries Decoded, on the CW, McClellan and Ryan discuss the Phoenix Lights incident of 1997, of which McClellan was an eyewitness. We'll hear all about his sighting, the significance of the event in modern UFO history, the thoughts and theories on what it could have been, and tease a little of what to expect on the season finale of Mysteries Decoded!   Mysteries Decoded: Phoenix Lights, premieres August 24th on the CW. Check your local listings or stream for free the following day at: https://bit.ly/3C7o3qz  Follow Jason McClellan on Twitter at: https://twitter.com/Acecentric Ryan is now on Cameo! Book your video today at: https://bit.ly/3kwz3DO Patreon: www.patreon.com/somewhereskies Website: www.somewhereintheskies.com YouTube Channel: CLICK HERE Official Store: CLICK HERE Order Ryan’s book in paperback, ebook, or audiobook: https://amzn.to/3PmydYC Twitter: @SomewhereSkies Instagram: @SomewhereSkiesPod Read Ryan’s Articles by CLICKING HERE Watch Mysteries Decoded for free at: https://bit.ly/3rJpbd7 Opening Theme Song, "Ephemeral Reign" by Per Kiilstofte Copyright © 2022 Ryan Sprague. All rights reserved. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/somewhere-in-the-skies. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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No credit cards or alien encounters necessary. Pluto TV, stream now, pay never. Every day in the valley, someone will call the police reporting, seeing a UFO, strange lights in the sky moving in strange ways. But it is very rare for thousands of people to call and report

seeing the same lights in the same spot at the same time. It happened last night, and eyewitnesses who saw it say it's like nothing they've ever seen before. This is Somewhere in the Skies with Ryan Sprague. Hey, guys, welcome to a very special episode of Somewhere in the Skies. We're going to be talking all about the Phoenix Lights incident. Jason, welcome back to Somewhere in the Skies, buddy. Oh, Ryan, it is so fantastic to see your face, my friend.

I miss you, and I am so excited to be here today. Thanks, my man. We were catching up off air. for any of you who are new to the show, it is of no, I guess, mystery that Jason and I are not only colleagues in the UFO world. We are the greatest of friends.

So we caught up on a lot of stuff that's going to be going on in the future over at Rogue Planet and the future of somewhere in the skies and everything in between. But Jason, this will be the final episode that will be taking place here for me in New York City before I head off to my new day.

destination. So I couldn't think of a better guest to have on somewhere in the skies for that, my name. And I'm going to remember this forever with it being your last New York City studio interview. For now, for now. Who knows what the future holds. New York. That's right. That's the exciting thing about the future. Always finds a way to pull you back too. Well, let's say hello to some of the people in the chat here. We got Luis from the Unidentified Celebrity Review. Andrew, Austin, Matthew Riots here. Grant we have here all the way from Australia. Awesome. Econcar, I hope I'm saying that right. Welcome, guys, welcome, welcome, welcome. First time here, how much I missed.

Chosen Falling, you just tuned in at the beginning, my man. So, yeah, we're going to be talking all about the Phoenix Lights. I'm sure a lot of our listeners and viewers are very familiar with this case. But for any of our listeners and viewers who are new to the UFO world, we know that our community has probably quadrupled in the past few years. and people are just getting into this topic and learning about the history of it. You know, we got the Roswells and the Socoros and the Rendell Shums and stuff like that. But Phoenix Lights is up there, really high up there in terms of legitimacy, credibility, theories on what it could have been.

But yeah, before we get to your personal connection, my man, could you tell us a little about this event? Maybe kind of the broad sweeping overview of what the Phoenix Lights is. was, if you don't mind. Absolutely. I would love to. As you already said, I mean, for anybody who's dipped their toe into the UFO field or UFO research has most likely come across the Phoenix Lights.

But this is essentially the most famous mass UFO sighting when you look into UFOs. This occurred in March of 1997 in Phoenix, Arizona, as the name implies. But it certainly affected more people. and was seen in more places than just Phoenix, Arizona. It prompted reports all the way up top of the state, even into Nevada, coming down through the state and even into Mexico. So what happened on March 13th, this was at night, this was between, you know, witness reports vary, but between 7.30 and 10.30 p.m. at night.

And thousands of people across the state of Arizona reported seeing various things. which is not uncommon with UFO sightings. Everybody interprets things different ways. Everybody has different vantage points and things like that. But it's most commonly accepted that perhaps multiple events occurred that night. Multiple different objects in the sky. People saw different things. The first one being what some describe is a mile-wide craft,

some solid craft consisting of a series of lights. And the number of those lights varies, depending on who you talk to you, with five, six, seven, eight, nine, all sorts of different configurations of lights, but mostly in sort of a V formation, traversing the entire state. A second event, like people call it, occurred in the West Valley of Phoenix, and it was a series of lights, sort of in a boomerang pattern that just sort of hung in the air for an extended period of time, for hours, even, some report. But, as I said, there were multiple things reported that night. Everybody's

description doesn't line up, which again has come with UFOs, a lot of different stories. But ultimately, the story here is they were unknown lights that were seen by thousands of people in Phoenix. These all were reported. It was investigated. Tried to be investigated by government officials. And ultimately, we still don't know what the Phoenix lights were. Right. And we'll get to that investigation, quote unquote, in a little bit. We've got some really cool archival footage to show you guys of the lights of news footage that came out around the time that the event happened. So we're swinging back into the 90s today. This is going to be fun to see some of the coverage of this back then.

But let's go ahead, Jason. First, I'm going to show one of the videos of the Phoenix lights that was caught by one of these witnesses. And that's by a gentleman named Tom King, who I actually got to meet when I was out in Phoenix investigating this case, which is another tease of something we're going to talk about a little bit later too. And yeah, Tom was one of those individuals who was able to catch these things on camera.

So let me pull that up and we're going to take a quick look at his video. Sound good? I got that one on video. There's four of them. Look at the three of them all together. I got the third one popping. There's one behind the chimney. I got four of them.

Major sighting here. No, there's fine. Another one just showed up. Whoa. Maybe somebody's standing up light. You see that? No, those are in the sky. There's one underneath the house, too.

There's one behind the chin. I can't see how this works. Holy shit. No. They're lined up in a pattern, man. There's geometry behind this. All right. So again, you can obviously hear the excitement in their voices, which I always love.

Like, especially when we have these new U.S. videos with like even the people in the Navy being like, what is going on here? I would assume, you know, that was Tom in the background talking. And it was clear it was unnerving for everyone there. I mean, no matter what it was, everyone was freaking out. And like you mentioned, Jason, they started calling local law enforcement or, you know, the airport. A lot of people believe that these were coming from either the airport, Sky Harbor, or the military bases nearby, which again, very contentious. We'll get to kind of that the military aspect of all this too um but yeah yeah what did you think of um tom's video there that's

definitely one of the most famous ones i believe yeah for sure that's one that we see a lot of news reports and stories talking about the phoenix lights and like you said it captures the the excitement of observing something that hasn't been seen before these people clearly had not seen that that kind of display in the sky before so it's very exciting and very confusing too and that confusion and excitement is what prompted so many people to contact the media, the airports, Luke Air Force Base, Davis-Mothan Air Force Base, all these different sources trying to get answers. And, you know, when you see a video like that, just without context, you know, I as a UFO researcher and investigator would look at that and think, yes, this looks very much like military

flares because you see a straight line of light, you see them popping on and off. And that's usually a good indicator of military flares. and that's certainly one of the prominent explanations that was eventually offered by the military to explain this. You're right, right. And, well, let's sort of start with that. The, you know, people started reporting this to New Fork, I believe, immediately as it was happening. And the airports, and correct me if I'm wrong, but around this time, you know, when the calls first started coming in, they weren't taking responsibility, right?

the military and whatnot, weren't they saying, like, yeah, we got nothing up there. Am I correct in that? Correct. Yeah, the military. Well, as far as their willingness to provide any answers, they kind of stonewalled for quite a while. It wasn't until months later, even half a year later, that they offered an explanation. Okay, okay, yeah. And again, this is where this is going to get messy and money, you guys. So bear with us as we kind of stumble through the Phoenix Lights, because there's kind of two incidents. And that's a really interesting aspect in this whole thing, is are we dealing with some sort of cover up or whatnot?

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Jason, let's talk about your personal involvement with this case. You were living in Phoenix at the time, and you were a part of this. And again, you now have the bragging rights to say you were part of one of the most famous UFO cases of all time. So, yeah, give it to us, man. What did you see? Set it set this up for us, if you don't mind. Tell us the story of your sighting. Sure. So this is the quick overview. So I was 17 at the time. I was living in Phoenix's Far West Valley on the other side of the Astray Mountains. And if you've read about this case, you're familiar with the Australia Mountains. And it's with the flare theory, it's commonly brought up that the flares disappeared behind the mountains. It sort of winked out. And that's that's because they were descent. like military flares do.

I was on the other side of the Estuary Mountains, and what I observed, and again, I can't speak for what other people saw. I can only speak to what I saw. And what I saw did not descend at all, and I was quite familiar with military flares. I'll talk about that in a minute. But what I saw was sometime during the night, I have no idea when this was because it was so long ago, so I'm not going to pretend to. I'm going to guess it was around 9 o'clock at night.

I saw a series of lights, and I can't remember exactly how many lights, but somewhere between seven and nine lights, in either a sweeping arc or a triangle formation in the sky, almost directly over my head. I could go out into our yard, stand, look up, and see the series of lights, just suspended in the air. No movement, no sound, no apparent change at all in brightness, intensity, there was no flickering, nothing like that. These lights were just stationary lights hanging in the sky. It was crazy. And they had a slight similarity in appearance to military flares. And I know that because I grew up, again, way out in the middle of nowhere.

And to the southwest of me is the Barry Goldwater test range, where the military frequently drops these flares in their training exercises. What these flares do is they illuminate the ground for, for, the A-10s flying, it illuminates the ground targets so they can do night training. And these high-intensity flares, when they drop, I've seen them so many times. So it's hard for me to describe what they look like because I can pretty much tell just by looking at something that it is a military flare. But these high-intensity flares that were used really only have a burn time of about five

minutes. They're suspended by these parachutes. They do kind of drift in burn while the magnesium. or whatever they're composed of is burning. And they kind of drift down. You'll see a smoke trail. You'll see, you know, like with Chinese Lantern, you see a pulsing of the light because there is a fuel cell,

you know, something burning there that creates this burning effect, a strobing effect. But what I saw was in the sky for well more than five minutes. And it wasn't that I went away and maybe they dropped more flares in the same spot, so I was confused. I watched these things first. a good solid 30 minutes to know that they were there for a long period of time. They weren't flares. They weren't, at least no flares that we know of. I mean, these were completely stationary.

They didn't wink out. They didn't descend at all. They were in the sky for such a long period of time. And again, these were special high intensity flares that were being used, but they only have a burn time of approximately five minutes. So for me, the flare idea went out the window pretty quickly. It's not something that I seriously considered at the time. And since then, you know, I did serve as a professional full-time UFO investigator and journalist. And during my time, being a professional UFO investigator, I, you know, probably examined hundreds of UFO photos and videos every single year during my seven-year span. And, you know, I got pretty good at being able to identify flares and things like that. And, you know, to this day,

I haven't been able to satisfactorily come up in my mind with an explanation for what I saw because it doesn't align with flares, it doesn't align with other things. And the flare theory is also problematic for me because, well, we can get into the government's explanation later and we can go deeper into that.

But that's essentially what I saw. Just a series of lights suspended in the sky. No sound, no motion, no apparent change at all. And they were there probably for 45 minutes. I did leave at one point, but when I came back, they were gone 45 minutes later. And then I remember seeing them on the news that night.

Wow. So a couple questions, follow-up questions for you. Was there anyone else there when you saw this? And did it ever, you know, cross your mind to try to record this thing? Again, these are the two questions every UFO witness gets. Were you alone when this happened? And why didn't you get that? Now, today we live the luxury of having, you know, a camera with us 24-7.

And a lot of people do ask that question that if we have this technology right now, why aren't more people catching these things on film? But again, this is back in 97. So, yeah, other people there and did it ever cross your mind to try to record this? So my family was certainly home. I believe they were just inside watching TV. And I seem to recall mentioning it to them because they kept seeing you run outside and look at them. But to them it was just, oh, there are lights in the sky. That's cool.

and, you know, I don't think they ever paid any attention to it or thought that it was something anomalous that they should come and experience as well. So, no, I mean, for me, it also wasn't like this urgency thing or something that I was like, oh my God, we're being attacked by aliens. It, to me, was just more of intrigue. You know, it was something that I'd never seen before. I thought it was extremely fascinating, and my mind couldn't come up with a logical explanation for what I was seeing. And to your second question, you bet I tried to record it. I mean, you're right, it was 97, and my family was probably the only family I knew of at the time, you know, and our friends that had a video camera. And this was a, yeah, good old video cameras.

But yeah, I did actually take the video camera out and try to record these lights. So I did, and I don't remember how long I filmed them or how good the footage was. But, yeah, as I always say, that footage is lost, and I've never been able to discover it, not because, Men in Black stole it, but because my parents probably recorded over the footage by, you know, recording one of my brother's soccer games or something. So, you know, I can't tell you how many hours I've spent pouring through boring family home videos, you know, looking through the tapes, hoping that there's like a piece of footage there, you know, somewhere that I haven't seen yet. But, yeah, I did. I definitely got it on camera. I just have never been able to find that footage.

Wow. Good for you, man. Yeah, well, hey, maybe it's still very important. tortures me to this day that I don't have it. I know, but at least you try. No, that was pretty, so you were pretty young when that happened. Did you have an interest in UFOs prior to seeing this? Or was this kind of your first initiation into this topic? It was certainly my first kind of notable UFO sighting. I'd spent a lot of time in the desert, well, I lived in the desert, in the middle of the

desert, middle of nowhere. So the only thing for me to do on weekends with my friends was, camping. So we spent a lot of time camping out looking at the stars and, you know, I would see interesting things as you do if you just stare at the sky. But my interest was always there in space, in astrobiology, in just the universe in general, and the mysteries that come with that. So, you know, always a big believer in extraterrestrial life, thought that the universe is teeming with life. and, you know, I always had that interest. And certainly I grew up on sci-fi, a big Star Trek, Star Wars fan.

Those were the shows that I would watch. So I had the interest, but the siting itself was the first major UFO sighting that I'd personally been involved with. And at the time, it didn't really affect me that much, again, beside just the intrigue that I had. I'd say UFO sightings I've had since then have had more of a wow factor on me. But yeah, I mean, it didn't start my UFO career, but it certainly kind of got me a little more excited about it. I love hearing the origin stories. You know, every UFO researcher seems to have one, which is awesome.

I do want to point out a few things. We got some questions for you, Jason. Luis asks, 1997 wouldn't be too early for drone swarm tech. What are Jason's thoughts on that possibility? Could we be dealing with drones with these things? Again, I can only speak to my personal sighting, but I'd say zero possibility with that, again, because of the zero noise. Certainly 97, I think any drones would have made considerable noise, but also wouldn't have remained stationary in the same spot for such an extended period of time. It's always possible, but I think that's very unlikely.

Well, let's move on with the timeline of the event. Now, once all these calls started coming in and the news started covering it, there was no, you know, putting the lid back on this thing. It was out there, hundreds and hundreds of people like you mentioned saw it. And people were looking to the government to start to, you know, deal with this. Local government, we're talking the governor of Phoenix at the time, Fife Simonton. and what ended up happening, and we're going to show the video. I know you've seen it a million times, Jason, but for a lot of people who aren't aware, the governor did talk about what had happened and wanted to touch on that, yes, we're investigating it,

and we think we found the culprit to the Phoenix Light. So let's go ahead and play the infamous video of Fife Simington and the press conference. There we. Leave it a serious offense for anyone, human, space alien, or otherwise to engage. in mysterious activity in our nighttime skies. That is why I will personally ask that the perpetrator be prosecuted to the fullest for the havoc wrought on our entire community. 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. This just goes to show that you guys are

entirely too serious. Lots of places can expose you to identity theft. Oh no. That's why LifeLock monitors hundreds of millions of data points a second for threats to your identity, which is way more than anyone can do on their own. If we find anything suspicious, like new loans or changes to your financial accounts, we alert you right away, all through text, phone, email, or the LifeLock app. Get the alerts that could make all the difference. Save up to 40% your first year at LifeLock.com slash special offer. Terms apply. There it is, Jason. There it is.

press conference. So did you happen to see this back in the day when it actually aired Vythe? I do remember seeing it. Yeah. And we do have a special guest joining us today. Oh my, is that the actual mask? Explain this to me. Explain it. It's the same one that was not the actual one, but yes, the same, the same costume that Fife Sigminton's Chief of Staff wore. Yeah. And that is courtesy of our good friend and fellow rogue planeteer, Maureen Ellsbury. She got that many years ago, and she gifted it to me when she moved back to Seattle. But, yeah, that's the actual one. And it sat in a storage locker.

So Arizona heat and everything, it's, you know, being this rubber mask, it's very much dried out and very crumbly. So I wouldn't attempt to put it on right now. Yeah, I don't blame you. We won't make you do that unless we get like a $200 super chat. Hint, guys. There you go. So, yeah, with Simington at that time, the Phoenix, flights wasn't that big of a deal. It was locally, there was a lot of buzz, a lot of intriguing and people

asking questions and wanting answers. But remember, this happened in March. And it wasn't until June of that same year, 97, that it started getting national press. The USA Today had a front-page story about the Phoenix Lights. And so it was in June when Symington held that press conference. Okay. Okay. Yeah. I remember. hearing about the USA Today headline. And that's, again, like you said, that's when it went worldwide and everyone started talking about it. And then I think the pressure started coming on to kind of the people in Phoenix to explain this for the military to explain this. Because again, these things were seen over the major airports. They were seen over the city. This could be

a potential threat. We have to keep that in mind, right? A lot of that credit, if not most of that credit goes to Francis Barwood, who was a Phoenix City councilwoman at the time. And she's the one who during a council meeting suggested that they should look into this because a lot of consensuates were calling in and saying, hey, what's going on here? Is there any answers to explain this? So she brought it up during a council meeting and she was met with ridicule and scorn. And she even says that a city manager came up to her after her and said, you shouldn't have said that. And, you know, she took it seriously. And she fielded phone calls from thousands of witnesses.

You know, she took it very seriously and wanted to help people find answers. But her colleagues, you know, and people from the governor's office, they kind of harassed her at work. You know, they would hang little goofy, funny alien jokes, you know, in her office and on her photo in the hall and, you know, tell people that they want to talk to her. they need to speak into the tinfoil and things like that. I mean, she was just made fun of because she was looking into this matter seriously. And, you know, around that time, too, was also Fyfe Samington seemingly joking about it as well. So a lot of that ridicule played into, you know, played as obstacles for anybody trying to get serious investigation into this. And, you know, serious is another way to look at it because a lot of the witnesses, they didn't think it was funny.

Simonton did this joke press conference, which he called kind of a prank on the media, because the media was pushing for answers. So he gave him his answers. And the calls started flooding in to Francis Barwood. Again, kind of the unsung hero, I think, in the entire event that occurred. And kind of the, you know, the hitch she took. I actually have some archival footage from a news segment that took place locally in Phoenix of Francis talking about getting these calls and how she perceived what the governor had done at the time. So let's go ahead and take a look at that. Bear with me, guys, here.

Make sure I have the right one. Yeah, let's hear from Francis Barwood. Ms. Barwood asked for a similar investigation not long ago. We have her on the telephone now. Ms. Barwood, what's your reaction at this point? Well, I've gotten many phone calls from people that are very upset. And I'm wondering, you know, now with the confusion, is he really going to do an investigation, or was the,

entire thing a joke. Well, we just heard from his chief of staff that they have, in fact, asked for an investigation. We'll see if that turns out to be a joke as well. But the investigation you called for never panned out. You got roundly criticized for that as well. Right, and that was kind of surprising because, you know, all I did was ask for us to look into what so many people saw and to find out if, one, if it was military, and shame on them for, you know, for doing it. Two, if it was a hoax, and how did they do it? And three, if it was something else, but at the very least, look into it and see what it was. Do you at all feel like the governor and his office were making fun of you?

I would hope that, you know, he hasn't gotten. I get an awful out of that from the mayor himself, so I doubt that. I'm hoping what he's done is made, you know, his little because to thousands of people, this is a very serious thing, and they're very, very concerned concerned, you know, that nobody wants to even look into it. City Councilwoman Francis Barwood, what are callers telling you? Well, a lot of things. They said, you know, what's going on? He goes into the court and he comes out and he changes his mind and, you know, just a whole bunch of stuff.

But everyone that's called... Again, this local politics drama is what I live for, especially when it comes to a UFO event. So, yeah, you want a little more political drama with that. Yeah. During that interview or during the press conference, I think. think that was during the time when Symington was actually being indicted for multiple counts of fraud. Right. Yep. There's that too. So didn't he, no, correct me if I'm wrong, didn't he save a president's life or something like that? He did. He saved Bill Clinton's life, apparently. Yeah. So what happened

was he was convicted of multiple accounts of bank fraud or something, and that was eventually overturned. but before the feds could, you know, retry or bring the charges again, Bill Clinton pardoned him. And apparently when they were kids, Simeington saved Clinton from a riptide from drowning or something. So where you go, guys. You never know when something will come back to either bite you in the ass or help you out. So keep that in mind. Keep that in mind for future politics. I do think Siamington gets a bad rap.

And we'll talk about that. But for people who just casually look into this case and they see that press conference, you know, all of a sudden, Simington is vilified and he's the bad guy in this whole thing when actually I think he comes out looking pretty good. Right. He does have a redemption story in all this. Well, let's hop into that. So, you know, Fife Simonton clearly didn't take this too seriously. He did want to do this press conference to kind of calm people down and hopefully just put it to rest. Like it was clear. something prosaic. We might not know exactly what it is, but there is an explanation. We're fine, moving on. But the people of Phoenix were not ready to move on. They wanted answers. Because the thing with this is, people had so many varying experiences with it. Some saw it really up close, some far away. Some said that they had this instant amnesia when the event happened. I've explored cases of this as well where people saw UFOs and immediately

forgot about it, like within seconds, almost like the men in black syndrome, or their emotions were manipulated, or something like that occurred. And there are people with the Phoenix Lights who have said that that happened. So clearly that wasn't just a balloon or a flare that did that to them. Is it something within them, their physiology, their mental state during the event, adrenaline emotions? I don't know. But people were pissed about this press conference. Francis Barwood, But eventually, I believe, was voted out because of the stigma behind her defending this thing and keeping it going. And again, unsung hero of all this. But let's get to it.

Fife Seinfeldon, his redemption. Before that, for anyone who wants to hear more from Francis Barwood, we did have her as a guest at the International UFO Congress. I forget what year that was, but there is, you know, recording of her presentation from that event. So if you want to hear all about her story and everything she went through during that incident, you can find that presentation from the International UFO Congress. Yeah, I believe it was 2013. I was researching it last night. Sounds right.

And it's pretty emotional. Yeah, she goes through her whole journey with all of this. And again, I kind of took the hits for everybody with it, unfortunately. But, okay. Fifee Simington. Redemption Story. Let's play this clip from John Hook. a local news anchor, very famous in Phoenix.

I had the pleasure of doing an interview with him and Jeremy Corbell, which people still bring up to this day. I've looked so young and skinned back. I'm so glad you were there to do that. You saved this all by doing the interview. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was super fun. But, yeah, so Fife Simonton did this really in-depth interview with John Hook. And I'm going to play a little bit of that now and get his redemption story.

So he would eventually come forward and admit that he also was a witness to this. Check this out, guys. March 13, 1997. This event called Lights Over Phoenix. What did you see? Well, I saw a huge craft just kind of come right over a squaw peak that was, you know, it was just breathtaking. And I'm not sure about the date. you've got a better memory

for the dates than I do. But there was no, like the Clinton Day, no. No. No. I was on a strict diet. No, I'm serious.

I'm serious now. It was a, unquestionably, it was a UFO, which means unidentified flying object. That doesn't mean we're being visited. Well, it's nothing like anything I've ever seen.

And you're an Air Force guy. Yeah, yeah, and a pilot. Got a lot of hours flying. So it was pretty breathtaking. Did it frighten you? No, I think I was kind of in awe, really, you know. How big? Big than I've ever seen in the sky.

Like an aircraft carrier in the sky? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Something like that, you know. And it was hard to define because of the light in terms of the size, but it was absolutely silent and had sort of eerie embedded lights. And, you know, so that's what I saw it. I wasn't expecting to see anything because I was looking out over at the, Luke to the west.

And then all of a sudden, these people in the park area just on the west side of 51, there were a bunch of people there, everybody said, oh, look at that. And we turned around, and this thing was coming from the northwest, traveling to the southeast. There have been so many different sort of sightings and inexplicable phenomena that, you know, but the disparity in terms of technological progress would be. so vast that we would be, I think, of sort of no consequence to whoever is visiting us, because the technology to get here would be just beyond anything we could imagine. Did it hover?

No, it was just going in a straight line. Slow pace. Yeah, slow pace, yeah. And then, you know, there were all the sightings. There were the sightings of the America West Plain coming into Sky Harbor said he could have landed on it. It was enormous. Like an aircraft carrier in the sky? Is that about as close?

Yeah, I think that's a fair description. Oh, my God. Yeah, yeah. Hey guys, Ryan here. The Summer in the Sky's podcast is a labor of love every week. And with that comes many different costs to keep the show running. That's where our Patreon campaign comes in. You give what you think the show is worth.

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Thank you for your support and keep looking up. There we go. There's Mr. Fyfe Simonton's redemption story. So what did you think, Jason, when you heard that, you know, after making fun of this and everything, he now admitted to being a part of it. But not only that, like believing this was not of earthly explanation in his opinion. Yeah, that was amazing.

he actually started talking about it and we learned the backstory and the things that were going on behind the scenes. You know, like I said, the knee-jerk reaction for UFO researchers, you know, seeing the press conferences thinking that Symington was making a joke of it and he didn't take it seriously and all that. But in fact, we found out that he was actively trying to get answers. He was pressing the Air Force bases and he was getting stonewalled. They weren't giving him any answers and he was getting frustrated by that. Here he is. The governor of the state. state unable to get answers from the military bases within the state. It was very frustrating for him. And yeah, as he said, he was a captain in the Air Force, a pilot. And he said that he'd never seen

anything like that before. And he's also another view said that he's convinced that what he saw was not from this world. You know, James Fox has interviewed him in his documentaries. in 2007, Symington moderated the National Press Club event that Leslie Kane and James Fox put together. So we spoke about it there too. Symington's testimony, you know, as a witness to the Phoenix Lights, has been hugely powerful and just illustrates the problems of trying to get answers when it comes to UFOs and the difficulty getting government bodies to talk to each other and share information. Right, exactly.

And, you know, I know you've written about the Phoenix Lights a lot back in the day when you were working with Open Minds. And, yeah, you've done a lot of great work on this case overall. And when it comes to covering this case as a journalist, you also have to cover the skeptical side of all this, the theories, the explanations of what the Phoenix Lights could have been. So I guess, let's kind of fast forward a little bit to what some of those theories that have been posed, Jason, about what the Phoenix Lights were, what the military. Harry came forward and said what was going on. Yeah, could you maybe run us through some of those theories on exactly what this event could have been, these videos that were caught later in the night, I believe, around like 10-ish, 1030, even though people started reporting these V-shaped craft around 8 o'clock, 830. Yeah, yeah, what were some of those theories posed on

what the Phoenix lights were. Well, certainly we have, you know, just regular planes flying in formation. Being a night sky, it's hard to tell when things are separate individual sources of light or if they're connected to one larger craft. And even the accounts, many of the accounts that talk about a singular large craft, you know, there's not a lot of ability to determine detail other than saying, well, it kind of blocked out the stars or whatever. And many of them even talk about the light's changing position, you know, or the triangle shape with a light in front of it and a light trailing it. A lot of different, different stories there that, you know, maybe could be explained by separate craft, I don't know. But flares, obviously, is the one that comes to mind the most because

the appearance is very close to flares. And it does seem from some of the videos that have been popularized that there were flares being dropped. And that's what the military says. There were exercises taking place that night. And I certainly don't discount that. I think certainly that could be the case. And I know Dr. Len Ketai, one of the leading, probably the leading experts on the Phoenix lights. She's devoted a lot of her life to being the go-to person for that. Love Lynn, and she does a great job. But something that she says, and a lot of people repeat, is that, as I mentioned, with my personal sighting, it's not uncommon to see flare drops in this area. And Dr. Kita uses that as a basis to say, obviously people in Phoenix have seen this before. They would know what flares look like. And that's a

big jump because most people haven't seen military flares drop. Even in Phoenix, where you can see it quite frequently, the fifth largest city in the country, four and a half million people or something, still not everybody's going to be looking in the same spot in the sky at the same time. Not everybody's going to have the same vantage points. So it's not something that people immediately identify. So it's always possible that many people saw flares. And for the first time, as we just saw in San Diego, right? There was a big, big hullabaloo in San Diego this year with clear military flares dropped over a military testing range, you know, pretty clear cut. But with the Phoenix Lights, the flare theory, you know, was heavily investigated. And again,

with the military not offering explanation, you know, until half a year later, what they eventually settled on for their explanation was that the flare, these were military flares and they were dropped by a group that a squadron that flew out of Davis-Montan Air Force Base in Tucson, which is two hours south of Phoenix. And they were a part of what they call Project Snowbird, which is an arrangement they work out with squadrons from other states where, you know, in March they're usually dealing with snow and bad weather. They come to Arizona. for their training because we don't have those issues. We just have beautiful weather all the time. So that's what they identified. They identified a squadron from the Maryland Air National Guard

that was in Davis Mothan Air Force Base doing their training at the Barry Goldwater Test Range. And I believe it was, they claimed it was their last day of doing the exercises. And before they returned to base, they jettisoned all their remaining flares and went back. to Tucson. There are a lot of problems with that. Number one being the time that they proposed this happens, it doesn't line up with witness accounts. Number two, what I already mentioned about the flares and, you know, there are five-minute burn times. That clearly wasn't seen in many of the sightings. You also have the fact that, I mean, from what I understand, and again, I'm not in the military. I'm not a pilot who does this type of stuff. But from what I understand, it's not

not uncommon to jettison the remaining flares before returning to base. I think that's ridiculous because these flares are actually thousands of dollars, military spending, you know, and government spending that apparently is not an issue, but I would think they would want to keep those unless they can't be reused once they're loaded for some reason. But also, where these things were seen, over a metropolitan area, major metropolitan area, and Phoenix, Arizona, March, hate to tell you, but we've always been in a ginormous drought. Everything is dry and the state would catch on fire. If you're just dropping these flares, you know, randomly over wherever you want, because I'm dumping and going back to base. It's horribly irresponsible. And Francis Barrow would even touch on that. It's sloppy. It's dangerous. And somebody should be held accountable for that. But even the pilots who participated in that training, that testing from the Maryland Air National Guard, didn't come forward for a long time, and people saw that as a red flag. However, as I pointed out, this really wasn't a national story. It gained some momentum in June, and that's when, you know,

some calls were made. That's when people started hearing about it. But, you know, with all of the hype that was generated, they certainly didn't think, oh, that could have been us. It wasn't something they really talked about or considered thinking, maybe we should come forward and admit this. So, you know, there are lots of excuses, lots of long drawn-out stories, but ultimately, the biggest, you know, being, Symington getting stonewalled, not being able to find answers, Francis Barrowwood, not being able to get answers, and the general public being ultimately delivered an answer that doesn't line up with the facts. Welcome to Uphology 101. Never seems to line up. Well, one of the points to bring up, Jason, is very important, and that's timing. Now, again, the flares wouldn't last. that long. They would burn if they hit the ground, very irresponsible. There's so many factors that just don't line up with that with that explanation. And also the fact that people were seeing a solid

craft, as they say, around 830. Now again, that's, you know, open for speculation as well. Was it one solid craft? Was it five airplanes in a V formation? We don't know. Let's, I guess, backtrack just a bit. Now, a few years ago, and a lot of people put this in the chat already. Talk about Kurt Russell. Talk about Kurt Russell. He does have a connection to the Phoenix Lights. Let's go ahead and play the video. This came from a press junket he was doing with Chris Pratt for, I believe it was Guardians of the Galaxy, two, I think that Kurt Russell was in. And the topic of the Phoenix Lights came up by the host. And then Kurt Russell just let it rip. So let's go ahead and play that

for the audience right now. A place in Arizona. An unidentified pilot, according to the press cuttings, flying near an airport in Arizona with his son when he spotted six lights in the night sky. So he called from the airplane to air traffic control

to say, I'm seeing these lights here, I wasn't expecting any other planes, they're none supposed to be on my landing path. Can you tell me what's going on? They said there are no other planes. He said, I'm seeing being six bright lights coming towards me. Mystery unresolved.

Except. Oh? Tail number for that plane was Bonanza two tango Sierra, and I was the pilot. No way. Oliver and I. So yes, tape is back. He doesn't say that in the briefing. Oliver and I should have read to the end.

Oliver and I were flying, I was flying him to go see his girlfriend. And we were on approach. and I saw six lights over the airport and absolute uniform in a V shape and I, and Oliver said to me, I was just looking at him and I was coming in we're maybe a half a mile out and Oliver said, Pa, what are those lights?

And I then kind of like came out of my reverie and I said, I don't know what they are. I said, are we okay here? And I said, yeah, I'm going to call him and I reported it. And they said, we're not painting anything. We don't show anything. I said, well, okay, I'm going to declare

It's unidentified. It's flying, and it's six objects. We landed. I taxied, dropped him off, took off, went back to L.A. Never said a word. He never said a word. I never thought of it. Two years later, Goldie is watching a television show when I came home. And the show is on UFOs. But as I came home, hey, honey, how's it going? And I'm kind of hearing the TV going, and I stopped, and I started watching.

and it was on that event. Now, that was the most viewed UFO event. Over 20,000 people saw that. And I'm watching this, and I'm feeling like Richard Dreyfus in Close Encounters of Third Count. It's like, why do I know this? And it's not clear to me. And finally I said, and they said a pilot reported it,

a general aviation pilot reported it on landing. I had never thought of it since then, and I said, that was me. That was me. And I said, wait a minute, I'll go to my logbooks. So I went to my logbooks, and there was the flight at that time, and I didn't mention anything about the UFO. The fascinating part of that to me is that it just went literally out of my head. And Oliver never mentioned it. And had I not seen that show, I'd have never thought of it again.

That, to me, was the weird part. there we go. Kurt Russell possibly was the first, you know, civilian pilot to report this thing. What did you think when you first heard about this, man? Oh, it's pretty cool. And I love the response, too, because that's kind of the response that a lot of people have with UFO sightings. You know, you see something like I did. You see something. You kind of scratch your head. You're confounded by it. But later, when you hear about it, you know, oh, yeah, I did see that. Hmm. Other people saw it, too. Interesting. And I love. how Goldie Hawn was just watching TV, watching a UFO show, and he said, wait a second. Randomly. I'm guessing it was probably like one of James Fox's documentaries or something, possibly. But yeah, and then the other weird thing he says at the end is that he didn't log the UFO when he put it in his journal there. And that he doesn't know why he didn't. Again, that kind of harkens back to this idea of whatever these things were. It made people almost forget it immediately. Now, again, we're not.

here to discuss the woo factor of all this, but it does have to be posed, a theory that whatever these things were in Phoenix was able to mess with people. Or, again, like you always say, memory is faulty. We can't trust it when it comes to these things. And we truly don't know what's going on. So I thought that was a cool little tidbit to add in there that Kurt Russell was a part of the Phoenix Lights incident, especially in a press ticket for that movie. Fun thing about historical cases. You know, over the years, we always get these little nuggets that adds something new to it and keeps it alive and introduces it to new people and helps new people get involved in the investigation process. Absolutely. Absolutely.

You know, and we've had a lot of celebrities come forward. Russell Crow saw UFO. What's that dude? Machine Gun Kelly. The list goes on in and on. What's the guy who went out to Skinwalker Ranch as well? the rapper there. Oh yeah, post Malone. Post Malone.

There we go. Yeah, yeah, man. Crazy, crazy. The way this topic has exploded into the mainstream like never before. Well, all right. So we kind of run through

the theories of what the Phoenix lights were and weren't in the timeline of events. So how does, in your opinion, Jason, living in Phoenix, how does the city embrace this event? You know, in Roswell, they have a festival every year. same with a lot of other small towns that have had famous UFO sightings.

What is kind of the overall consensus in Phoenix of this event? Has it hurt the town? Has it helped? Yeah, what are your thoughts on that as a resident? There's not a whole lot here about the Phoenix Lights. You know, it's a lot of people, again, fifth largest city in the country. So we've got millions of people kind of doing their own thing. There is a electronic music festival, I think, called the Phoenix Lights Festival or something. like that. But I don't think it's at all related. But, you know, there's not any annual festival

or anything official that happens here to celebrate it or anything like that. But when you talk to people here, good chance that the person you're talking to either saw the Phoenix Lights or know somebody who did. Certainly with this topic, opening up as an acceptable conversation to have with people an acceptable topic to talk about, people are more and more willing to, to, you know, stand up and say, yeah, I saw that too. Pretty cool. But it's just kind of accepted here that it happened.

It was cool. But we don't brag about it like Roswell does. I feel like that should be fixed. Yeah, yeah. You guys are a bit more reserved. Well, we should mention, I believe it's the Heritage Center. And Phoenix does have like a small exhibit that you can walk through and see the timeline of the events, the photos taking the videos.

Which is really cool. I had the opportunity to walk through that with Dr. Ling Kittai, one of the original videographers of the Phoenix Lights. She's just a wealth of information. Yeah. One of the coolest things that, you know, related to the Phoenix Lights here is, you know, credit to Len Ketai because she does every year host a screening of her documentary about the Phoenix Lights and always has special guests come and, you know, speak before or after the showing. It's a pretty cool event. And she keeps that going and new witnesses come forward, new information comes out. And she updates the film. She updates her website. So that's always interesting.

And, you know, Fife Siamington, I think, has been there. But he certainly was a guest at the International UFO Congress last year, the year before, I believe. But, yeah, I mean, she keeps it alive, keeps it going. And, you know, I think we'll do more to, you know, have more of a presence here in Phoenix, not on the scale of a Roswell UFO festival, but little things like that with exhibits and things like that to help people understand the details of the case because as with most UFO cases,

even monsters like Roswell, most people in the general public and even within the UFO community only know a little bit of the information, just a few bits and pieces here and there. Because you and I like to always say, Ryan, it's fascinating when we speak at conferences and comic cons and things like that. how common it is for people to come up and talk about things like Roswell, but not even know where Roswell is, or they think Roswell is the same thing as Area 51, things like that. So a lot of the

details are lost on people, and that's understandable because people aren't diving in and researching UFOs. They're just casually interested in something strange that happened. Absolutely. And I think one of the things that you and I are a huge advocate of is getting the younger public, interested in this topic, in the case history. You know, so many people, probably in the chat here as well, have, you know, admittedly said, I just got into UFOs back when the New York Times article came out and the Navy videos came out. Like, I know I have a lot of catching up to do. And that's cool.

Same with Luis Alizondo, the former head of the Pentagon UFO program. He admits that, like, yeah, I didn't know the history of a lot of this stuff. I was tasked at looking at cases happening when I was working there. But I think, again, it's important to get the younger people involved and interested and know what has come before these Navy UFO videos. And the Phoenix Lights is one of those. And what we do over at Mysteries Dakota, the television show on the CW, is introduce these cases to a younger generation. That's never heard of Brazzell, never heard of the Phoenix Lights. and you actually are going to be making an appearance on an upcoming episode of Mysteries Decoded.

It's going to air guys August 24th on the CW. And we've got a little bit of a, I guess, backstage look at some of the stuff that's going to be going on. There's me with Link Katai. There's Jason, me, and Jennifer Marshall, my investigative partner at Mysteries Decoded. Tom King down there in the bottom, looking at his amazing, cameras he has set up trained on the skies of Phoenix constantly dude's got like a whole HQ there we got to go visit him at his house he also has a life-sized um not R2d2 but one of the droids from star wars that he built from scratch which is the coolest thing ever oh my god um we got some of lincotized photos there of the phoenix lights and um two gentlemen i just want to touch on here as well are at the bottom there clifford mohutie zuni trivelder in phoenix who actually I got the immense pleasure of hiking up in the mountains in Phoenix to look at some petroglyphs of what is claimed to be the star people and their possible connection to the Phoenix Lights incident

as well. We did lose Clifford not too long ago, unfortunately. So again, it was such an honor to get to finally meet him and hike the mountains. And dude, this guy had like a kidney transplant, I think maybe six months before I hiked this mountain with him. And he beat me up there. So that tells you a lot right there. Cliff was a badass. He really was. He really was. And again. And a sweetheart. Is he going to be in the episode?

Do you know for sure? Yes. I have seen a rough cut of the episode. Oh, that's going to be so amazing. He made it in there. We do dive deep into the Native American aspect to the UFO phenomenon, and it's possible connection to the Phoenix Lights. I won't give away too much on that side of it.

But I do think there might be something to be said about it. And then the last image I want to touch on in this upcoming episode of Mysteries Decoded is you only see the back of him, but up there we have a pilot who Jennifer and I had the pleasure of interviewing. He, I don't know. They might show his face. They might not. He did want to remain anonymous when we interviewed him.

That might have changed once the episode airs. So you guys will have to check that out. But he was a pilot and did witness the Phoenix Lights that night. So we're going to get his side of the event, what he thinks it could have been, could have not been and everything in between. So I wanted to show that little image of them there to tease you guys. But yeah, the episode is going to premiere August 24th on the CW guys. Check your local listings for that.

We are going to revisit the Phoenix Lights like never before. And Jason will be featured in that episode as well. It was such a pleasure, buddy, meeting you up there. Which mountain was that that we were on? It was South Mountain. South Mountain. Yeah, it was fun being up there. You get a bird's eye view of the city.

It was awesome. So beautiful. And the reason that Jennifer and I were re-investigating, I guess, the Phoenix lights is because there were recent sightings of the same sort of phenomena happening in the area. I believe it was, you know, just a couple years ago. But again, it could have been anything, but we thought it was worth reopening the investigation and connecting it to what these lights could have been recently in Phoenix. So yeah, yeah, definitely check that out, guys, if you can. That's kind of it, my man, in terms of the Phoenix lights, but we do have some listener questions here if you're willing to stick around for just a little bit for some of these. What do you think?

What do you say? You bet. Awesome. Let's see here. This is an interesting one. Austin asks, Jason, have you since encountered any story of evidence that beat your own experience? Yeah, I guess any cases that really stick out to you that you personally looked into that really stand the test of time? Hmm. Well, like I said, I mean, for me, with, with, in terms of the Phoenix lights,

it didn't really impact me that much at the time, you know, aside from lights in the sky that shouldn't really be there and, you know, kind of confused me. I think many other witnesses to the Phoenix lights have far more exciting stories than I do. But in terms of other, other sightings I've had personally, I mean, I think many of the, the, the, the, after objects. I've seen, you know, and I told you this on the show before, Ryan, but I've lost count of the UFOs I've seen. And when I say UFO, meaning things in the sky that I haven't ever been able to come up with a satisfactory explanation for, I say about a dozen, dozen UFOs. And several of those have been, you know, strange, strange shapes, low hanging in the

sky from rectangles to even like a hexagon, just some weird, weird things that, again, Again, you know, don't make sense in my mind. They don't belong where I saw them. So personal experience, and this is something you cover extensively, Ryan, personal experience, there's no substitute for. When it comes to UFOs, like your own experience really is the best evidence that you can have because you can see all the photos and all the videos and hear all the incredible stories, but you aren't there.

You don't know what this person saw and you didn't experience what they experienced. I can look at a photo and say, yeah, that looks like this. That's most likely what it was. But I wasn't there. I didn't see it. They were, they had their own experiences. So to equate levels of evidentiary value or credibility or something that's more wow factor, and being in UFO so long, I've seen so many more things that far surpass anything that I've experienced personally.

That's fair, man. Yep. Yep, and like you said, we weren't there when it happened, so we can't really have a final determination of what the Phoenix lights were, what these things you were saw, and what thousands of people all over the world are seeing on a daily basis. And other people have video of the Phoenix Lights. Where's my video footage got it? Is of you playing baseball or something, probably, right? It's probably my little, my brothers were little and very much involved in sports all the time, soccer and baseball. It's probably one of their games that recorded over it.

Damn. But as I said, I mean, that's why I scan that footage, hoping for like a cut, you know, between stop and record, where I can have a flash of the Phoenix Lights that I could get a still from. But it's lost forever, man. It's lost.

Alas. I just got to let it go. Just let it go. Crash Bob SquarePants. Some people said they received a message. This is only a demonstration. Did you get anything similar, Jason? Now, this is another theory we didn't touch on

with Phoenix Lights. idea that maybe this was some sort of stealth craft or balloon low altitude thing that they were testing and they wanted to see how many people would report this thing. Right. And test it out. And, you know, once it got on the news and everything, everyone was saying they saw it. Do you think this could have been some sort of test that they were trying to see how the public would react to it or how many people would actually see this stealth craft?

Again, we're talking mid-90s. This was the height of, you know, the bombers and the stealth technology really coming to light for the public, at least. It was probably being tested much earlier than that as we always hear that thing. What do you think about this all being some sort of test on the public? You know, in this field, you learn to consider all possibilities, and that's certainly one of them. You know, I can't rule that out. It might seem far-fetched, but, you know, the government and the military has conducted testing on the public before. and, you know, we could posit that same, same possibility with, like, the TikTok video and all that stuff, you know, were they actually testing their own soldiers, their own pilots to see if they would release this information, you know, how well they would follow protocol, you know, what information would get leaked. You know, we can speculate all day. But, you know, with the Phoenix Lights, yeah, I mean, I heard that a lot from a lot of people who have talked about this. And I could even

convince myself that, you know, something was forcing me to go out and observe this thing because I did have this impulse to continuously look at it and go out and check on it. So I don't think that's likely just because, you know, that is a stretch. I think many, many, many, many, many other things are more likely possibility than that. but I certainly entertain it. That's fair, my man. Well, let's move on to our final listener questions here with more current things going on in the UFO world.

It's been a while since you and I have caught up. Let's start with Lou over at UCR. He asks, Can't wait to hear Jason's thoughts on the Calvin photo. Now, this is a case out of Scotland, my new homeland very, very soon, of an event that happened that was supposedly investigated, at least the photos were, by the Ministry of Defense.

They were, you know, held lock and key for almost 32 years. They were supposed to be classified for another, I don't know, 40, 50 years, something like that. But apparently they finally were released to the public. Our friends over at the, at UAP Media, UK, were able to obtain some of the original photos from the Calvin event. So, Jason, what are your thoughts on the whole Calvin UFO incident and this recent photo that finally came forward to, I don't know, demystify or I guess even mystify more this event? What are your thoughts on the whole Calvin UFO incident making the rounds right now? Yeah, sure. So, I mean, it's cool. We finally see this. And, you know, despite all of the hype, we have to remember that, you know, this is still just a photo with sort of a dubious background and questionable witnesses. but the biggest thing that makes this exciting is because we do have some MOD involvement. We do have some alleged photo analysis that was done on this by officials,

and we have the mystery of them withholding the release of the originals for many, many years to come. It certainly wasn't classified, and the information that the photos didn't belong to the government. they belonged to the photographers who tried to sell them to a newspaper. And when that didn't happen, they kind of went dark. And they were also poachers. So, I mean, we have a lot of red flags with the witnesses and the fact that they can't be tracked down. We can't ask any more questions. We can't definitively know where the photos were taken because the camera they use, you know,

we don't have access to that. We don't have geolocation tag to that because it was a film camera. Lots of interesting things about this. So as I pointed out, the UFO world is filled with infinite numbers of UFO photos and videos that are worlds better than this in terms of quality and detail and things like that. So calling it the world's best UFO photo ever is subjective and a stretch in my mind. But it is cool. And we've got a backstory to it.

We've got some details from some investigation that was done years ago. We can't validate any of that. we can't talk anymore to the witnesses to really know for certain where this photo was taken, what the conditions were. It's hard to tell. And again, you'll experience this soon, Ryan, but 9 o'clock at night is still pretty bright in Scotland and August. It can be. But, you know, there's also all sorts of things that happen there, weather-wise, like cloud inversions. And I know that sounds like swamp gas, but these are real things that we have to deal with in the UFO world when we're looking at photos and videos.

Plenty of theories posited here with reflections and things like that. People point out, oh, there's no water there. But again, we're relying on old testimony from people that we can't track down. We don't know 100% for sure where this photo was taken. So there are nearby locks. There are bodies of water. There are bodies of water in that area that do change. They are man-made reservoirs, basically,

that raise and lower, depending on the time of the year. So just a lot of unanswered things with this photo. I love all the sleuthing that's happening, all of the different hypotheses being brought forward, and just rigorous testing. But I will point out, I do love the kind of silliness of the UFO world when looking at this because I don't know about you, but when you went to the story where these guys broke

and provided this photo to us, the image clearly said, not for any other use. Don't repurpose this. Don't modify it. Don't use it without getting permission first. First thing everybody did was, you know, do their artificial intelligence,

you know, zooming and cropping and trying to get a better look at this thing while, you know, thinking that that told us anything about this blurry photo, it's just enhanced the artifacts and stuff they're already there. And the AI models, you know,

just compound the, the problems there. I'm watching this like everybody else. I mean, all I can do and all anybody else can do is offer our personal opinions. And, you know, based on my experience and what I've seen in other photos,

you know, we're not going to be able to determine anything from this photo, really. You can spin it, you know, to fit any sort of narrative you want. You can turn it upside down. You can highlight this and highlight that.

And, you know, until we know exactly where this was shot, We don't really have much more to go on. That plane looks so weird to me, by the way. How the wings... So cartoonish. I just don't understand how that would even fly.

But I don't know. Yeah, it's very confusing to me. Certainly not something I would call the best UFO photo ever. But good old Nick Pope help type that up. But, yeah, it is an interesting one. It's interesting to see just how it's blown up. And I don't know. I mean, my personal opinion is it kind of makes the UFO research

community look bad in a way because, again, it's not really that spectacular of a photo. It's very grainy. We don't have the details. We don't have first generation copies. We don't even have the witnesses and the photographer to talk to. So it's just yet another photo on the pile of billions of photos we already have. And as Alejandro Rojas and I've been talking about our days back at Open Minds, you know, we had Wendell Stevens's entire photo archive. and we would go through and, you know, just look at hundreds of photos that were worlds better than that. I mean, a lot of them looked like hoax photos. Others were very mysterious. Had a lot of detail with them about the investigation that was conducted.

Certainly ones that I would put up as best UFO photo ever, or certainly a good UFO photo, over this photo any day. But again, it is nice that, and again, that's the power of the UFO research community and social media is just that crowdsourcing of trying to track things down, trying to get more answers, because at this point, we don't have very much information to work on or work with, and that is the case with most things in UFOs.

Absolutely, man. Yep, couldn't put it better myself. The case remains open as it does with the Phoenix lights as well. Bringing us up to really current, our last kind of starred question here, Jason. I know it's not the lights, but did you hear about the spears that are going to be featured on Sunday

on ABC News. I didn't know about this either. I know there's going to be a new special documentary coming out over in Australia. Seven News Now and Ross Colthart are going to be looking into UFOs again. But yeah, are you familiar with this, this ABC News broadcast that's going to be going on? No, I don't think so. I saw something recently about Spears, but I think that was probably tied to the Ross bit. But yeah.

Okay. Not that I've seen. I'm not aware either. Interesting. Well, if something drops this week, just more to talk. about and more to catch up on. Yeah. That'll be cool.

Well, hey, my man, thank you so much for, you know, sharing your personal sighting with us of the Phoenix Lights. I think it's so cool to meet someone that was actually there when this famous event happened. And you have your own side to it, your own thoughts, your own theories. So do hundreds of other witnesses who saw that. And I think it's cool that we got kind of the, I guess, the insider's view of it, if you will.

But yeah, what else is going on in your world of UFOs? Are you working on anything over at Rogue Planet? I should stress that I am wearing the unknown t-shirt for your UFO podcast that I have the pleasure of being on every now and again with you guys over there. That's awesome. But yeah, yeah, what's going on in your world of UFOs? What can we expect for you? Yeah, so once you get settled in your new home across the pond,

we're going to be plotting and scheming. So I've got a project that we're working on right now for Rug Planet that's going to be an animated project. So no promises, no timeline there, but it's something that's in the works that is going to be UFO related for sure. Still working on my next book, Life gets in the way, and it's been slow going, but I'm probably about halfway through with my next book. I know that feeling. Working on that. But yeah, with Rogue Planet, we're going to be looking at getting back to doing regular UFO Happy Hour episodes where we can discuss, you know, current topics, just kind of in an informal setting and, you know, riff and get each other's thoughts and opinions on current stories

that are happening. And some other shows we're going to try to try to bring out as well, including the Rogue Planet podcast, bringing that back. So a couple things in the works, no promises, but, you know, it's always a fun, fun juggling act trying to fit the UFO world and the world of all things strange into into real life when it's no longer my full-time career. I know that feeling, man. You know, even doing this today, I'm like, ah, my studio here is slowly getting taken down and unpacking. And like you said, real life does get in the way.

But this is a topic that does bring a lot of people together. You and I included, we probably need. Never would have met had it not been for this. Maybe we would have. Maybe we would have met at a Blink 182 concert or less than Jake concert. I don't know. It's possible. Probably would have run into you at the bar in a theater at New York or something like that.

Yeah. Yeah. I tend to forget that aspect of my life. Yeah. Yeah, right. So we probably would have run into each other. But no, UFOs brought us together, brother. It always does, as it does everyone in the chat as well.

So, guys, I want to thank everyone who tuned in today. to listen to Jason and I talk all about the Phoenix Lights. I hope you enjoyed this kind of overview of the event. It was super fun, again, going through the history of it. And yeah, Jason, where can we find everything you're up to, my man, before we get going here? Twitter's the best place. I post everything there. So at Acentric, right under my face there.

And, yeah, that's how you can find everything I do. Awesome, brother. I'm going to do just a small recap with the audience here before I, I, Let them go. So stick around backstage. I'll chat with you in just a sec. And thank you so much again for joining me on Somewhere in the Saks. Thank you, Ryan.

And thank you, everybody, for listening. Somewhere in the Skies is produced by Third Kind Productions, in association with the Entertainment One Podcast Network.