This Paranormal Life - #301 The Phoenix Lights - Most Convincing UFO Case in US History?

Episode Date: February 7, 2023

In 1997 Rory and Kit were busy desperately trying to wrap their tiny nugget brains around the mechanics of Pokemon Red, but thousands of miles away in Arizona, the good people of Phoenix were trying to wrap their adult sized brains around the most insane UFO sighting in US history. The Phoenix Lights is one of the most witnessed and reported UFO sightings in recent history, but there are still two paranormal investigators who haven't decided whether it was really paranormal or not. Time for Rory and Kit to investigate.This Paranormal Life is sponsored by BetterHelp.Go to betterhelp.com/paranormallife to get started today using code "paranormallife".Support us on Patreon.com/ThisParanormalLife to get access to weekly bonus episodes!Buy Official TPL Merch! - thisparanormallife.com/storeFollow us on Twitter, Instagram, and YouTubeJoin our Secret Society Facebook CommunityIntro music by www.purple-planet.comResearch by Amy GrisdaleEdited by Louis BlatherwickDocumentaryhttps://youtu.be/HGS09LzpARs Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Did humans come from the sea? Are your family really your family? Answers to these questions and more on this episode of This Paranormal Life! Hello! Hey! Hello and welcome back to This Paranormal Life. I'm trying out a new thing, Rory.

Weird energy for this week. Talking like Dracula. I don't think that's what Dracula sounds like. Talking like Dracula, my dude. You've never read the books, apparently, or seen the movies. He's from Venice Beach, right? Welcome back to This Paranormal Life, the weekly comedy podcast where every Tuesday we investigate a different paranormal case and decide by the end of the episode whether it's paranormal or not. In 300 episodes, we've never managed to word the intro better than that.

It sounds convoluted, but it's really not. Rory? I think I can do a better job right now, to be honest with you. Oh, okay. I don't want to say that yours was bad, but I'm just saying if you don't think we can do it better, then listen to this, motherfucker. All right.

Yo, what's up, my little booze? Sorry. Sorry. My little booze? Sorry. Sorry. My little booze. I got rattled there. I got rattled because you put me under pressure. And I can do it better. All right.

Three, two, one. Boo! Shock! Welcome to the podcast of the world and the paranormal. You were about to say, welcome to the world. This is this paranormal life. The life where every episode we ask a podcast about a question in the paranormal world. I'm taking away the Diet Coke because you've had too much.

You've had too much. Maybe we go with yours. Maybe a mix. What up my boos? This is this paranormal life. Yeah, bring back Satan Boo. Rory, how are you doing today? Our principal paranormal investigator. Hey, I'm doing pretty great. I'm so excited to be back on the podcast, ready to dive into a brand new paranormal investigation. I really think we maybe shouldn't have spent so much time making jokes and having fun at the start of this podcast. Oh.

Because we have an hour and a half left. Well, we got about an hour left on our SD card that we're recording on and about an hour left in the studio before they boot us out. So we are fighting against not just the world of the paranormal today, but also the clock. I will say this is a chunky one too.

Ooh, okay, so... So I'm going to need you specifically to maybe text the studio managers and kind of tell them to, we're going to need to push that Mac because... I'm not sure that's possible. It's a big one. It's a big... going to need to push that Mac because it's a big one. It's a big, they'll understand.

If you tell them it's a big one, tell them Kitty Boy said it's a big one. I say, what's up my booze? Kitty says it's a big one. I think just no distractions, laser focus, borderline no jokes. I won't even say a god darn peep

and we just blast through it. Couldn't agree more because also there's not enough time on the SD card. Also, I have to run to catch a flight. You have a flight also, yeah. In about, yeah, 90 minutes. So we're recording this in the London City Airport lounge.

Thank you to Amex. Thank you to British Airways. It is true, though. I wish I were joking. We actually do have a big bloody case on our hands today. I'm just going to come out and say it. Thank you so much to everyone who's requested today's episode. This came as a listener submission as early as 2019.

Autumn Logan wrote in and said, Hello, Kitten Rory. My name is Autumn and I am a closet paranormal enthusiast. What does that mean? Embarrassed about it? You don't want to tell anyone. Oh, okay. Were we supposed to beep the name? Yeah, let's go ahead and go back in time and beep that. Have you ever investigated the Phoenix Lights incident of 1997? I was born and raised in Prescott, Arizona, and remember well when the event took place. It was all over the headlines.

It has been much talked about over the years, but I'd love to hear a Kit and Rory take on it. Thanks for the great show. I feel like this has to be one of those cases that's been requested that we investigate dozens of times. We've had so many emails from people and I don't know why we've never done it. It has been requested dozens of times.

People like Tan Cap, Rich Bradbury, Alex McLeod, Joshua Diaz de Leon, Mike Gotchling, and Michelle Connolly, amongst probably many others on social media. All of them deeply, deeply closeted paranormal enthusiasts. We're going to have to beep every name

on the list. All of that. All of that. Rory, it's a great question. Maybe today you will find out why we didn't cover it. In previous years. Okay. Because actually, when you said it's like, yeah, my episode today is actually on the Phoenix Lights. My first thought was, are you sure we haven't already done an episode on the Phoenix Lights? I can't be sure, but I did Google it and it didn't return any results. Okay. I'll let you know if anything sounds familiar. I'm very excited. The electricity is in the air.

We're going to get into one of the biggest TPL investigations ever, right after some quick words from today's sponsors. All right, Rory, let's get right into it. It was March 13th, 1997. Rory, at this point, is a little toddler. Yeah, a little nugget. Our story begins at 7.55 p.m. when a man in Henderson, Arizona,

whose identity is unknown slash secret slash irrelevant, happened to notice something in the night sky. Hmm. Let me tell you, even if he did have a name, the second you see something suspicious in the night sky, all you are is a big f***ing red dot. All you are is a target on a CIA cork board.

I'm sorry, I'm maybe getting a little too fired up, too early in the story. I'll apologize. I love the energy we're here for. Listen, your whole life could be redacted at any point. Exactly. You know what you are? Dead man walking. Okay. That's what you are.

Well, let's just let a little bit of the story play out before we start getting into all these stereotypes. You can, just don't get attached. Don't get attached to our protagonist. That's all I'll say. This thing was up high,

but it looked to him to be an enormous triangular object flying overhead. Whoa. We're getting in deep here right off the bat. Yeah, we're not messing around. No flowery poetry at the start of the episode.

It's a craft. This thing was astonishing. He couldn't think of anything he'd seen like it in living memory. Ideas started racing through his mind. What could this mean? Military invasion? Foreign invasion? Alien invasion?

Some kind of invasion. To be sure. What he did know was it was his duty as a red-blooded American to alert the authorities to the possible threat to national security. Kit, you have already piqued my interest because in many, many of our UFO investigations, we've covered crafts that all follow kind of a similar look, a similar pattern. I don't know many that we've investigated that take on the form of a triangle. Right? Like, I don't want to get anyone too excited too early,

but I am picturing an Imperial Star Destroyer. I don't know if that's where we're going, but that's what's in my brain. We've been podcasting for about eight minutes. We've already said the word invasion eight times. We've been podcasting for about eight minutes. We've already said the word invasion eight times. Henderson Sheriff Department.

What seems to be the problem? Uh-huh. A big triangular plane traveling southeast. An invasion? Whoa, whoa, whoa. Slow down. The sheriff noted down the details. Okay, thank you. Mm-hmm. I understand perfectly, whoa. Slow down. The sheriff noted down the details. Okay, thank you.

Mm-hmm. I understand perfectly, yes. I've got it down now. I'll take care of it. Thanks again for doing the right thing. Good night, sir. F***ing wackadoodle. Sorry, what was that? Oh! Oh, nothing. Sorry, I thought I hung up. All right, you take care now. Thanks again, sir. You f***ing circus freak.

I'm still on the line. Why won't this thing end? Claire, disconnect the line! But that wasn't the last call made that night. Sheriffs, police stations, and military bases were pelted with public tips about something in the sky. But there was one other facility whose phone rang off the hook that night.

The first communication came in at 8.16pm. Good evening, this is the National UFO Reporting Centre. How may I direct your inquiry? On the other end of the line was a former police officer that I cannot name for his safety. Whoa, we will call him Bill. He lived in Pauldin, Arizona, just two hours north of Phoenix, which does seem like, in retrospect, too much information to give on a man who we need to protect his identity,

but I've done it now. His home address was 34 Sherman Lay. He'd seen something that worried him too. It also worried his wife Margaret, 31 And his two children Again, not to dox him or give away any of his proclamation Who go to Paulding Elementary Teacher is Mrs. April If you don't believe what he's saying

Call him yourself, ask 071-235 Let's rat this little card out He said, I saw it quite clearly. It was an array of orange lights that clearly belonged to a fleet of aircraft flying in formation. They moved in unison until they disappeared over the horizon. It kind of gave me the heebie-jeebies.

Didn't seem right. Witnesses continued to come forward. Over the next few hours, the switchboard lights lit up in a wave from rural Nevada to the capital of neighboring Arizona. There were a bunch of bright white orbs hanging in the sky down in Prescott Valley. I saw it too. It was huge. It was like a meteor shower. There were so many lights raining down on us. Rory, today we are covering a highly demanded

paranormal case and one of the most famous in all modern UFO history, the Phoenix Lights. Hell yes, brother. We are already starting on such a strong foot. We're talking about multiple witnesses, consistent descriptions between the witnesses, and one of them is an ex copper, a man of the law, the long arm of the law. This is what we like to see. One thousand percent. There's so many things that are great about this and we'll touch on them all later. But I mean, one, just how recent this was, 1997, within our lifetimes, we were granted somewhat still nuggets, but it doesn't mean we weren't investigating the paranormal in our own way.

Yeah. And secondly, just how many people already within minutes this is affecting. I was investigating boobies at the time. I think I was that young. Specifically, why does milk keep coming out of them? At six years old. Arguably too old. I was, of course, 21 at the time.

A late bloomer for sure. Yeah, I was principally investigating how to evolve an EV into Vaporeon. I still don't know. I still don't know. It's been many years. I believe it's some sort of stone or flower. Now, these things may be called the Phoenix Lights, but that's only because it was the first of five Arizona cities to report sightings.

But this thing was seen by countless eyes in two different states on multiple occasions. Wow, it's that big? It can be seen? It is a Star Destroyer! Within minutes of the first reports, the enormous lighted structure had made its way over the southern part of the city of Phoenix. By now, thousands of people had seen it. It was at this time that the first photographs and videos were taken. I do have one early photograph to show you. Ooh, okay.

So imagine you're maybe on your balcony or in your garden. It's night. You hear the hubbub and you look outside. You grab your 35mm camera, point it up at the sky. This is what one person got. Whoa, okay. I mean, I want to say congratulations and thank you right off the bat for providing some photographic evidence so early into this case.

Not something Kit is known for, but nice to, it feels good actually, to be honest. It's true. Kind of off the back of that, what is this? You know, not to diminish, again, I want to say it's great that you're doing this and I'm really happy that this is a part of the conversation. That being said, what is this? What am I looking at here? So remember we described a triangle formation of lights. Yes. I will concede. I'm glad we're having this conversation early.

It's taken me a little while to wrap my head around the descriptions of this sighting and then matching that with the images. So what I need you to imagine is imagine you see this in the sky. And at first, maybe you see a couple of lights and you're like, oh, that's interesting. Maybe there's some helicopters out. And then you notice that they're all lined up perfectly with each other. And you're like, that's kind of strange. And then you realize all the lights are moving in perfect formation and symmetry. It's at that point people realized this might be one big thing we're looking at. And those are all the lights on the one big thing. I see. Yeah. I think I should say when I was asking those questions, I'm not trying to shit on this evidence.

I'm trying to actually decipher what I'm looking at because it is a very incredibly dark image. I think that stuff at the bottom, those lights must be the town, right? They're city lights, yeah. Okay, okay. So then, yes, up above at the top of the picture in the darkness,

we do have this triangular, kind of like arrow point line of white lights yeah imagine you know how like geese will fly in like a triangle formation but imagine that with orbs exactly so i know it's a little bit early on in the podcast to throw around terms like electric goose but could this be some sort of paranormal creature we haven't heard of yet? I love the energy. I love the open-mindedness

you're bringing to the case. I will say probably not, but I keep it in the back pocket. Maybe. Maybe there will be more evidence for that. We can circle back

to the geese. There was honking. There was some kind of electromagnetic honking going on. Every police radio for a hundred miles around was honking off the hook. So the image I just showed you, it is difficult to get scale because it's so dark

and hard to focus a film camera like that at night. But this photograph and others have been analysed to try and get a better idea of the dimensions we're working with here. Because other photos had, let's say, mountains in the background background with some ground visible you mentioned we can see some city lights here yeah now while here we're hearing about that distinctive v shape or arrow shape and the lights are white i will say other accounts varied somewhat other people described crescent shapes others circle shapes but there was a lot of lights flying around that night so hopefully more will become clear that's kind of strange isn't it because from that picture you

showed me this looks like a pretty sharp and clear shape of an object it does look like a point so if some people are saying it looks like a circle, they're saying it looks like a square or triangle. Is this thing morphing like a goddamn Power Ranger? It has been said. Some people were claiming that they thought it was changing shape and even color. Is it so crazy to think that these geese can take multiple formations in the night sky? I just don't want to get too hung up on the geese thing because I was... It's going to be hard. I was just trying to get the V formation.

Right, I've kind of planted the seed and now it's taking root in your brain. Yes, planted the egg, you could say. The goose egg. Okay. Deep, deep in my brain and now it's very hard mentally to move past it.

Rory is not going to be speaking English by the end of this. He's going to be honking. So many people called in tips that night that the Arizona government had to hold a press conference in the coming days to reassure the panicked public. That's a little late, isn't it, in the coming days? Well, it's tricky, isn't it?

Because if you act too quickly and you do a kind of War of the Worlds style interrupt, we're interrupting this important news broadcast for a message from our governor. He's like, calm down. Don't get excited. Close the blinds and put on your radiation goggles. Yeah, you can't exactly do the emergency press conference to say it's all good. You don't want to do that. You don't want to interrupt the Big Bang Theory at 9.30 in all the homes of the average Joe's.

And it's like, emergency broadcast, emergency broadcast. The president is putting on a gas mask as he's trying to reassure the public. Just stay calm. Jesus Christ. He's loading a handgun. Stay in your homes. Screams off screen. They're breaking into the Oval Office, sir!

Oh my god, get down! It just goes static. In the background, you're like, is that Drake and the Pope? Boarding a craft? Boarding a rocket ship? Everything's fine! Stay at home and good luck, you sons of bitches. He does a salute and just luck you sons of bitches he does a salute

and just disappears vertically out of frame it's Taylor Swift the Archbishop of Canterbury Jack Ma I think we saw in the background all of the Forbes 500

so I appreciate I do appreciate if you want to keep things chill if you don't want to stir up anything with the public make it look like it's okay to wait

a couple days because it's not a big deal. The governor, Fife Symington III, stood at the microphone, squinting his eyes. Sorry, one more time? Fife Symington III. Okay. Just want to make sure I heard that right.

Don't blame me, blame Arizona. He was squinting his eyes as the cameras flashed brightly. Ladies and gentlemen, I know why you're all here. I'm not going to beat around the bush. Like many of you, I saw the lights in the sky. Oh, shit. We found out who's responsible. In fact, we've got him in custody.

What? Better yet, he's here today. Who is he about to bring on stage? He could be taking out a member of the Russian military. He could be dragging out a three-foot-tall pile of purple goo. We don't know what or who it's going to be. We call him Zong. We don't know if he's intelligent yet, but he had a ray gun.

Rory, I'm about to bring you back in time. We have footage of that press junket. What? Let's see what happened. Oh, my God. 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. Okay.

In the alien costume, the governor's chief of staff. This just goes to show that you guys are entirely too serious. All right, ladies and gentlemen listening at home, he brought out a man in an alien costume. Quite an elaborate alien costume. A giant, giant alien gray costume. A silver space suit. That's the kind of shit that grinds my gears.

This makes me sick to my stomach. Is this a joke to you? Fiefel? Whatever your goddamn name is? Prince Fiefling this the third? You're a plant. You're not a real man. For sure not. Don't you just love that? Why don't they just call him McHuman the first?

He's not a real man. This just goes to show you all take things far too seriously. Now, please get in line to be neuralized before you leave the conference. You might as well have come out and said it. Yeah. You know, unlike you, Feifel, we actually take the paranormal pretty goddamn seriously. And I don't appreciate our profession and incidents like this, the Phoenix Lights, being disregarded in a comedic way.

This is you in the crowd with a reporter's, like, pen and paper, tinfoil hat, tinfoil underpants. We actually take it pretty f***ing serious. Apologies for swearing, Mr. Governor, but... The governor claimed that people take UFOs too seriously, and that there was a reasonable explanation for all of this. Let's hear it then, bud. You see, Davis Mountain Air Force Base in Tucson was running a training program called Operation Snowbird.

The craft seen that night were A-10s, and the people who witnessed a large triangular object were simply misinterpreting a group of planes flying in perfect synchrony at a high altitude because at the same time a different squadron of a-10s were conducting a flare drill so these players were visible for up to 70 miles around the lights appeared to hover because the heat from the burning flares created a balloon effect on their parachutes slowing their fall to the

ground so while we all had a little fun today I'm glad we could clear all that players created a balloon effect on their parachutes, slowing their fall to the ground. So while we all had a little fun today, I'm glad we could clear all that misunderstanding up. Some of you also claim that it wasn't just the sightings of the craft. You were actually face to face with a creature speaking a different language. And I actually think it's the f***ing... That was our intern, Terry. That was a new intern.

Some of you say it wasn't an intern because he put you on the craft. You went to another planet and ate a fruit you'd never seen before. We think that's actually electromagnetic waves causing dreams. It is causing dreams. This conference is over. Thank you for coming. He turns to his bodyguard like, they ain't buying it. Shoot them all.

You know what I would have said? The guy who pulled off the alien mask pulls off his human mask. It's an alien. He starts shooting everyone. You know what I would have said to that governor in that room that day, Rory? What?

Do you have some salt, governor? Or maybe a glass of water while we're at it. Because that giant heaping plate of shit sandwiches is a little hard to swallow. It's a little under-seasoned, actually. Because how do you expect me to swallow that much shit, governor? I don't think salt would make it easier to swallow. It might mask the taste a little bit, but if anything, it's going to make it pretty bad. That's the official account of the Phoenix Lights, Rory.

Hey, what did I expect? You know, we've heard it before with Roswell. We've heard it with every single UFO investigation where someone gets involved to make a statement to justify it. They'll say anything. They'll say it was a military drill. They'll say it was a weather balloon. They'll say it was a weather balloon. They'll say it was some sort of atmospheric phenomenon. Hell, they'll even wheel out an alien to make a big joke about how it isn't an alien. But come on, I've seen the picture. What about

these witnesses? This can't be the end of the story. I'm not buying it. Rory's not buying it. The people of Arizona ain't buying it. Something is not adding up here. The government story doesn't match what real people saw from the ground that day. That's why we have to get to the bottom of it in the second half of today's story, right after some quick messages from today's sponsors. We're back talking about the Phoenix Lights. I mentioned that the people of Arizona weren't buying this shit sandwich, Rory. Hell no. One of those people was Trig Johnson. Great name. 50 years old, a retired airline pilot from Scottsdale. He and his 22-year-old son were looking for comet Haley-Bopp that night when they noticed the lights.

Trigg said, I looked up and remembered saying out loud, I'm going to chalk this up to an illusion. It was the size of 25 airliners, moving at about 100 knots at maybe 5,000 feet, and it didn't make a sound. Wow. I've flown 747s across oceans and not seen anything like what I saw that night. I don't expect anybody to take my word for it. This was something you had to see for yourself to believe. Hey, I mean, if we want to talk about UFOs, this is the man. You say he's a retired pilot. He's flown aircrafts before. He's spending that night looking at comets in the sky. He knows what's up, literally. I'm a professional kite flyer. I know things in the sky for sure.

He's like the ultimate witness. I actually invented military weather balloons. witness. I actually invented military weather balloons. I have 30-30 vision. It was a medical anomaly. I can see through time. I would love that if a whistleblower just came out one day and just said, weather balloons aren't real, by the way. Does anyone even know what that looks like? They just put two words together, weather and balloon, and y'all bought it. There's a couple of details there that do come up later, which I want to hone in on. When you break down those numbers, the size of 25 airliners, okay, fine.

Sure. Imperial Star Destroyer. Moving at 100 knots, that means nothing to me. But 5,000 feet. Now, that ain't that high. That's what I'm saying. Like, an airliner should be flying at, like, 30,000 feet. Yeah.

5,000 feet is nothing. And wait for this. Dr. Bradley Evans was a 47-year-old Tucson psychiatrist. He and his wife, Chris, saw the lights over the interstate while driving. They watched them for 20 minutes as they slowly moved south in a neat diamond around only 1,500 feet overhead absolutely silently and they even had their sunroof down and they couldn't hear a thing hey this is pretty consistent with a lot of UFO sightings that we've had in the past absolute silence which I think is probably

the most terrifying aspect of these sightings is a lot of the stories people will be watching the craft and then they say it basically disappeared in half a second without making a noise yeah which when you think about what that doesn't like make sense it doesn't it can't be really comprehended of what that would look like it would almost be comical to watch this thing right in front of you just go not hear a silently drift Silently drift away. You'd literally think a part of your brain just like broke for a second. Genuinely, it would be so weird. It's a great point.

Like so many things about UFO sightings, whether it's the, you know, a classic one is, you know, an object flying at incredible speed and then instantly stopping, which is almost impossible for a man-made vehicle to do currently. I mean, helicopters can come close to that, but they make a hell of a lot of noise. Yeah. And I mean, the only thing you could maybe argue that would be close nowadays is drones still make a lot of noise, but they can kind of fly in formations like that very low to the ground. But not this fast. These things are flying like demons. Two other pilots both reported that they saw the lights independently, but described the same thing.

Both men described a craft of immense size measuring up to a mile long, bearing in mind the world's largest craft is about 300 foot long. This is like nothing known to science or God. It's one hell of a goose. Many reported it was traveling at seemingly impossible speeds. Researcher Amy has tracked these sightings in chronological order. She says it was first spotted flying at high speed over Nevada and then suddenly slowed down over Arizona. And when we say high speed, we're allegedly

talking more than 2, 2000 miles per hour. This is one of these cool events where there's so many sightings, you could probably like print out a map of Arizona and map out when it was sighted and where, and kind of actually create a trajectory like a flight path for this thing. Rory, they did it already. What? We were going to even begin to do the animation that we planned to at Village Labs at the outset. Let's try to recreate what went on to properly illustrate

what the witnesses were describing. Shut up. We've done motion studies of the different witness drawings, the different videos that we had, and built a scientific model that we then turned and moved it in as many positions as we could

to find something that was either a formation of lights or lights on some object that no matter how we moved it, it fit with what was on the video and what the witnesses said. They built like 3D maps tracking all the witnesses' information. This is like a behind the scenes video on the production of the Lord of the Rings.

They built a little phoenix and built little ships and they were flying them around little sets. This is insane. And they're able to do this because with the Phoenix Lights, it is hard to overstate just how many witnesses we're dealing with. Everybody and their f***ing cat saw this s***. For example,

sometime between 9 and 9.30pm, one family in Mesa saw an enormous craft with a distinctive structure fly over their area. They described a triangle-shaped object with lights at three corners, sounds familiar, and another larger light in the middle. They could clearly see panels on the craft which were in a grid pattern.

My God. Next in came several reports of two round objects which seemed to detach from the V-shaped object only to later rejoin what they called the mothership one witness described the mothership dividing itself into two separate crafts and moving in the direction of tucson another group of estate agents who were showing a property in town cited a quote gigantic disc at close range in the north end of town. They said it was two miles long. Yeah, it's going to be hard to sell that house after that viewing.

It's a pretty calm neighborhood. You know, lovely families. Holy f***! I mean, if you just look here, down at the beautiful floors, eyes on the beautiful, beautiful floors. The tractor beams coming down. There's some great restaurants in the local area.

Be sure to let us know if you're interested. Here comes some of the friendly locals now. A-ba-da-bop, a-ba-da-bop, a-ba-da-bop, a-ba-da-bop. Good evening to you too, sir. So what do you say? Can I put you down for an offer? I don't even know if I want to say this next, but they said that there were bright lights around the edge of this craft and they could see rows of windows with silhouettes of figures moving around inside.

UFO cases are so difficult because you basically you want to have as much evidence and as many testimonies as you can to really make the case believable, really make it real. many testimonies as you can to really make the case believable, really make it real. There is a tipping point. There definitely is a tipping point where you've got to be real careful because it's like hearing these stories, seeing these pictures, it's like, yes, I'm in. This is so real. This is incredible.

All it takes is for one person to go, you think that's crazy. They beamed me up. It's like, all right, all right, all right. Let's put the brakes on. Because we want to stick to stuff with evidence. I've seen their faces. They look like Tom Cruise. All right, we're done here.

Yeah. But in the samurai movie, not in the Top Gun one. You've got to be very careful. I don't doubt this person, you know, or what they think they saw. But yeah, you have to be careful with UFO cases. Rory, a minute ago, I shared with you that little clip of the making of Avatar 2. That came from a documentary made by Dr. Ki Tai, who put together a lot of the, collated a lot of evidence

about this case and put it into a documentary, which is actually on YouTube. I better link it in the description of this podcast. It's you, isn't it? The director? Dr. Ki Tai?

You can just say if it's you. Dr. Kitty. It's actually put together by a pretty smart guy. I actually think he's doing some pretty good work. His name's Ki Aguirre. Keith Aguirre Marlena.

It's like you're just doing an Italian accent to say your own name. He's actually pretty smart. I press play on the YouTube and he's like, oh, mamma mia, this is crazy evidence, huh? But I am going to play just a couple of excerpts so we can blast through some of the key findings. Let's do it. Flares if the military claimed they dropped on the night of March 13th would be an illumination flare,

which would provide light for people on the ground to see what the enemy might be doing. I do work with flare on a daily basis. They weren't flares. I knew they weren't conventional aircraft. Okay, can we pause it there for just one second? I was very confused as to what was going on. I think they're trying to, this was just speaking, there was a military witness who they're trying to hide the identity of. He didn't do a great job with his voice, I will say.

He sounded like the greys. Usually they just make it really deep, and then you kind of of distort it this way. They just like slapped a robot effect on it. But you can still hear his voice perfectly. They're just making

the great point that this government excuse that there were flares lighting up the sky and that's what people were seeing and the reason they were hovering was because

the heat from the flare was keeping the parachutes up is total horse shit should I be bringing up the fact you're also showing me just video evidence

of the Phoenix Lights brother I can't baby feed you this shit anymore you gotta keep up he didn't even acknowledge it it is scientists talking in the video

but they're also just showing literal video footage of that night and the craft in the sky. There's rings under my eyes. You notice there's just 20 coffee cups lying on the table here. The documentary, like we saw, goes on to show how they've modeled all the sightings across the sky and found that each sighting seems to be consistent with the other.

Something was definitely up there. We know that. Yeah, oh my gosh. The only question is what. I like Occam's razor. The simplest explanation is probably the one that's true. It's an extraterrestrial spacecraft. I like where this guy's head's at.

I actually, if we ever wanted a third for this podcast, whoever this son of a bitch is, he's in already. That's incredible. I just didn't know where he was going when I watched that for the first time. Yeah, he's the guy that the government take out to try and help justify it. And it's like, look, the simplest explanation is obviously the one that is true. And everyone's like, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like, look, it's the simplest explanation is obviously the one that is true. And everyone's like, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like alien UFO.

There's no other way to describe. They're like dragging them off. The truth is out there. We're not alone in the universe. The list of people who saw this thing just goes on and on and on. We literally don't even have time today to get into all of the stories. There's a whole other tale here of an actual active military serviceman who blew the whistle on this shit saying he saw it. One man who may have seen evidence of the crafts was Ron Rager, a top-tier

UFO researcher and a former Boeing engineer. He was actually part of the team that developed America's Defense Support Program satellites, or DSP. These are satellites that would detect national security things like missile launches, space takeoffs, nuclear detonations. Right. On the night in question in 1997, Rager received a phone call from a colleague at the DSP saying that they picked up an object over southeastern Nevada. It traveled in the direction witnesses testified about until its signal became too weak and it was lost over Tucson. So this thing not only was spotted by hundreds of people or thousands of people, not only was photographed, videoed, but also was getting picked up by even essentially the government's

own object detection technology. Yeah, I feel like the guys who were running that technology shouldn't be calling up ex-employees and just being like, dude, you're not going to believe this. You're not going to believe what we just picked up. It's like, he's gone. You shouldn't really be doing that anymore. This next bit is the icing on the cake. Remember Governor Fife Symington III, the guy who had one of his aides dress up as an alien for a joke?

I can't wait to hear this. A few months after the incident, he gave an interview to a UFO investigator saying that he had had a personal UFO encounter that he was too scared to talk about. What? He had also flown a few planes in his time and knew what he was talking about. He said, I'm a pilot and I know just about every machine that flies. This thing was bigger than anything I've ever seen. It remains a great mystery. Other people saw it, responsible people, and I don't know why people would ridicule it. So why did he come out and say that in the press conference? Was he being used like a pawn, do you think? I don't know. I don't know.

I guess it's just one of those upper echelons of global government where, you know, he's in his office being like, I'm going to go out there tonight. I'm going to tell my people the truth. We're going to get to the bottom of what's going on. And then an MIB walks into the office, basically Agent Smith. And he's like, well, slow down there, Governor Symington. I think we've got to have a little conversation about the content of tonight's speech. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then, you know, the men in black come in and tell you what you're really going to say.

Yeah, yeah. And the mayor is like, so what, you want to make a big joke so I can wheel out that guy beside you in the alien costume? And the agent's like, yeah, costume. Sure, Fifey buddy. That is insane. Hey, maybe I was a little too harsh on him the first time. I didn't know where that story was going. I thought you were going to say three days after the sighting,

Fifey was found dead alone in his home. With a clear lightsaber wound to his chest. A perfectly laser-sealed bullet wound through his heart. Rory, I've thrown a lot at you today. And I've taken it. Where is your head at? My head is that we need to march. We need to march on the streets and demand the truth let me tell you the world powers were pretty gosh darn lucky that when this thing showed up

i couldn't walk yet and i was still shitting my own pants because if i was i don't know if you were shitting your pants but you could walk if i definitely was still shitting my pants. But if I was a man, if I was a grown-ass man, I would have assembled the Galactic 12 to demand answers for what happened that night. I mean, it seems like we're coming to the end of this podcast and we didn't even talk

about all the video footage. In the clips that you showed me, there was like multiple videos shot from different angles of these lights. There was. I will say there was far more photographic evidence than video evidence. There was a couple of key witnesses who got videos. God love them. The videos for the most part that I've seen haven't captured any of the, let's say, traveling at quote unquote 2,000 miles per hour. I think the point is that it's called the Phoenix Lights

because that was where it first was and that, like they said earlier, this object seemed to slow down over Arizona. So by definition, the most people who saw it, the most people who could take photographs, get the evidence. We're kind of seeing it at its almost like standstill. And then, of course, the fact that it is so dark that these objects are so bright we have this kind of blurry distant imagery but they've worked out through the models that they've managed to kind of find out that it is kind of

flying as low as people say that it is as big as people say this is crazy this is a wild case i mean in terms of ufo cases i don't know if we've ever had one with this much first-hand evidence. This many witnesses? Yeah. Oh, my God. Now, Arizona is kind of synonymous with UFO activity. It is near Roswell, of course. And it's right up there in the whole United States for the amount of UFO sightings per capita.

We, of course, on This Paranormal Life, have to think about whether there are boring, down-to-earth explanations. Do we? There is the one from the beginning about it being flares and some kind of military drill. Now, sure, planes have lights. Sure, the military does drills.

Sure, there are plenty of military bases in the vicinity of Arizona. But the speed, the formation, the lights Sure, there are plenty of military bases in the vicinity of Arizona, but the speed, the formation, the lights seen on this night in 1997 do not seem to match any known military craft. The fact that the military themselves didn't even say that these lights, didn't even try to say that they were planes. They were like, no, they dropped flares and the flares are the lights. Yeah.

But then we saw in the video, they were like, there's no, like flares don't stay in perfect formation and travel across the sky in unison. Yeah, when the guy giving the explanation has to, like, throw out four different things, you know it's pretty bad. Or it's like, it was a military drill with planes,

but I know some of you said you saw lights. The lights were flares dropped by the planes. I know some of you said they didn't look like planes because they were actually a different kind of plane. It's this specific one. Sure, bud, sure.

You're a pirate captain who's trying to plug holes in the bottom of his ship as water pours in and you sink to the bottom of the ocean. The only other realistic explanation would be the classic, that this was some kind of not yet released military technology. Okay, yeah. That this is something from maybe even another world government being tested over the skies. But I think the biggest problem there is this shit was 25 years ago.

Where is the technology? We haven't seen anything like this since. Yeah. And if it was some kind of military operation, you'd think the guys running the government's own aerial surveillance program would at least know that it was happening and not be like having to call up the guy and say you're not gonna believe what we saw does he say that every time a boeing 737 takes off holy shit you're not to believe what just left the earth and went over the ocean.

It's like, is it a plane? Yeah. It was obviously a weird enough thing that they had to call. Which leaves us with paranormal explanations that this really was the elephant in the bloody room, that UFOs were spotted over Arizona that night. That's not even getting into the other lesser paranormal explanations that maybe this was military technology, but maybe it came from a Bob Lazar-style reverse engineering of an alien craft.

Something ain't normal. And if it ain't normal, you know what it's gotta be. Paranormal. Rory, it's time for conclusions on this episode of This Paranormal Life. You know we love a good UFO case, and this has all the hallmarks of a good fucking UFO case.

It does. It is absolutely astounding. We waited this long in our professional careers to investigate this case. What are you thinking? Look, all I'm going to say is, if you don't believe in this, then what's left, brother brother what's left to believe in

i've got nothing to say we made him speechless i've got nothing to say he's picking his jaw up off the floor look all i can do is consider the explanations put before me and And if I'm not satisfied with the logical conclusions, all I'm left with are the illogical conclusions, which is the world of the paranormal, which is extraterrestrials and UFOs, which is a yes. It's a double yes for the case of the Phoenix Lights. Let's go. This was such a fun case to look into. I've got, you know, here on YouTube in front of me, I've got the documentary video open. I'm just looking through the YouTube comments because it's a fun kind of place to find other people talking about the same thing. Of course.

I have never come across in five, six years of doing this show show i've never come across a case that touched so many people even the comment section of this one video is chock full of people who are like i'll never forget it i was i was i was a kid i was like out with my dad and you know we were hanging out and watching the night sky and the most unbelievable thing happened in front of me one person in this thread of youtube comments says i caught a headline news live feed from phoenix that night there were people running around in the background going batshit crazy and one guy being interviewed live was babbling awestruck looking up at the sky saying it was a mile wide another person says i met a guy that lived in phoenix at the time and he said that this was not bullshit it was a giant triangular spaceship another person i literally

watched an orb spit out two other orbs and they grew to the size of the other one uh incredible the comments are full of people who saw themselves or maybe have parents who saw it someone makes a great point which is two of the best kind of ufo cases of all time are the phoenix lights and there's another one in mexico um i can't remember the year but they're making the point that in mexico i think there was a meteor shower that night and in phoenix it was around the time of the haley bopp comet right so it's kind of this beautiful coincidence of so many people happen to be already looking up ah i see wow i have one last bit of trivia for you rory that i'm not gonna lie i literally just read okay it wasn't in the case until now all right the first pilot who phoned in

the phoenix lights was Kurt Russell. Shut up. Wait, what? He had the name Kurt Russell, right? I just had to Google it. IndieWire.com, Kurt Russell was the man who phoned in the first sighting from an aircraft of the Phoenix Lights. If you didn't already have me giving this a 100% double yes, you're telling me Kurt Russell,

Jack Burton, phoned in to say that he saw a UFO. We're done here. We're 100% done. 100% done. Guys, thank you for listening to this Paranormal Life's investigation into the Phoenix Lights. Thank you to Amy Grisdale for researching,

to Louis Blatherwick for editing, and to Rory Powers for sending us home with a lovely yes, one of the first of the year. It is. It's our first of 2023. Oh, there you go. And the first of many.

We are going to be consulting with Kurt Russell on many, many future investigations if his agent will ever respond to our emails. So thank you for joining us. Hopefully, if you've been listening to us this year, you've been, thanks for bearing with us. Through some no's, it's worth it always to get there to just a true paranormal case.

Love to know what you guys think of this. Love to know if anyone has their own experiences. I know we've definitely got listeners in Arizona and Nevada. I'm sure you've heard your own stories. So do let us know. Jesus, Roy, I'm flabbergasted. I am stuck for words I need to sit down

so I guess what we'll say is you know remember you can always catch new episodes of This Paranormal Life every single Tuesday but there are also

monthly new bonus episodes over on patreon.com forward slash this paranormal life there's also weekly after parties kind of behind the scenes

shooting the shit uncut raw episodes of TPL every single Friday. We live in a world where all the guys who are telling you that UFOs aren't real and don't exist, they got all the funding they need, let me tell you. They've got all the cash in the world.

It's called taxes. It's called income tax, motherfucker. If you want to make sure that the guys who are telling you the real shit are funded head on over to patreon.com uh couldn't agree more we also have limited edition knights of the commune coins and we haven't done a shout out in a while for the this paranormal life secret society over on. If you're maybe a new listener or relatively new listener of This Paranormal Life, you might not know that there are literally thousands and thousands and thousands

of listeners of TPL shooting the shit, sharing memes and hanging out every day in our Facebook group. We also over on Patreon do a monthly raffle where just being a part of the Patreon on certain tiers means you are entered every month where you can win cool artifacts from this very podcast we have given away the cursed dolls that we've used on episode the ouija boards that we've used on episodes a limited edition never before

released chompy's cereal mug yeah like... Some really cool stuff. Samples have never released merch. There's a bunch of cool stuff over there, so check it out on patreon.com forward slash thisparanormallife.

And one of our rewards over on Patreon is to give you a shout-out right here on this show. That's what we're gonna do right away. Thank you to Coleman Kleinline.

Coleman Kleinline knows that there's a fine line between paranormal and not paranormal. Yeah. And sometimes things that aren't paranormal, they kind of are, you know? So the line is not even just fine. It's just kind of blurry and not there at all, maybe?

I don't even see a line half the time, buddy. You could be flying a legitimate military vehicle. And I'm telling you right now that that is a UFO. You're drinking off Lombardi the line disappears. Thank you also to Emily Potious. Emily Potious can you make potions? I really need to know that because look we invited a wizard into the commune we thought it'd be like a fun thing he could put on like magic shows. That very idea pissed him off. So some of the locals are frogs.

Some of the locals are toads. Sure. Mostly frog-based curses. So if you had a potion, perhaps they could revert them back into their human form because there's a bit of a labor shortage at the commune

and the frogs aren't pulling their weight. That's all I'm saying. Some of the frogs have croaked, if you catch my drift. So any potion or all any potion uh you could whip up would would really help us thank you emily thank you to everyone who supports us on patreon we'll be back with more shout outs next week so what a high to go out on thank you for listening we will be back on tuesday with a brand new paranormal tale until then remember to live fast investigate and die young baby