The following is an extract from a posting by eminent Ufologist Bruce Maccabee on UFO Updates, 5th March 2004.
This is a “nice” and rather comprehensive book on the subject of UFOs and the Phoenix events in particular. Although I am only briefly mentioned in her book, I spent a lot of time, at her request, analyzing her sightings, photos and videos, as well as videos of others that were obtained in March, 1997 and during 1998.
My opinion of the “Phoenix Lights” videos is presented in detail at my web site: http://brumac.8k.com/phoenixlights1.html
I concluded, based on accurate triangulation, that the lights she and others (Krzysten, Riordan) on March 13, 1997 at about 10 PM, videotaped were many tens of miles south of Phoenix, not over Phoenix.
This also applied to other videos from 1998 that I analyzed.
I discovered that the lights were not perfectly stationary, but moved downward (falling) and to the left – following a general atmospheric air flow?
My analysis of the videos does not apply to the 8 to 9 PM event that involved some huge object that travelled southward over a considerable distance on March 13.
Her book covers this earlier event in detail, as well as others. IMHO the 8-9 PM event involved a ‘True UFO’. However IMHO, the 10 PM videos show lights that could be flares dropped over a training range by the Maryland National Guard, about 60-80 miles south of Phoenix (distance determined by triangulation).
On the other hand, she did have a UFO sighting on Feb. 6, 1995 which involved photos and more. I began studying this in 1998. Unfortunately, I am not at liberty to discuss what I discovered about that sighting from photo analysis.
If I am correct in thinking that the March 13 lights she videotaped – and others photographed and taped – were actually flares, then the ironic thing would be that non-UFO sightings spurred her to write her rather erudite book and to include
mention of the real UFO sighting which she never would have mentioned publicly had it not been for the Phoenix Lights.
Dr. Lynne’s response to Bruce Maccabee’s
analysis of The Phoenix Lights
The following Email was received by The WHY? Files on 2nd March, 2007
From: “Health Education Learning Programs” <drlynne@*******>
To: “William Hamilton” <astroxplorer@*******.info>
Cc: <ufoupdates@virtuallystrange.net>; <geoff@thewhyfiles.net>
Date: 02 March 2007 07:40
Subject: RE: The Phoenix Lights 10th Anniversary
Thanks for letting me know Bill. You are welcome to post this on ufoupdates.com
I have never said WHAT “they” are … only THAT “they” are and it is
time we get this topic out in the open — address it, accept it and
study it.
I trust that it is also time to ask what triangulation Dr. Maccabee has
been referring to all these years??? He is a gifted scientist and
dedicated researcher to be sure, but I was quite surprised when he
professed to have triangulated the mass sighting videos when
I had in fact contacted Dr. Maccabee myself to attempt a triangulation
of a January 1998 sighting, an event that was very different from the
March 13, 1997 sighting. And just because the 1998 lights ‘seemed to be at a distance to Dr. Maccabee’, that revelation didn’t confirm anything.
In the 10 years since our historic mass sighting, NO ONE has
reported seeing the anomalous formation of lights behind the mountain
range around the 10 o’clock hour, but there were definitely reports of
strange lights and craft on this side of the mountain. Even more
compelling and important to note, I learned fairly quickly after the
mass sighting that NO ONE COULD triangulate the March 13, 1997 10 pm
videos, because the hand full of videographers took footage over a
30-40 minute span from different directions. If you remember, I even
tried to procure University based scientists, including a senior
geologist professor from Arizona State University and others to
triangulate our videos and they all stated that a triangulation of the footage taken during the mass sighting was impossible.
Another key point, two months before the mass sighting I captured six
35 mm pictures in a row of the same anomalous and mile wide phenomena
of 6 equidistant orbs “that seemed to be attached to something”
head-on, turning into a V shape, in the same location. This sighting
[and exact time] was confirm to me the next morning by Sky Harbor
International Airport Air traffic Controllers who witnessed the same
hovering lights in RESTRICTED AIRSPACE — in FRONT of South Mountain —
and slowly moving in tandem [in a rock solid, mile wide, equidistant
array of six orbs] behind South Mountain [out of sight from their
vantage point in the tower]. The same Air traffic Controllers confirmed
the day after the mass sighting that what we all saw on March 13 at 10
pm was the SAME phenomena — in the SAME location once again.
Therefore, since the morning after our mysterious statewide event, we
have had professional verification that the three lights I captured on
video at 10 pm on March 13, 1997, were not behind South Mountain, but in
FRONT of South Mountain, OVER PHOENIX. I documented these details in my
book, but for some, they have been ignored or dismissed through the
years.
Besides this curious omission of data that occurred two months BEFORE
the mass sighting and 2 months before the Maryland ANG were in town
allegedly sending off flares during “Operation Snowbird” while a
mile-wide, traveling V shaped formation of lights or craft silently and slowly
traversed the state at low altitude for many hours, Bruce has never
addressed the SAME distant formation of lights in the SAME location in
the photos I captured of our near sighting of three amber orbs in a pyramid formation in 1995 [which he presented at
the 1999 MUFON International Symposium in Wash., D.C. as true
unknowns]. I know what I saw up close and personal, hovering over our private, gated, nestled in the mountainside community…and they definitely were not flares. With all due respect to Dr. Maccabee, it just doesn’t
compute.
I will always be grateful for Dr. Maccabee’s kindness when I was
overwhelmed by what I had experienced and for taking so much time with
the case. But when he originally released his findings concerning
triangulation, I was saddened that they just added to the muddy waters
that had already been polluted by the military announcement of flare
deployment that night, five long months after denial that anything was
in the air. I don’t doubt that flares might have been sent off to
divert attention away from the true unknowns, but that’s not what we witnessed or photographed. Just take a look at Bill Hamilton and Tom King’s ‘arrowhead’ footage from around 9:45 pm. Those lights are attached to SOMETHING. Again, the data speaks for itself.
As a scientist and experiencer, I have tried diligently to do my
homework and share the data as it has unfolded. I have never found it
productive or in good taste to argue about confusing and irrelevant
pronouncements. I just hope the time is near when we can move forward
in a mature fashion and address the important issue of what REALLY
happened throughout Arizona for many hours, 10 years ago this March
13th. As we know…there is much more to the story!
Respectfully,
Dr. Lynne
Lynne D. Kitei, M.D.
www.thephoenixlights.net From: The Phoenix Lights 10th AnniversaryDate: Thu, 1 Mar 2007 18:45:26 -0600
The following is a posting by Bruce Maccabee to UFO Updates in response to posting by Geoff Richardson of The WHY? Files
From: Bruce Maccabee <brumac@compuserve.com>
To: <ufoupdates@virtuallystrange.net>Date: Wed, 28 Feb 2007 19:29:43 -0500
Subject: Re:The Phoenix Lights 10th Anniversary>
From: Geoff Richardson <geoff@thewhyfiles.net>>
To: <ufoupdates@virtuallystrange.net>>
Date: Tue, 27 Feb 2007 15:18:21-0000>
Subject: The Phoenix Lights 10th Anniversary>
During the evening of 13th March 1997, a series of incidents took place which was
to become known as The Phoenix Lights Incident. At approximately 7-50p.m. a ‘V-shaped’ formation of bright blue/yellow-white orbs was observed leaving the Las Vegas (Nevada) area and flying at speed over the boarder into Arizona. This formation of lights was then witnessed by hundreds if not thousands of people as it flew over Phoenix and on to Tucson a total journey of some 300 hundred miles. The Phoenix Lights incident has become one of the most controversial events in the history of Ufology. Dr. Lynne Kitei, a physician, witnessed multiple events which occurred in the skies over Phoenix leading up to and including the night of 13th March, 1997 and successfully documented a number of sightings of orbs and V-shaped
craft.<snip>Too bad she asserts that the lights videotaped at 10 PM that night were on a large UFO hovering over Phoenix. As I have pointed out numerous times over the last 10 years (!) triangulation shows the lights were a long distance away. The triangulation is based on the same videos (Lynn, Krzysten, Rairdon) that show the lights which these three witnesses claim were over Phoenix.
A response from Bill Hamilton
Bill Hamilton, an acknowledged Ufologist, who was present during the Phoenix Lights incidents, has prepared a response to Dr. Bruce Maccabee’s photo analysis of the videos taken of the objects seen in the skies over Phoenix.
A brief summing-up of Bill’s findings:
This paper offers an analysis that does not agree with the report written by Dr. Bruce Maccabee, but it does not lessen his contribution to the effort of investigating reported strange light phenomena and Dr. Macabee has done an admirable job, but that does not mean that he has the final word on a particular case. There are some who dispute his findings on the Ed Walter’s case in Florida and perhaps in other cases. That is the nature of the process when it comes to attempts to scientifically investigate strange phenomena that other scientists will not even bother with.