Between 7:30 and 10:30 p.m. on March 13, 1997, people across a 300-mile stretch of Arizona, from the Nevada line through Phoenix to the edge of Tucson, reported lights in the sky. Many described a huge V or carpenter's square with five lights moving slowly and silently overhead.
Later that evening a second event took place: a row of bright amber lights hung in the sky southwest of Phoenix and slowly winked out one by one. It was filmed by many people and became the best-known footage of the night.
The V was later traced to a formation of Air National Guard A-10 jets flying home to Tucson, and the hovering lights to flares dropped by another A-10 flight on the Barry Goldwater Range. Former governor Fife Symington, who had mocked the reports at the time, said years later that he saw the lights himself and found them otherworldly.
