The chilling UFO encounter when I was just 12 that made me a believer - and why I'm so relieved Congress is finally searching for the truth
By Meghan McCain
Daily Mail
July 28, 2023
Meghan McCain
No one living in or around Phoenix, Arizona on March 13, 1997, could possibly forget the night we all witnessed something in the skies we couldn't explain.
I was 12 years old and winding down in our family living room before bed when our neighbor called.
She told my mom, Cindy, that strange objects had been spotted hovering over the city.
After they hung up, the phone kept ringing off the hook.
Friends and neighbors were trying to get a hold of my mother. They wanted to know if she was seeing what they were seeing.
At first, mom wasn't sure how to react. My dad was away in Washington D.C., and she didn't want to terrify a house full of kids, especially, right before bedtime.
Eventually, she allowed me and my brothers to go out to the yard to take a look for ourselves.
And there it was. Giant, bright objects floating in a straight line in the distance.
Even today, it is hard to explain, and there are varying descriptions of what happened over Phoenix between approximately 7:30 PM and 10:30 PM.
But there are hundreds of videos and news reports documenting the incident.
See it for yourself.
The first sighting was of an impossibly huge V-shaped object with five spherical lights flying from north to south.
No one living in or around Phoenix, Arizona on March 13, 1997, could possibly forget the night we all witnessed something in the skies we couldn't explain. (Above) Amatuer footage of 'The Phoenix Lights'
I was 12 years old and winding down in our family living room before bed when our neighbor called. She told my mom, Cindy, that strange objects had been spotted hovering over the city.
The second incident, which I witnessed, was of nine seemingly stationary lights hanging over the city for hours, before suddenly disappearing over the horizon.
My brothers were elated. They begged to scramble on to the roof and started singing the theme song for the X-Files.
I was petrified. Was this the war of the worlds? An invasion of little green men? (Hey – I was 12.)
My mom herded us inside and tried to calm us down, but I was restless all night.
'The Phoenix Lights,' as it is called, is still considered to be one of the largest mass UFO sightings in history.
And I couldn't help but think back to that night, as three U.S. military veterans testified before Congress on Wednesday.
They all say they have first-hand knowledge of unidentified anomalous phenomena, or what everyone else knows as UFOs.
Among the witnesses were former Navy pilot Lt. Ryan Graves, who says that after his squadron, stationed in Virginia, began using advanced radar technology in 2014, they started detecting signs of fast-moving objects, darting across the skies, making seemingly impossible changes in speed and direction.
Then, Graves reveals, some pilots experienced 'near midair collisions with these objects' that he described as 'dark gray or black inside a transparent sphere.'
Official reports were filed, and incidents were captured by aircraft cameras.
And there's retired Navy pilot David Fravor, an apparent eyewitness to the famous 'Tic Tac' incident.
He was stationed onboard the USS Nimitz in November 2004 in support ground troops during the Iraq War.
'The Phoenix Lights,' as it is called, is still considered to be one of the largest mass UFO sightings in history. And I couldn't help but think back to that night, as three U.S. military veterans testified before Congress on Wednesday (above).
And there's retired Navy pilot David Fravor, an apparent eyewitness to the famous 'Tic Tac' incident.
After taking off to conduct training exercises, he was flying over open ocean when he apparently saw something.
'We noticed some white water off our right side,' he read in his opening statement. 'We saw a small white Tic Tac shaped object… moving very abruptly over the white water. There were no rotors, no rotor wash, or any visible flight control surfaces like wings.'
'This Tic Tac Object had just traveled 60 miles in a very short period of time (less than a minute) was far superior in performance to my brand new F/A-18F,' he continued, 'and did not operate with any of the known aerodynamic principles that we expect for objects that fly in our atmosphere.'
Finally, there is David Grusch, a former Air Force officer and intelligence official.
He says he worked on programs that examined vehicles not made by humans and accused the U.S. government of suppressing information on 'malevolent alien beings'.
But what truly made waves in this hearing was his suggestion, at the prompting of Republican Congressman Tim Burchett, that people may have been killed as a part of a conspiracy to keep UFOs a secret.
'Personally, have you heard anyone [has] been murdered?' Burchett asked.
'I have to be careful answering that question,' Grusch replied. 'I directed people with that knowledge to the appropriate authorities.'
Woah, that's even a bit too rich for me.
UFOs are inevitably caught up in conspiracy theories and to throw more logs on the burning inferno is just not helpful. Grusch and Burchett better come forward with some evidence or they'll do their cause serious harm.
For the record, on that March night in 1997, I became a believer. And my mother and I believe we are not alone in the universe.
But to have said it at the time would have gotten us sized for tin foil hats.
The day after 'The Phoenix Lights,' Arizona Governor Fife Symington stepped to the microphones with an aide wearing a ridiculous alien mask, long fake fingers and a shimmering metallic frock to mock the public frenzy.
Only a decade later, did he say that he saw the lights too and much more.
Symington claimed in a 2007 interview that he saw a huge craft pass over Squaw Peak, just north of Phoenix.
The day after 'The Phoenix Lights,' Arizona Governor Fife Symington stepped to the microphones (above) with an aide wearing a ridiculous alien mask, long fake fingers and a shimmering metallic frock to mock the public frenzy.
Only a decade later, did he say that he saw the lights too and much more. Symington (above, left) claimed in a 2007 interview that he saw a huge craft pass over Squaw Peak, just north of Phoenix.
'I'm a pilot and I know just about every machine that flies,' he said. 'It was bigger than anything that I've ever seen.'
Of course, Symington also resigned as governor and was found guilty of fraud. Later his conviction was overturned. But, I'll take his testimony with a mountain of salt.
There's no doubt that kooks and charlatans have glommed onto UFO conspiracies throughout history.
But I know what I saw, and I'm not yet satisfied by the official explanations for it.
The U.S. government says the otherworldly vision of an alien craft over Phoenix was just an illusion created by five separate A-10 Thunderbolt II planes flying in formation.
The second sighting, they claim, was simply the illumination of flares dropped by another set of aircrafts on training exercises.
I called my mother this week to check if her recollection of the event had changed.
It hasn't.
'I don't have a reasonable explanation of what happened,' she told me. 'But I don't believe it was flares.'
I, for one, am convinced that these unexplained events are worthy of being chased down. And even if 'The Phoenix Lights' does have a rational explanation, these more recent incidents do not.
The public has a right to know if the truth is, in fact, out there.
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