What lit up the sky over Phoenix last week?
Phoenix seems to be a hotbed of bizarre UFO activity. Whether it's the large flat area with a high density of population (thus providing excellent fodder for multiple observations), or the odd illusions that can happen in the desert, or some other factor known only to the aliens. A famous spate of UFO activity was recorded there in 1997, and a news broadcast recently caught what some people believe is a UFO, live on television.
In 1997 and 1998, reports flooded in from all across the desert Southwest, including Arizona, Nevada, and northern Mexico. People witnessed what seemed to be a craft shaped like a boomerang, marked with between five and seven very large steady lights on the underside. The craft moved slowly and silently, and was well documented by multiple reliable sources - including Fyfe Symington, who was Arizona's governor at the time.
(There's a line in Neil Gaiman's book American Gods to the effect that the less often you watch a show, the more likely it is that when you do catch it, it will always be the same episode. This certainly holds true for me and History Channel shows about UFOs, because I have seen their show about the 1997 Phoenix Lights at least five times, and never any other.)
Last week, a Phoenix newscaster was giving a traffic report at 4:45AM with footage from live traffic cams in the background. As she covered the traffic situation, the traffic cam showed a bright ball of light appear over northwestern Phoenix then suddenly disappear.
Most people assumed that it was some kind of explosion, perhaps a power transformer blowing. I have seen transformers blow during big storms, and it looks very similar - like the flash from a huge camera. However, initial reports from the Arizona Public Service (the power company responsible for the area) were that there had been no such outages. And a National Weather Service meteorologist explained that there was no weather in the area that could account for a flash of lightning.
Oddly, after four days of intense investigation, the following answer was provided by the Phoenix Fire Department: a woman was driving alone in that area when she saw a breaker explode on an Arizona Public Service power pole. APS crews scrambled to the scene and restored power within a few minutes. Why did it take four days for this story to come forth? And why didn't the APS administrator know about it when the reporters asked? Open questions, all!