At 8 p.m. on March 13, 1997, residents of Paulden, Ariz., saw something strange in the sky. They saw a large, boomerang-shaped craft what they thought was a UFO.
The craft was traveling south. Eventually, it was spotted over Phoenix as it turned to a south-southeasterly course past Tempe and moved toward Tucson, where it supposedly vanished.
Hundreds of Arizonians reported the sighting, which was possibly witnessed by thousands of people.
Many of the witnesses recollections of the sighting were consistent, but other descriptions seemed to be at odds with one another.
What remained consistent across the board was the shape of the phenomenon in question. Everyone interviewed said they saw something in the sky that was boomerang-shaped and had bright lights. Those are the only two points that everyone seemed to agree on.
But the reports differ in every other aspect. Witnesses claim to have seen anywhere from three to as many as seven lights. And many werent certain whether it was a single craft with many lights or if each light represented one of several UFOs flying in a boomerang-shaped formation.
The biggest discrepancy in the reports has to do with the size of the phenomenon. Estimates ranged from 300 feet long to 6,000 feet long (more than a mile!). Many people also added that the craft flew close to the ground so close you could hit it with a tennis ball, one witness claimed.
So, what did those people see? Did they witness an actual alien spacecraft?
Based on the published reports in USA Today and CNN, plus my own research, Id have to say no.
What the people of Paulden, Phoenix, Tempe and other cities witnessed was not a UFO, but an experimental military aircraft perhaps making an emergency landing.
What they most likely saw was either a modified B-2 Stealth bomber or a next-generation prototype Stealth aircraft.
The first clue is the shape. All the witnesses agreed that they saw something big and boomerang-shaped in the air. The B-2 is a classic flying wing design, which looks very much like a huge boomerang when seen from above (or the ground).
The second major clue is the crafts flight path. Hundreds of people throughout central and southcentral Arizona followed the path of the craft until it disappeared near Tucson.
Thats because it no doubt landed at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, which sits right next door to Tucson. Davis-Monthan AFB is home to many hi-tech fighters and bombers which routinely use roughly the same flight paths in their training missions.
The reason I think it was an experimental aircraft is because if it were just a B-2 bomber on a training run, the Air Force would have said so.
Also, because the Air Force flies its planes along the same route as the UFO, I would think the residents would have gotten used to their presence in the air by now. What they saw was something outside of their normal experience, which leads me to believe they witnessed an experimental craft.
Another reason is the proximity of two military installations within a few hundred miles of each other their mission solely to design, develop and test experimental aircraft.
The first is to the north and east of Paulden, Ariz. It is the White Sands Missile Range Utah Launch Complex (R-6413), dubbed The New Area 51. White Sands is the Air Force's new launch site for the X-33 shuttle and other experimental aircraft.
The second site is southwest of Colorado Springs the Air Force Space Command and its Space Warfare Center (SWC). The SWC is home to the 576th Flight Test Squadron, which tests prototype aircraft.
What I believe happened was a very large experimental aircraft took off from either White Sands or the SWC on a test flight, got into trouble somewhere over Arizona and had to make an emergency landing.
The closest Air Force base the pilot could turn to that could accommodate a craft of its size was Davis-Monthan AFB, south of Tucson, so he took the same route the pilots from there routinely used, hoping he wouldnt draw attention to himself.
Unfortunately, he drew a lot of attention to himself and now thousands of people think hes ET.