There were four of us standing together that saw "something" pass over our heads on March 13, 1997 in Phoenix. What follows ismy impression.
Until this event happened here in Phoenix on March 13th, I was not a believer in Ufos. What I mean by that is that I had never had a clear and direct experience with a Ufo. I had seen strange lights in the sky before in my life, but never close enough for me to see exactly what it was. If someone told me they saw something strange in the sky, I would not deny what they saw but no one I ever knew personally had seen something up close. So I definitely was not on the "Ufo bandwagon", although I knew people who were. I was politely reserved on the subject of Ufo's. I would still feel uncomfortable just saying "I believe in Ufo's". In my understanding of the meaning of the word "belief", I apply its meaning to God and to the fruit of God, which is life. I don't believe in any objects, even Ufo's. I reserve my belief for people and for God.
The way I feel about Ufo's is the same as I feel about the Statue Of
Liberty. I've been there and I looked at it and touched it. If I came to
your town and visited you and you had never seen or touched the Statue
of Liberty, not even on TV or photos, you might ask me if I saw it and
touched it, and I would just remember back to when I was there at the Statue
and I would describe my memory. After my description to you, you would
not say to me: "I believe in the Statue of Liberty" but rather you would
decide in yourself whether or not you believed what I was saying. If you
believed what I said you might then say "I believe you Tim" which would
mean that you trust me. So in truth you would be more apt to say "I believe
in Tim" instead of "I believe in the Statue of Liberty". In that context
I can tell you that asking me if I believe in Ufo's would be
the same as asking about the Statue. I believe in myself and I saw
a Ufo up close.
My wife Bobbi; my 10 year old son Hal; my 13 year old grandson Damien, and I all saw the same thing and agree completely together in our descriptions of what happened. For us the event began shortly after 8:00 PM on March 13, 1997. Phoenix is called the "Valley of the Sun", because it is almost completely surrounded by mountains. Our house is up in the north mountains of Phoenix. Our neighborhood is like a mountain valley a couple thousand feet in elevation, surrounded on three sides by peaks and open completely on the west side to the valley in the southwest and the mountains in the northwest. My son Hal and I had just arrived home and pulled into our driveway. The front of the car was facing west. The sun was down and it was already getting dark. After we parked, Hal had to sit in the front seat of the car and wait for me to come around and open his door, which only opened from the outside. He was looking around the sky through his window to see if the Hale-Bopp comet was visible while he waited. At that time the Hale-Bopp comet would appear in the western sky, right after sundown.
When I opened his door he told me to look toward the Northwest and see
the strange lights. My grandson, Damien had come out front when he heard
me pull up in the car, and came over to look also. At first what Hal pointed
out looked like a very tiny arc of 5 lights. It looked like they were just
floating in the sky. As my eyes adjusted to looking at this arc of lights,
I thought perhaps the lights were outlining the top side of a blimp, or
balloon; especially because they seemed to just float there. The pattern
of the lights looked like something between a small arc and the Greek letter
Omega. We could clearly see it was 5 separate lights. We realized the reason
these lights seemed to "float" was because they were moving directly towards
us not deviating from its course directly towards us at all. Hal ran in
the house and got my wife Bobbi and brought her
out. The lights were still in arc formation when Bobbi came out to
look. She commented about the "floating" effect of the lights. And we again
talked about how the lights were coming directly at us.
We could see the lights were also getting slightly larger and the spaces
in between them increasing in distance. We stood there together, watching
the arc of lights continue to approach and then after another minute or
so the pattern of lights changed shape. It now appeared that the
middle light on the top of the arc had elongated up, so that now the lights
looked like the letter A, without the bar across, which would be
the Greek letter "Alpha". At the time I thought that the reason it had
changed its appearance from an arc pattern to an alpha pattern was that
it might have been so far on the horizon, that it had flattened-out on
the top, like the sun flattens over the ocean at sunset. However since
then I have found out that two witnesses from the Prescott area (which
is northwest of us and about 85 miles away in the same direction where
we
saw the arc of lights) had seen a "V" formation of 5 lights passing
over them slowly and silently which then transformed into an "arc" pattern
and sped away rapidly towards Phoenix in the southeast. Since the arc of
lights which we saw was coming directly towards us, we couldn't tell how
fast it was going. But when it was in the alpha formation we could see
it was going pretty slow. Likewise the distance between the lights was
increasing. It was very clearly an Alpha pattern, although at the time
we thought in terms of a "V" formation, like military helicopters might
fly. We were all out in my front yard watching these lights, which continued
to come directly towards us, maintaining their altitude and position
without deviation.
We could see the distinct and even separation between the lights
as it got closer and closer. I was amazed at the rigid relationship between
the five lights. I watched them closely for a few minutes to see if there
was any deviation whatsoever, and there was none. It seemed that the lights
were moving towards us so slowly and were spread out so far that it almost
had to be a squadron of five helicopters cruising in formation. I continued
to observe that the lights were rigidly maintaining the Alpha pattern without
any deviation whatsoever. My mind was searching for an answer that could
balance these two different observations: the great distance between the
lights; and the absolute integrity of their relationship to each other.
My wife and I were talking to each other while this was going on, and we
discussed how difficult it would be to fly five separate objects in such
a perfect pattern. They were still coming straight at us, never altering
course or altitude. We were standing right in
my front yard next to our big saguaro cactus and watched this Alpha
pattern of five bright white lights come directly at us for probably about
15 minutes altogether before it reached us. By the time it got about a
mile away we had finally decided it was definitely one huge structure,
because the lights were so rigidly maintaining their relative positions
to each other they had to be locked together.
We also noted that we still had not heard any kind of sounds coming
from that direction. If it had been five helicopters, then we would have
heard their engines. Where we live, up in this small mountain valley, we
can hear the slightest engine noises from miles away. And now this object
was almost upon us and we still didn't hear anything. At this point, especially
because of its apparent immense size and slow speed, it began to dawn upon
us that this was not anything we were even remotely familiar with. It was
not an airplane or a balloon or helicopters or anything else we had ever
seen before. It was a real Ufo. I told everyone to really pay attention
so we could remember afterwards. For me that means I stopped thinking about
everything else in the world and focused my mind and all my senses on the
moment in time and what I was looking at, with my mind completely open.
As the event progressed we all would spontaneously call out some specific
observation we were having at various times. I imagined that I had a place
in my mind that was like a camcorder and I began to mentally "record" everything
that I
was experiencing. I commented that the lights had to be connected together,
as no separate flying lit objects in our world could maintain such perfect
symmetry. By now it was about a half a mile away, still coming directly
at us, and at that point, we could then clearly see the distinct outline
of its dark shape as it moved across the background of stars which were
above and beyond it. What we saw reminded me of a carpenter's square set
at 60 degrees. That was what popped in my head. That's because the outline
of the structure of the object, was so perfectly balanced, sharp-edged
and geometrical. The leading tip was pointed and the ends of both arms
were squared off. The five lights were set perfectly into the structure
in balance with each other, with the leading light set in the middle up
front right behind the pointed tip. Each of its two arms had two lights
set in them evenly spaced from the center front light with the last lights
on each arm set in the structure just in front of the squared-off ends.
The structure itself was very dark, just slightly darker than the sky. At a distance it seemed to blend into the sky so well that you could only really see its shape because of the stars behind it showing its outline When we finally saw the shape of the structure against the stars, we were all totally astonished. Even though we had already suspected there was a structure, we were still not prepared mentally for the reality of what we were seeing and what was happening.. It looked like something out of a science fiction story was about to pass directly over us. It was mind-boggling because it was so huge but at the same time so geometric. You would expect to see more to the shape and perhaps some kind of recognizability design. But all there was was a geometric shape with evenly spaced lights set into it. It was amazing because I had nothing else in my experience to compare it to.
And by now there was no time to do anything but stand there and
observe as much as possible. I knew it was important and I had to really
pay attention. As it approached closer it was overwhelmingly large, spread
out over a couple of blocks. We noticed that one of the lights on the far
side arm seemed to flicker into two lights. We talked about the possibility
of double lights for a couple of seconds. By that point the tip of
the structure with the leading light reached us and we shifted our attention
to observe the west arm of the Alpha structure and its lights as it began
to pass directly over our heads and diagonally across the street in front
of our house. It intersected our street at an approximate 20 degree angle,
on a northwest to southeast course. The length of the arm passing over
us was probably about 700 feet long. It was very dark so we could just
barely see its edges. The shape blocked out the stars. It is very difficult
to get an accurate impression of the dimensions of such
an immense object when it is so close that you can't see the whole
thing in one view. When it was passing over it was just that close. We
had to first look at one end, and then shift our heads to see the other
end in order to get an idea of how big it was. As it was passing over I
did look down the length of the arm, at the last light, and it seemed to
be a couple of blocks long.
I think this is corroborated by knowing the relative speed of the object
and how long it took to pass over our heads. This object was moving so
slowly overhead and it was so close that by watching the lights you could
get a pretty good feel for its speed. As it passed over, I tried to memorize
my perception of the relative speed of the lights as they passed by and
have subsequently reviewed that memory and compared it to other memories
of known relative speeds, which I have accumulated over the years. My conclusion
is that this object was travelling approximately 30mph. My kids thought
it was moving as slow as 15mph but they have limited experience with relative
speeds. I trust my own judgment based on 36 years of driving cars over
the streets and highways of America. Like millions of drivers around the
world, I can drive a car
at whatever approximate speed I want without looking at the speedometer
especially city-cruising speed around 35mph. I can feel speed from
the seat of my pants as I drive along in my car. The object was definitely
going slower than 35mph. If I'm standing still watching an object pass
by me, within a reasonable distance like 100 feet, and I want to know it's
relative speed, I would compare the "feel" of the relative motion of the
object to reference points in my mind that access similar relative motion
"feelings". Many times in my life I've stood on the side of some street
or road and watched cars drive by. I know what a vehicle travelling 35mph
looks like. Again, this object was going noticeably slower than 35. So
in the light of that, I would again estimate the speed of the craft to
be about 30mph,
As to it's altitude above me, it was so close that at first I felt oppressed
by its presence because it covered so much total area in our neighborhood
and it was impossibly low. My first impression was that it was about 100
feet up in the air. It was so close, it was hard to believe. It was a huge
dark shape with immense lights in it. I have thought about its altitude
above me many times, and reviewed my first impression. I have to stick
by that impression because all my experience tells me to. I grew up in
New York City and spent years working in Manhattan and I liked to walk
to where I needed to go, because the busses and subways felt so constrictive
compared to the freedom of walking. As I walked I would look at all the
various buildings and out of habit, would count the stories and calculate
the height. I would allow ten feet per floor. After awhile I had a whole
bunch of different buildings in my head and would use these images to calculate
relative elevations of other things like trees or hills or bridges or whatever.
I always thought in "stories" and would convert "stories" to feet whenever
I needed to know feet. When I
thought about the Alpha structure in my memory and compared its altitude
to the heights of buildings I have known, I felt convinced that its altitude
was closer to 100 feet above me, than anything else. The relative low altitude
of this object over us was verified a few minutes after passing over us
as it moved through the gap in the mountain peaks. It passed the peak on
the southwest side of the object about halfway up to the top of the
peak. The top of the peak is only a couple hundred feet higher than my
property.
The overwhelming feeling of the closeness and immense size of the alpha
structure passing overhead was in stark contrast to the absolute silence
around us. There was absolutely no sound coming out of the object. It was
ridiculously close and there was no noise. It was so quiet that our dogs
in the back yard didn't even bark. As a matter of fact the whole neighborhood
seemed to be still. When I think about it the whole scene seemed to be
like something out of "2000 SPACE ODYSSEY". The craft seemed more to be
in orbit; just sailing by like it was in zero gravity in outer space. There
didn't seem to be anything threatening about the craft. It was just passing
quietly and slowly over us. It was definitely a surreal atmosphere. When
it first began to pass over, I felt a nervousness in my body, almost like
stagefright. The craft itself wasn't
doing anything threatening other than being so close. It just stayed
silently on its course without deviation.
I think this nervousness which I felt in my body was probably
some kind of reflection of the energy of the craft passing over us. Somehow
I was "feeling" the craft in my nervous system; and so was my family. It
was as if there was some type of field extending beyond the edge of the
structure, and we could sense it. At first when the field came upon us,
the kids started jumping up and down talking about how there was no sound
and mentioning the movie "Independence Day" and exhibiting symptoms of
hysteria. They were even backing away as if they would run into the house.
But then they directed their excitement to running out in the street under
the craft, looking up inside of the arms and checking it out. They were
so excited they were almost giddy. I felt excitement myself, but at the
same time I was mentally calm. I was observing with
absolute focus and continued to remain calm. I felt a slight emptiness
in my chest and upper back, almost like I was going to get a chill in my
upper back, you know the kind of chill that goes up the back of your neck,
and I had slight goosebumps on both my arms. I really didn't think about
being afraid at that moment because I was completely overwhelmed by all
the aspects of what I was observing. What was happening was unbelievable.
I just tried to observe the object and remember as much as I could while
I had the opportunity. The kids were out in the street looking up inside
in the space between the arms and pointed out to my wife and I how strangely
the stars looked, almost as if looking through a very thick glass with
the slight distortion of the light as it passed through, caused by the
thickness itself and a wavering effect caused by the
motion of the craft.
The look of the stars up inside between the arms was almost like a video projection. These stars were noticeably different from the look of the stars in the rest of the sky. At that moment I had the thought that I was looking at some kind of field that tricked my eyes into seeing around whatever was up inside between the two arms of the craft. I thought that there was more up above me than I was actually seeing.
We were also still amazed by the complete lack of sound. Perhaps whatever technology could achieve visual stealth also had audio stealth. It was impossibly strange that there was no sound at all. There wasn't even a wind sound that you might expect from the motion of an object of such a size, or even strong breeze from the air being displaced in front of it. The concept of "stealth" comes to our minds when we think about a flying object that you can't see with radar, and obviously visual stealth is also possible. Well its not hard to also imagine some type of audio stealth. But the "stealth" idea comes from the military-type viewpoint, that the "stealth" function is the intent of an object which we cannot sense. It is possible that the "stealth" ability of the craft is only an ancillary function of the craft's power and drive system.
As the structure passed overhead, its altitude and course was maintained exactly. I had been watching the right arm of the craft go by overhead and as the part in between the lights passed by I could see its outer edge against the stars in the sky, and that edge flowed by so perfectly even, without any fluctuation whatsoever, that I got the impression it was like watching a train go by on an unseen track. The object maintained its altitude so exactly that it demonstrated it was not "lifted by air. This exactness and evenness of motion was not possible with any kind of earth aircraft. This thing was not floating on air. It was moving through it.
Finally, after about 13 to 15 seconds, the last light on the tip of
the right arm passed slowly overhead directly perpendicular to the point
where my wife and I were standing. I had been waiting for it to come by
so I could get a good look at it from directly underneath. I was so focused
that when this light passed over us, it seemed like everything slowed down
and for a brief instant the light seemed frozen in time. The diameter of
the light was at least 6 or 7 feet across; it could have been even larger.
The luminance was perfectly uniform. I saw the most beautiful white, soft,
luminous light which glowed ever so slightly around its edges, as if it
was bulging slightly out of the surface. I could see through the soft white
light at the surface below into what appeared to be a cylinder without
any bottom. I got the impression it was like a well, but instead of being
a water well it was a light well. I could only see far enough into it to
get the impression of depth. Below the surface, there seemed to be
particles of light rapidly streaming about, and as they came streaming
up to the surface they disappeared into the surface light. The surface
itself seemed to be holding the light inside and reminded me of the surface-tension
effect you see at the top of a overfilled glass of liquid. The light did
not radiate out of the surface of the light well. It was super pure and
bright but was trapped inside. We remained in the darkness below it without
being illuminated at all or any part of the neighborhood as it passed over.
The light on the surface was like reflected light, and must have had its
source inside the well as if the light inside could not escape and we were
just seeing a reflection of it on the surface of whatever type of field
was holding it in. This was not a big light bulb or any other earthly light
derived from heat. It was pure light, with such beauty that
it is inexplicable within the normal human experience. It was super
bright and yet not glaring. I could look directly into it without any difficulty.
My wife wears contact lenses and normally gets a lot of refraction in
her eye from any bright light. She told me that as the craft approached
she was able to look at its lights without any kind of distortion. There
was no corona around the lights. And when it was overhead she was able
to look at it and see it clearly and sharp. It was pleasing to look at.
Even now, when I look at the light in my mind's eye, I feel soothed and
pleased by its beauty. My wife also experiences the same phenomena.
I have wondered and thought about that one light every day since the event
happened. And every day I seem to learn more about it. Its obvious that
the function of the light has nothing to do with illumination, so I don't
even think of the light in that context. What context I do think about
the light, is as the source of the craft's silent flying power.
It may, in fact
be the very thing which keeps this huge object up in the air, and more.
After the light passed by, I continued to stay focused on it, but then I noticed the perfectly squared-off end of the dark structure as it went by right after the light, the dark shape clearly visible to us against the background of stars and slightly lighter sky. The image of that squared-off end is one of the clearest in my memory, because its exactness was such a curiosity.
What was also strange was that I could not get an impression of the
thickness of the structure as I only could see the flat dark outline with
no exact thickness. The only impression of thickness came from seeing into
the light but even then I could only see enough to recognize that inside
the light was cylindrical and had depth. As the craft moved away from us
towards the southeast the kids started running down the street after the
object and started yelling that we should get in our car and chase after
it as it was going so slowly that we probably could catch up to it. It
really was going ridiculously slow. It almost seemed to hover. That last
light continued to move away from me towards the southeast when all of
a sudden it appeared to act something like the one light we had observed
when the craft was coming toward us. The light I was focused on seemed
to split into two lights, one above the other, and slightly separated from
each other. Both lights remained white but took on a slight
reddish/amber caste and it seemed that I was seeing the light through
a kind of transparent waviness like a mirage. The pattern of the mirage
in front of the top light, was going in the opposite direction than the
pattern of the mirage in front of the bottom light, as if one light was
the reverse image of the other light. This all happened in a second or
two and then the light cleared up and became stable again. Just around
this point, while the craft was still slowly cruising over the neighborhood,
my uncle came out of the house. He's 84 years old. He was able to see the
lights but by the time he looked the structure no longer was clearly visible.
We all continued to stand outside and watch the object continue on its
course slowly through our mountainside neighborhood. It finally reached
the gap through the mountain peaks at the end of Hatcher road. When it
passed through, and headed out over the city, my wife said she saw a dome-shaped
bulge in the middle on the top of the craft, which appeared to be picking
up some of the city and parkway lights below and reflecting them off of
its surface. We knew there was more to this craft than just a simple "V"
shape with lights in it. We later thought it must be a peculiarity of the
visual stealth that at certain angles of view, you can see light reflect
off of it. The craft maintained its course and altitude seemingly following
the curve of the earth, heading straight due southeast on a course that
would pass just south and west of Squaw
peak.
When it went through the pass we could see that it just barely fit through
the pass and that its altitude was only about half way up the peak on the
right side of the pass. We watched it go out over the valley and as it
did the light pattern now appeared to have a V shape, with the point down.
It was as if it was in a low orbit around the curvature of the earth, that
was only 100 feet or so over the elevation of my house and on a course
that had exactly intersected the street right in front of my house and
continued straight through a notch in the mountain peaks. It was like a
huge arrow being launched from the distant northwest that shot right through
the small notch in our mountain peaks at Hatcher Pass. Wewatched it for
a few more minutes as it continued its course out over the valley. Finally
we lost the 5 lights in the mix of other aircraft lights and
atmosphere over Phoenix. Once it was out of sight, we all continued
to stand outside and talk. We were all excited because we knew we had just
had the most unique experience in the world. We certainly couldn't talk
about the complete meaning of the event at that moment. It would literally
take me months of daily reflection on my memory of the event to decipher
so much information. But at that moment, when the craft had just passed
over us, I summed up all my immediate perceptions and feelings and thoughts
into one conclusion: this craft was not from this world. As a matter of
fact, right after the craft passed over and I was watching move away, I
said to my wife "whoever has this technology must
be in cahoots with God".
I know that some people might not want to hear me speak of God and Ufos
in the same breath, but my comment about God is part of what happened at
that moment and is very much a part of this sighting. There is no satisfactory
worldly explanation for what we saw. Realize that lots of folks saw the
lights from various distances and angles, and some videotaped them. A few
witnesses also saw the actual structure with the lights set in it. Our
family was fortunate enough to see the whole thing close up. This craft
is a reality, and anyone that saw any part of its activity, recognized
that it was completely out of the normal human experience on the earth.
But this craft is now part of that human experience, and if you ask most
of the humans that experienced it, they would say it was probably an extraterrestrial
craft. In regards to my family, it comes down to believing us, that we
are being honest and truthful in describing the fantastic details of what
we experienced. If you
were to ask me what I think about it, I would say that it is an extraterrestrial
craft. I say this because the science and technology of this amazing craft
is not understood or explainable by anyone from our world. What we saw
is "impossible", and yet we did see it. And what we saw was so geometrical
and acted under such absolute control, that I had the overwhelming impression
that it was of human origin. I know it's difficult to equate "extraterrestrial"
and "human" but that's how I felt at the time and still do. And finally
my perception was that whoever had such wondrous technology had to be "in
cahoots with God". These "visitors" deliberately allowed their technology
to be seen and even videotaped, by just everyday people, for some reason.
They did not "show" themselves to the military or any "official" group.
Rather, they communicated
to the people.
My understanding is that these visitors are here to help our world.
Our family prays that this is so, and look forward to a better future for
all the
people of the world.
Tim Ley
Phoenix, Arizona
---------------------Copyright ©1998 Tim Ley---------------------
August 1999
Return to UFO
Folklore !
| . | x | . | . | . | . | . | , | . | . | . | http://www.wetset.com/mexfour.htm |