By Bill Hamilton
copyright (c) 1998 by Bill Hamilton & Tom King
Dr. Bruce Macabee, at the invitation of one of the videographers of the Phoenix Lights on March 13, 1997, traveled to Phoenix this summer of 1998 to meet with the videographers of the March 13, 1997 and January 14, 1998 string of lights that appeared south of Phoenix. Having investigated and witnessed the lights videotaped by Tom King on March 13th, I will address his analysis here and offer an alternative conclusion. Dr. Macabee's analysis was based on techniques of triangulation wherein two or more sight lines are determined, azimuth angles determined from on-location views of fixed reference points, and analysis of the intersection points of these sight lines in order to calculate the approximate location of the lights that appear in the videotapes. I will not address the lights videotaped on January 14th in this paper.
Dr. Macabee determined that even if the triangulation were not precise that 10, even 20 mile accuracy was sufficient to determine whether the lights were near Phoenix or more distant, even miles beyond the Estrella Mountain range which is approximately 15 miles south of Phoenix. In making his determination and his report, Macabee used 3 of the 5 videos that were taken on the night of March 13th. He noted that he could not match the lights in the separate videos exactly because the extinguishing times were different. We will come back to this point later in our analysis of his analysis.
Dr. Macabee arrived at the following table of distances and azimuths according to his analysis:
*********MARCH 13, 1997 ARRAY OF LIGHTS
as seen by K, L and R (K, L, and R are the initials of 3 of the witnesses)
AZIMUTH CALCULATED DISTANCE
(+/- 1 degree) (+/- 5 miles)
FROM K FROM R FROM K FROM R
left light 202 226 71 79
right end 207 229 75 85
between 1 and 2 205 226.7 77 86
Dr. Macabee arrives at the following conclusion from his determination of the distances of the lights from the videocameras:
"All of the characteristics discussed above are consistent with flares dropped at high altitude over the Air Force range and viewed from long distances over mountain ranges. The extreme brightness of these particular flares is not to be discounted. They radiate nearly 2 million lumens of visible light, comparable to an airplane headlight pointed directly at the observer from many miles away. At a distance of 70 miles or so the difficulty of seeing smoke or a parachute supporting the flare would be comparable to the difficulty in seeing a large planet next to a bright star: the reflected radiation would be overwhelmed by the direct radiation from the light source. Only an extremely good optical system of high magnification and low light scatter would be able to separate the image of smoke or of a parachute from the extremely bright (and hence optically large) image of the flare itself."
(Note: The LUU-2B Flare has a light output rating of 1.8 x 10(6) candlepower and at 1,000 feet altitude illuminates a circle on the ground of 500 meters at 5 lux. The lights we saw that night did not have the intense glare of an automobile headlight...they were easy to look at)
The bulk of the research done by Dr. Macabee was concentrated on the unidimensional determination of the location of the lights and the conclusion he reaches does not necessary follow from his analysis. His conclusion is not consistent with the story related by the Maryland Air National Guard that they had dropped high-intensity flares on the North Tac Range. The actual location of the flares as determined by Dr. Macabee are areas near the East Tac range at the extreme south end of the AF test range. He did not use the "T" video or Mr. Tom King's video in order to arrive at these figures. The triangulations are predicated on the assumption that all videos are taken of the same string of lights during the same time frame. If the videos were not all taken in the same time frame, then the triangulation of location is not valid.
Dr. Macabee talks about the compensation for magnification changes between video frames by determining the spacings between ground lights (measured in pixels) and identifying the same ground lights in another frame where the spacing between the ground lights in frame B is divided by the spacing between ground lights in frame A. The ratio of these spacings, as he points out gives the difference in magnification (or camera zoom) between the frames. We will use this same technique on two of the videos, the K video and the Tom King video between frames taken on the night of March 13th and frames taken of the same views in daylight to determine the placing of these lights relative to the Estrella Mountains since witnesses have stated that it was their visual impression that the lights were in front of this mountain range and this is at odds with the locations determined by Macabee's triangulations. How can we account for any discrepancies_ If these lights were part of an array of lights that "turned on" and "turned off" at different intervals, then it can be shown that the entire array was in motion, i.e. had moved from one position to another over an interval of time. Since Mr. King started videotaping at a time as much as 10 minutes before K videotaped the array, then there is some cause for concern on the location of the lights during the tapings. We will show that the lights did not extinguish in the same sequence in the different videos, and they should have if taped at the same time.
FRAME COMPARISONS
Using Frame A from K's video, we measure the distance between 2 large lighted buildings on the Phoenix skyline that appear just below the array. At first I measured this spacing in centimeters, but then displayed it on a pixel grid. The pixels between the 2 taller lighted buildings is 51 pixels. We then measure the height of light #3 from the right side of the array. Even though lights #1 and 2 appear at a lower elevation that light #3, they were not used in the analysis done by the Cognitech Corporation (Dr. Leonid Rudin) done for the Discovery Channel documentary (November, 1997). This seemed strange to me since the the lights on the right were at the lowest elevation at an alignment with the crestline where the crestline of the mountains rises instead of dips.Fox Channel 10 in Phoenix took the same set of 5 lights as Cognitech and superimposed them on the day footage. The day footage was taken at a twilight hour when the lights of the skyline are also visible with the Estrella Mountains in the background. The vertical distance taken from a horizontal line drawn between the 2 buildings to light #3 is 71 pixels. The separation of the buildings identified in the daylight footage is 27 pixels, obviously taken at lower magnification. The ratio between the line segments or spacings is approximately .53. Therefore light#3 should appear at about 37.5 pixels above the horizontal line. Fox placed this light at about pixel 36 above the line (a pixel-and-half-low), but the crestline at that point appears at 47 pixels above the line. This is a significant difference. The indication is that the crestline is a vertical distance greater than light#3 and would be even higher over lights #1 and 2. The implication is that the witness was correct when he said that the lights appeared below and in front of theEstrella Mountains. The placement of the lights by Fox was in greater agreement with actual measurement than the placement by Cognitech. This result is as at odds with the results calculated by Macabee that the lights were over 70 miles away.
A frame from Mike's footage March 13, 1997.
The placement of the lights by Fox - very close to actual positon.
LOCATION AND TIME OF FLARES
Dr. Macabee also states, "Captain Eileen Bienz, had determined that the flares had been dropped at 10 P.M. over the North Tac Range 30 miles southwest of Phoenix at an unusually high altitude of 15,000 ft." Except for the stated distance, which should be more like 60 miles (and up to 100 miles away) this statement is consistent with the analysis presented here". Dr. Macabee has placed these lights in the vicinity of and just north of Ajo, Arizona by the bearings he gives which is not anywhere near the North Tac Range. The North Tac Range is somewhere on the north part of the range and west of Gila Bend, and may be 30 miles distant from the west limits of the city of Phoenix.
The only times we have regarding the dropping of flares by the Maryland Air National Guard on Operation Snowbird comes from two sources. The first source was an unnamed Apache helicopter pilot who was flying in the vicinity of Picacho Peak about 80 miles south of Phoenix and had noted that his FLIR (Forward Looking InfraRed) detector picked up heat sources to the west. This was somewhere between 8:00 and 8:30 PM. He phoned this information in to a television station which recorded this information and broadcast it on the 10 PM news. This pilot was with the Arizona Air National Guard. He felt he could explain the sightings that reportedly occurred at 8:30 PM that night. The second source is from Lieutenant Keith Shepherd, the PIO at Davis-Monthan AFB from where the A-10 pilots departed who stated that he re-checked the records for March 13th because he thought all aircraft were on the ground by 6:00 PM. When he looked at a "Visitor's Log", he said he discovered that a squadron of 8 A-10s from the Maryland ANG were flying out on the range on Operation Snowbird and had gone toward the Phoenix area, and had dropped their high-intensity LUU-2 flares (8 per plane) before returning to Davis-Monthan and landing at 8:30 PM! No other times have been officially mentioned, though it has been stated many times that they dropped flares between 9:45 and 10:20 PM on March 13th. There are obvious discrepancies in this story.
TYPE AND COLOR OF FLARES
Dr. Macabee does not adequately address the differences between the observed mystery lights and the type and color of flares used by the Maryland ANG. The flares allegedly dispensed by the A-10s is called LUU-2 and is a high-intensity illumination flare that is housed in a pod or canister and is deployed by ejection. The mechanism has a timer on it that deploys the parachute and ignites the flare candle. The flare candle burns magnesium. Magnesium burns with an intense bright white light. This has been confirmed by a call to the flare manufacturer. The lights on March 13th had a brilliant liquid-gold hue of a very pure color. Viewing aircraft with white lights on them that are approaching from a low elevation through 60 to 70 miles of clear desert air at night still look white at that distance. Even planets rising over the horizon at night do not show a distinctly different color to the naked eye, much less through magnification. The mystery lights had no white color at all, nor tinged yellow or white as might appear through a layer of dust in the atmosphere. Through a telescope, witnesses saw a perfectly round circle of yellow-gold light without any glare around it. Flares are fires that flicker and change in brightness and shape. Flares can be viewed during exercises in military operating areas. There are yellow illumination flares that can be seen and bear a resemblance to the color of the mystery lights, but do not resemble them in form and do cast a glare into the surrounding air, however the Maryland ANG used the white flares according to their testimony and statements by the Air Force.
OTHER SIGHTINGS AND VIDEOS OF ORBS
Dr. Macabee does not mention eyewitness sightings of these amber orbs in other parts of Arizona, both during the March 13th events and on other nights. Witnesses reporting seeing the formation of lights in the videos both earlier in the evening toward the east in the Superstition Mountains and early the next morning in the vicinity of the Buckeye Hills. Witnesses have been seeing these same yellow orbs for years in the Rainbow Valley. They were also seen North of Glendale and other places far from military ranges. One time late in the day after the witnesses in Buckeye had seen these golden orbs at night, they spotted them during daylight hours and started videotaping 2 of them that appeared in the southern hills. The lower goes from a hovering position to a point higher in the sky as if shot by a gun. It moves once again to the left. Eyewitnesses have reported that orbs are only illuminated for short periods of time, 4 to 8 minutes and that some flares have burn times that agree with this duration, but flares do not usually shoot up into the air. Because the lights seen on the videos of March 13th do not make any manuevers, they are lit one after another for a duration that is consistent with flares. These same amber lights have appeared over many other locations in other states and countries and have been seen hovering, and sometimes moving.
TOM KING'S VIDEO AND ANALYSIS
Tom King and I were notified by a witness who lived in Awahtukee, south of Phoenix, and north of the Gila River Indian Reservation that he had been seeing 2 or 3 of these "orange" lights on March 10, 11, and 12th of 1997 from his balcony where he has a view of the Estrella Mountains. The Estrella Range rises from foothills to peaks between 7 to 9 miles southwest of his home. He had videotaped these lights. He and neighbors claimed they also saw lights to the southeast and northwest and not just southwest of his position. Our position was approximately 10 air miles distant from K's location to the North and R's location to the east. If the light on the right as identified by Dr. Macabee is 77 miles from K, then it was at least 67 miles from our position. If Montezuma's peak is about 2500 feet higher than our position (approximate) and the distance is 8 air miles, at our angle of viewing, the light on the right at 67 miles would be at an altitude of nearly 21,000 feet to be visible above the mountain crestline. This, of course, is higher than the alleged altitude of the flares.
Since we had houses very close to the witnesses' balcony, we have some fixed ground lights and a house window light visible in Tom's footage. Taking the known separation of the ground lights, the distance from the ground light to the edge of the window as a baseline, together with the angle of the three lights that appear in one frame of the video, we can then do a pixel count, adjust for a magnification ratio and locate the position of the lights in a daytime photo of the same view.
Using 3 frames, House frame 1a, House frame 5a, and Daylight House frame we take a pixel measurement of the separation of Ground lights 1 and Ground light 2. We also take a pixel count of the diagonal spacing between GL#2 and the window light. The spacing between Ground Lights 1 and 2 is 8 to 9 pixels, the spacing to the window is 43 pixels and the spacing to the Right Light is 86 pixels while the spacing to the Left Light is 88 pixels. In the daylight photo, the degree of magnification makes the distance between Ground Light 1 and 2: 55 pixels. Using the figure 8/55 yields a magnification ratio of 6.875. Using this figure, the Right Light is about 592 pixel spacings at an angle of nearly 30 degrees to the right and the Left Light is approximately 605 pixels at a slightly greater angle. At that angle the distance to the crestline of the mountains is about 689 pixels, a difference of some 84 to 97 pixels, a significant amount. Even a measured error of more than 10% in pixel count would not account for this difference. The Tom King video like K's video shows the mystery lights to be lower than the Estrella crestline. Will further analysis of R's video and L's video show the same_
From Tom King's footage at Awahtukee house
Note lines drawin from ground light to 3 lights as they appear in the array of March 13th.
Daylight shot and approximate placement of lights from using the angle in the night shot of March 13th and a proportional pixel count.
VIDEO LIGHT DURATIONS AND EXTINQUISHING SEQUENCES
The total running times and sequences on the 5 video tapes of March 13th were calculated by Tom King below. Note: Light sequence begins with #1 on far left which was the first to appear and then proceeds to #2 on far right, then numbered right to left in the array:
VIDEO BY TOM KING.
Total Running Time of his tape.= 5:26:25
Total Running Time "String" in air.= 2:41:21
Object Number In Time Out Time Total Duration on Tape
1 00:00:00 03:43:11 03:43:11
6 00:59:26 02:04:07 01:04:10
7 01:08:04 04:49:14 03:41:09
8 01:13:26 05:15:07 04:01:09
9 01:22:07 05:26:25 04:04:17
The video shot by Mike K contains 9 points of light. Mike was able to capture the entire sequence of lights in the "string". It enables you to study the timing of lights as they start and turn off without any pauses in the video.
The numbering system of these lights.
Video by Mike K.
Total Running Time of his tape.= 3:10:01
Total Running Time "String" in air.= 2:41:21
Object Number In Time Out Time Total Duration on Tape
1 00:00:00 02:10:17 02:10:17
2 00:28:09 00:50:09 00:21:29
3 00:35:08 01:48:08 01:12:29
4 00:41:08 01:49:17 01:08:08
5 00:44:01 02:50:10 02:06:08
6 00:52:06 02:47:23 01:55:16
7 01:01:28 02:54:23 01:52:24
8 01:08:09 03:10:01 02:01:21
9 01:16:01 02:35:18 01:19:16
The video shot by Chuck R. contains 9 points of light. Chuck didn't record the powerup sequence of the "String". He was able to capture the power down sequence of the lights.
The numbering system of these lights.
Video by Chuck R.
Total Running Time of his tape.= 2:26:19
Total Running Time "String" in air.= 2:26:19
Object Number In Time Out Time Total Duration on Tape
1 00:00:00 00:35:06 00:35:06
2 00:00:00 01:19:20 01:19:20
3 00:00:00 01:22:17 01:22:17
4 00:00:00 01:34:00 01:34:00
5 00:00:00 01:30:14 01:30:14
6 00:00:00 01:53:04 01:53:04
7 00:00:00 01:40:12 01:40:12
8 00:00:00 02:06:04 02:06:04
9 00:00:00 02:26:19 02:26:19
The video shot by Terry M. contains 9 points of light. Terry was able to capture the powerup of the lights also. Although 56 seconds into the event he paused the recording. He continued to later record some of the power down sequence.
The numbering system of these lights.
Video by Terry M.
Total Running Time of his tape.= 2:57:22
Total Running Time "String" in air.= 2:57:22
Object Number In Time Out Time Total Duration on Tape
1 00:00:00 00:56:04 00:56:04
2 00:00:00 00:56:04 00:56:04
3 00:00:00 00:56:04 00:56:04
4 00:00:00 00:56:04 00:56:04
5 00:13:12 00:57:29 00:44:14
6 00:21:11 02:22:02 02:00:20
7 00:30:27 02:14:28 01:44:00
8 00:36:27 02:40:09 02:03:11
9 00:45:20 02:57:23 02:12:02
Total Duration of lights caught on tape
Object Number
King K. R. M.
1 03:43:11 02:10:17 00:35:06 00:56:04
2 not taped 00:21:29 01:19:20 00:56:04
3 not taped 01:12:29 01:22:17 00:56:04
4 not taped 01:08:08 01:34:00 00:56:04
5 not taped 02:06:08 01:30:14 00:44:14
6 01:04:10 01:55:16 01:53:04 02:00:20
7 03:41:09 01:52:24 01:40:12 01:44:00
8 04:01:09 02:01:21 02:06:04 02:03:11
9 04:04:17 01:19:16 02:26:19 02:12:02
Total Duration
5:26:25 3:10:01 2:26:19 2:57:22
Note: No two durations are identical for one selected light in the sequence. Some are very similar, and some vary more than 30 seconds.
This is a list of the time it took for the lights to appear on tape. The K. and M. Sequences are identical.
Time duration of power up of lights
Object Number King K. M.
2-3 not taped 6:28 not taped
3-4 not taped 5:22 not taped
4-5 not taped 2:22 not taped
5-6 not taped 8:03 7:28
6-7 01:04:10 9:21 9:15
7-8 03:41:09 6:10 5.29
8-9 04:01:09 7:21 7:25
This is a list of the power down sequence of the lights. (+) in front of the number means the lights are going out in sequence. (-) in front of the number means the light went out of sequence just prior to the light before it. Leaving a whole in the string. None of the videos end in any kind of similar sequence. They are all different.
Time duration of power down of lights
Object Number King K. R. M.
2-3 not taped + 57:28 + 2:26 not taped
3-4 not taped + 1:08 + 11:12 not taped
4-5 not taped + 1:00:22 - 3:15 not taped
5-6 not taped - 2:17 + 22:20 + 1:24:02
6-7 01:04:10 + 6:29 - 12:21 + 7:03
7-8 03:41:09 + 15:07 + 25:21 - 25:10
8-9 04:01:09 - 34:12 + 20:14 +17:12
Note: This is the most telling calculation Between the K and R videos the "power down" of the lights is in a different sequence than the "power up" and they differ from each other in sequence and duration implying that the videos did not shoot the array in the same time frame. This would nullify triangulation results.
Since no video shows a running clock time, these durations had to be timed. There is a discrepancy in the individual duration of any selected light as well as differences in the durations of all videos. When videos are "paused", this could cause a discrepancy in some of the duration times. But any selected light that appeared from "turn on" to "turn off" without pause in any 2 videos with the same frame speed should show equal times. That none of the videos end with a similar sequence suggests that the array was shot by different cameras at close to but not identical time frames. At least there is room to question whether we all shot at the same time or not. At the time that we saw the first light appear, at approximately 9:45 PM, we geared up to video tape. The first light went off and another one came on in the same position about 5 minutes later. Tom started his taping anywhere from 5 to 10 minutes before K, yet K's video shows the entire array coming on from start to finish. Tom only caught that portion of the array as it was visible to us. Witnesses said there were more lights to the right of our camera angle position. Thus, a full array of 9 lights may have been present, but Tom could only record 4 in a line while the fifth light to the far left appeared as a "double" (i.e. two lights very close together). The "double" was the first in the sequence.
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS
I remember being one of the first to consider if the mystery lights were flares, both during the sighting and during a statement made to a television news crew the very next night. While it seems to many that the most parsimonious explanation for these lights, especially when we have the statements made by the Air Force and Air National Guard, is that of night illumination flares ejected over the Air Force Test Range, there are reasons to question this explanation, especially by the various witnesses. The A-10 pilots would normally drop their flares at a much lower altitude in order to produce ground illumination which is what is advertised in the specification sheet put out by the manufacturer. The fact that witnesses reported similar lights, spheres, or orbs from different parts of the world calls for a more cautious approach toward identifying these lights. We may be confusing these unknown glowing orbs with flares and other types of lighting. If there are unknown glowing orbs in our atmosphere, then we should investigate their nature and determine the natural or artificial causes of same.
This paper offers an analysis that does not agree with the report written by Dr. Bruce Macabee, but it does not lessen his contribution to the effort of investigating reported strange light phenomena and Dr. Macabee has done an admirable job, but that does not mean that he has the final word on a particular case. There are some who dispute his findings on the Ed Walter's case in Florida and perhaps in other cases. That is the nature of the process when it comes to attempts to scientifically investigate strange phenomena that other scientists will not even bother with.
Since other formations of the same colored amber-gold lights were seen throughout the night of March 13th, and since some of these formations were seen from positions directly overhead and moving in a horizontal plane throughout areas of Phoenix and its surrounding communities, it is only proper to raise the question again on the source of this light phenomena.
While continuing analysis may not decide the conclusion as to the source of this light phenomena, one event would go a long way toward settling the question for many of the witnesses. Let the Air National Guard go through a similar exercise on one of their routinely sheduled nights where they release the same LUU-2 flares over the North Tac Range and let the schedule be announced so the videographers can take up similar positions and video record the flare drop for purposes of comparison. This would act as a controlled test case, and would go a long way in settling this question.
One other person, R, looked through a telescope on the night of March 13th at one of the lights. On January 14, 1998, K had an opportunity to focus his astronomical telescope on one of the lights of the array that appeared on that date. He stated that the light did not fall out of view of the objective lens of the scope and that it appeared to be a very bright round light that did not have any aerola or glare around it. He maintains, along with other witnesses, that the lights seen on the 14th were similar to the lights seen on March 13th. I was not there for that display so will not comment further on that display.