Panel of former pilots and government investigators want UFO investigations reopened by the U.S. government

It has been reported on Yahoo News that Democratic U.S. presidential hopeful Dennis Kucinich had been ridiculed for having said that he had seen a UFO. That's not how some people feel about this subject. An international panel of former pilots and government officials called on the U.S. government on November 12, 2007 to reopen investigations into UFO sightings as a matter of safety and security. In a statement released at a news conference they said "Especially after the attacks of 9/11, it is no longer satisfactory to ignore radar returns ... which cannot be associated with performances of existing aircraft and helicopters." The panelists from seven countries, included former senior military officers, said they had each either seen a UFO or had participated in an official investigation into UFO phenomena.
Dennis Kucinich, a member of Congress from Ohio, claimed that he had seen a UFO himself. He said this during a televised debate with other Democratic candidates. Former presidents Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter both reported having seen UFOs. One of the panelists who had formerly worked for Britain's Ministry of Defense said what is echoed the statistics that are known by most people who are interested in the UFO phenomena. The panelist said that 5 percent of UFO sightings cannot be explained. The fact is that most sightings are automatically dismissed out of hand without any investigation. I think we all have to be in the state of mind of making the decision to believe our own eyes than listening to some government opinion made with closed eyes. The panel was organized by a group dedicated to winning credibility for the study of UFOs. They are urging the American government to reopen an official UFO investigation unit either run by NASA or the U.S. Air force. Former Governor of Arizona Fife Symington who had see the immense delta-shaped craft travel silently past him as he stood in a small park in Northeast Phoenix reported by hundreds during the world famous "Phoenix Lights" sighting of March 13, 1997. The Air Force investigated 12,618 UFO reports from 1947 to 1969 in what was known as Project Blue Book. At that time the governments reasoning behind closing project "Blue Book" was that they felt there was no real evidence of visitors from outer space or super technology and so there was no real threat.

First Year Anniversary of Phoenix Lights UFO: TV Interview with the Leys

This is a video that was aired on local Phoenix TV one year after the original Phoenix Lights UFO event occurred. What I think is noteworthy about this video is the fact that the TV people are not really sure about what happened on March 13, 1997. For one thing when they speak about my experience that evening they make it sound that me and my family saw the "Phoenix Lights" that appeared to be hanging over the city of Phoenix around 10 p.m. that night when in fact WE NEVER SAW THOSE LIGHTS THAT WERE SHOWN ON VARIOUS VIDEOS. We saw 5 distinct lights travel towards us for around 12 minutes before we were able to recognize that these lights were embedded in an Extraterrestrial craft that eventually passed right over our heads so there could be no doubt that we saw them. That's the bottom line clarification: our family saw a craft "up close and personal" and to mix up our sighting with the display of lights later on in the evening is almost mis-information. Why is this mis-information so critical? Because the world may mistakenly think that all there was was one event and it's all tied in together. Wrong! The lights were just lights in the sky (at least the ones that appeared to hover motionless over the city) and not a giant UFO that we possibly saw. What we saw was only 700 or 800 feet long and it continuously moved and it came right down our street. So everyone out there that's listening know this: a real ET craft was in Phoenix that night and it may have had something to do with the deployment of flares earlier in the evening but it was not the flares. It was passing over my house around 8:20.

Local Television Interview with the Ley family Friday June 13, 1997

Phoenix Lights Ley Family First Interview

This is a video aired on local Television in Phoenix Arizona on Friday the 13th of June, 1997. It's the first time our family was exclusively interviewd on Television. My wife and I had made a brief appearance on Strange Universe a couple of months earlier but we were just a couple in a whole group of people. In this video the focus is on us and on our experience.

I think it was this televised interview that really got things going about the event that became known as the Phoenix Lights. Let me back up a little and give you the background of how this interview came about. After the initial "happening" the night of March 13, 1997 the only organized attempt to make any sense of what exactly happened that evening was put together by Jim Dilettoso who had a company called Village Labs (you'll see him in this video). His office building became UFO investigation HQ for the Phoenix Lights. Jim Dilettoso had a lot of previous experience in analyzing purported photos and films (or videos) of UFOs. One of the famous cases he got involved in was the Willy Myer films and photos from the 70's in Switzerland. I just happened to be personal friends with Jim Dilettoso before the Phoenix Lights event. When I created the images of the UFO on my computer I took the digital images down to Village Labs and let Jim load them into his system as part of my contribution to the investigation; Jim knew me well enough that I (and my family) would never make anything up ever at all. So one day I was down at Village Labs when some people from the local Fox affiliate TV Station Channel 10 were visiting Jim and checking out the data from the investigation. I met one of the producers and got talking to him. I gave him my first-hand account of what happened that night and as it is with anyone that speaks with me directly he knew what I told him was true and real. The next thing that happened a couple of weeks later in early June was that I got a call from a reporter at Channel 10 asking to come over to my house on June 11th and interview our family for a show that would air on Friday June 13, 1997 (exactly 3 months since the UFO passed directly over our property).

At the same time as this show aired on TV I was contacted by USA TODAY and interviewed over the phone for inclusion in an article they were preparing for publication in their paper on June 18, 1997. As a matter of fact the image that they used on the front page of the paper was photographed off of a monitor at Village Labs that was displaying my CGI of the craft that I created on my computer and then allowed Jim to put it on his computers at Village Labs. USA TODAY never got my permission to use that image and they only credited the photographer (Scott Troyanos) who "lifted it" off of Jim's monitor. I called USA TODAY up and complained about it but they brushed me off and told me that by my agreeing to be interviewed by them and photographed (their photographer came over to our house and took photos of us out in the desert up on a hill to use in their article) that covered their use of my image of the craft on the front page. What was important to me was that I thought it should have been made clear that I created the image on the front page (I wasn't really concerned about money considerations although they were certainly going to sell more newspapers that day because of the UFO image being on the front page). Here's a scan of the fron page of USA TODAY from June 18, 1997. Notice the scan line in the image showing this is a photograph off of a CRT monitor. If you click on the picture of the newspaper you will see an enlarged view that you could save to your own computer if you wanted to. That's the case with any of the images on this blog: if you left-click on the image you will see a full sized view.

Local TV station covers Nippon TV visit To Ley Family home

Nippon TV crew from Japan with the Ley family.

On August 11th Nippon TV came over to my home to interview our family about our witnessing the March 13, 1997 UFO craft passing over our house during the event known worldwide as "The Phoenix Lights". They were very much interested in interviewing witnesses in Phoenix that had seen an actual ET craft during that evening over 10 years ago.

There has been worldwide perplexity over the events of that evening. Most of the attention over that evening was initially focused on a few videos that had been taken around 10:00 p.m. that evening that showed an array of bright lights seemingly floating over the city of Phoenix. The perspective of those videos was taken at a distance from the city. There were no videos taken of these bright lights from below them because the "Phoenix Lights" were actually parachute flares dropped from military jets flown to the Barry M. Goldwater Range (bombing) from Maryland. By the time the light from the flares had passed through over 30 miles of atmosphere all but the essential bright light from the middle of the flare had been stripped away and so the "lights" looked different than any other lights in the sky or on the ground. Initial analysis of the videos of these lights by Jim Dilettoso of Village Labs seemed to indicate that these lights were so unique they appeared to be otherworldly. Unfortunately a videotape's ability to pick up the full spectrum of light is limited. Because of witnesses having actually seen ET crafts almost two hours earlier that evening an "assumption" was made that these unique lights were directly related to these ET crafts. There is a relationship between the lights and the UFO crafts but it is not that the lights were from a craft but that the lights brought worldwide attention to the event and ultimately exposed the actual witnesses of the ET crafts. Our family is in that situation: we saw a bonafide ET craft pass right over our heads; we never even saw the "Phoenix lights" until we were on the TV show Strange Universe. Perhaps if there were no videos of the flare lights to be mistaken as a UFO there would not have been as much worldwide attention to that evening in Phoenix Arizona.

Here's a video from the local television station that covered Nippon TV's presence in town while they gathered information for a special to be on Nippon TV in Japan in October. The show that will feature the presentation has a viewership of 20 million in Japan.

Images representing the UFO craft as it approached

This is a series of images that I created on my computer right after the March 13, 1997 UFO event referred to as the Phoenix Lights. I was trying to reconstruct what I had witnessed that evening. The first image in the upper left corner is trying to show what we first saw - what appeared to be an arch-like pattern of 5 lights floating in the sky about 75 miles away. As we stood there we could see that the lights were getting further apart so we new it was moving towards us (second image). Then at some point the shape of the 5 lights became V-like (or more accurately alpha-like). Then all we saw was the lights getting further and further apart but always maintaining the same relationship with each other. Finally we saw the shape of it against the background of stars. The last two images are my attempt to show the perspective of how long the craft was by making it appear wide in the front and then taper towards the rear. But in fact the shape was uniform from end to end. It really looked like a 60 degree 2/3 of a triangle; like a carpenter's square set at 60 degrees.

Star Magazine With Tim Ley's Image of the Phoenix Lights UFO

Star magazine asked to use my copywrited image of the March 13th 1997 Ufo in their magazine and they did. It is a bit misleading from my viewpoint because my family and I didn't experience fear when this craft passed over our heads; we experienced astonishment and excitement.

Phoenix Lights UFO - CNN Former Governor Fife Symington

Former Arizona Fife Symington admits seeing a UFO on March 13, 1997 which he covered up at the time

Mesa Tribune Article 1st Year Anniversary Phoenix Lights

This is a newspaper article about the Phoenix Lights, written on the first anniversary ot the sighting.

The front page of the Arizona Republic Newspaper with the image that I created pasted into it.

National Examiner Phoenix Lights Story With Ley Familty Photo

USA Today Front Page Phoenix Lights Story 6/18/1997

This is an image I created on my computer during meditation that shows a representation of the tail end of the arm of the Phoenix Lights UFO that passed over my head on March 13, 19997

These unusual clouds appeared in the southern sky over Valhalla, New York.

Former Governor Fife Symington admits seeing A UFO on March 13, 1997.

NEWS RELEASE


For Immediate Release: For further information contact:
Sunday, March 18, 2007 Leslie Kean 212 691 4350 415 250 9791
lkean@ix.netcom.com

FORMER ARIZONA GOVERNOR ADMITS SEEING UFO

Fife Symington decides to set record straight ten years after famed “Phoenix Lights” incident


Phoenix, AZ – Ten years after the Arizona UFO incident known as the “Phoenix Lights,” former Arizona Republican Governor Fife Symington, III, now says that he himself was a witness to one of the “craft of unknown origin,” even though he originally did not say so publicly.

In an exclusive interview by Leslie Kean, an investigative reporter with the Washington-based Coalition for Freedom of Information, released today in the Prescott Daily Courier, Symington now admits that he saw an enormous, inexplicable craft that evening.

On March 13, 1997, during Symington’s second term as Governor, thousands saw gigantic triangular and V-shaped unidentified objects, gliding slowly and silently across the sky. Witnesses throughout the state estimated that the eerie, lighted vehicles were bigger than many football fields, up to a mile long.

They reported that these were clearly solid, technological flying machines that blocked out the stars - not merely lights. The objects were seen earlier than the row of lights near Phoenix, videotaped and shown repeatedly on television, which were most likely flares.

Symington was well known for ridiculing the incident at a spoof press conference, so his statement marks a dramatic turnaround. According to his comments to Kean, he wants to make amends to his constituents and set the record straight.

The former Governor, a cousin of the late Missouri Senator Stuart Symington, states that the incident remains unsolved, and should be officially investigated. The U.S. Government has never acknowledged that something was in the sky that night, despite official documentation of a very similar flying craft of unknown origin investigated in the 1990’s by the governments of England and Belgium.

PRESCOTT DAILY COURIER BREAKING NEWS http://www.prescottdailycourier.com/
THERE’S MORE – SEE THE FULL STORY WITH VIDEO CLIP http://www.freedomofinfo.org/

Former Arizona Fife Symington admits seeing a UFO on March 13, 1997 which he covered up at the time