My Eye Witness Description of the Phoenix Lights UFO Flyover 3/13/1997

By Tim Ley Copyright ©1998 Tim Ley








There were four of us standing together that saw “something” pass over our heads on March 13, 1997 in Phoenix. What follows is my impression. Until this event happened here in Phoenix on March 13th, I was not a believer in UFO's. 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 UFOs”. 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 at the Statue of Liberty and I looked at it and I went inside of it and even climbed up the ancient spiral stairs to the top and looked out upon New York harbor. I experienced it with my entire being. If I came to your town and visited you and you had never seen or experienced the Statue of Liberty, not even on TV or photos, you might ask me if I visited it and toured and to describe it to you. 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 me that I was describing a real object. If you believed what I told you, you might say to me “I believe you Tim", which would mean that you trust me to be a reliable witness. 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 an unknown flying object close enough to experience with my whole being that it was in fact an object and that furthermore it was being directed by intelligence. I experienced this amazing object as I was with my family who were also experiencing it. My wife Bobbi; my 10 year old son Hal; my 13 year old grandson Damien, and I all saw the same thing simultaneously and agree with each other completely 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 (33'34" 32.57"N - 112'02" 48.92"W) is up in the North Mountains of Phoenix. Our neighborhood is like a mountain valley about 1500 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 as they continued 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 recognizable 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**. [**author's note 4/25/2011 -- The actual length of the craft has been calculated to be 1,500 feet by National Geographic Channel. The TV special aired February 11, 2010. Click on the title - "UFOs Over Phoenix" to view the TV special]. 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 traveling approximately 30 mph. My kids thought it was moving as slow as 15 mph 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 35 mph. 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 its 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 traveling 35 mph 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 30 mph. 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 nervousness in my body, almost like stage fright. 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 it’s 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 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 an 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. It’s 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.




The Craft heads towards the opening in the Mountain Peaks




It finally reached the gap through the mountain peaks at the end of Hatcher road (33'34" 12.99"N - 112". 33.52"W). 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 halfway 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. We watched 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 UFO’s 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 such wondrous technology had 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

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My Eyewitness Second Sighting of Phoenix Lights UFO Craft - 6/25/1997

Sighting: June 25, 1997 9:11 a.m. Phoenix Arizona

On the morning of Wednesday, June 25, 1997, 9:11 a.m., my wife and I had a second sighting of what appeared to be the same extraterrestrial craft that had passed over our home on March 13, 1997. This time we were ready and got to see a deliberate display of the craft in full sunlight at a great distance unlike our first encounter which was unexpected, in the dark of night and 100 feet away (so close you could have hit it with a rock and absolutely silent). This second sighting of the craft was amazing. During the approximately 7 minutes we were able to view the craft I was able to take 10 photos of it. These photos only prove there was something up there moving across the sky although not exactly what was there. I believe that I can explain what is happening with this craft and others of apparent extraterrestrial origin. I am writing about the exact context in which this sighting occurred because the circumstances under which this sighting occurred are as extraordinary as the sighting itself. These circumstances are part of the sighting.

Just prior to this second sighting there was an intense media focus on my family’s close encounter of March 13, 1997 (Phoenix Lights). Not long after that sighting we had appeared on the TV show STRANGE UNIVERSE. At that point it didn’t seem like too many media people realized the full impact of the lengthy visit paid to Arizona and especially Phoenix by this otherworldly craft (and apparently other crafts) on that evening. Many people saw something unworldly that night of March 13, 1997, and some people saw actual crafts and many people saw lights and some of these lights were even videotaped. A lot of these people would like an explanation and tried to look to the government. The government has not responded with any information that would explain what happened with all of the events of that evening. This has spurred more interest in the whole affair. This sighting will not go away, nor can it be hushed up. There are too many witnesses who have also told their families and friends. Of course, for me, my family are witnesses with me which puts me in a unique position: I am not alone in what I have seen; the people that witnessed this with me I know very well.

In order that I can give you the full context of what makes the second sighting of June 25, 1997 so unusual and so significant I must tell you about some events that relate to this sighting. The things I’m going to say and ideas I’m going to put forth will definitely seem outlandish and perhaps bizarre but for me they are the only way to explain what I have seen and experienced. How more outlandish can I get than having a huge 1,500 ft. craft of unknown origin pass silently and slowly 100 ft. over my front yard and street?
My first real exposure to the UFO phenomena occurred when I met and became friends with a world-known UFO researcher named James Dilletoso in 1990. When I met him I began to seriously wonder about the reality of ET UFOs. Jim Dilletoso had done analysis of UFO photos since the Willie Meyer case of the 70’s. In March of 1997 when all this stuff started happening I was still associated with Jim and his company at the time, Village Labs. As a matter of fact when the UFO flew over our house the first person I called about it was Jim Dilletoso. I called him because of his previous experience and wondered what to do about it. What happened next all led up to the sighting of June 25.
Village Labs became the de facto center of the UFO investigation into the events of March 13, 1997 from the very onset of the whole affair. This is because neither the government nor anybody else seemed interested in doing anything about it. Jim Dilletoso put the facilities at Village Labs at the disposal of investigating the UFO phenomena. I think it was the end of March 1997 when the Strange Universe people came down to Village Labs and interviewed a bunch of witnesses including myself and my wife and son. The show aired on television soon after but it didn’t seem like anything really happened over it right away. I was surprised that there was not more publicity about the whole thing but I was new to the whole UFO phenomena and didn‘t realize the incredible amount of skepticism that was out there. Meanwhile at Village Labs, data was being collected from all of the witnesses including me. I turned over to Village Labs some of the digital images files that I created on my computer of the UFO that I saw with my own eyes. I had spent over 100 hours on my computer trying to draw up some kind of images to represent the craft. I came up with several satisfactory images and one in particular that represented the craft best. These images were on display at Village Labs on their computer monitors for quite a while including when the USA Today photographer was there and snapped a picture of my UFO CGI off of one of the computer monitors and put it on the front page of USA Today for June 18, 1997.

During the time before the really big media explosion concerning the “Phoenix Lights” occurred I would occassionally go by the Village Labs building and visit Jim. On one visit I met a producer from KSAZ Channel 10, the Phoenix Fox affiliate. He had been down at Village Labs with some other people from Channel 10 looking at all of the data that Jim Dilletoso had collected about the events of the evening of March 13, 1997. The producer and I got into a one-on-one conversation about exactly what happened in the sky over my neighborhood on that evening. I looked him right in the eye and told him my story in detail. He listened to me attentively without interruption all the way to the end of my recount. He realized that I was telling the truth and that a UFO had really passed directly over me and my family. A couple of weeks later I got a call from a reporter at Channel 10. His name was Bill Osher. He told me he had been assigned to come out to my house and do an interview with me and my family concerning the UFO. I agreed and he scheduled the taping for June 11. Coincidentally On June 11 a reporter named Richard Price from USA Today called me when I was at work and did an interview over the phone with me about the March 13 UFO sighting and made arrangements for their photographer to come out to take some pictures of my family and I. Then I came home from work to the interview with Channel 10. Channel 10 aired the interview on Friday, June 13, 1997. It was filmed right in front of our house where the actual event happened. Each of us: my wife Bobbi and I; my 10-year-old son Hal and my 13-year-old grandson Damien were given the opportunity to talk and tell what happened. Eventually it was shown nationally and CNN picked it up and showed it around the world. Parts of the interview still exist on the CNN interactive web site under “Phoenix Lights“.

Meanwhile USA Today sent the photographer around to take pictures of me and my family. The same photographer went down to Village Labs and snapped a picture of my UFO CGI off of a computer monitor there. That picture appeared on the front page of USA Today on June 18, 1997. You can see the scan line in the photograph from the monitor which kind of gives the impression that it‘s one frame from a videotape. I never got credit from USA Today for creating the image. USA Today let you think that the image was of a real UFO. Then when you look closely and read the article you realize that the image is computer-generated..

. When the June 18, 1997 edition of USA TODAY came out I started getting calls for interviews. Everything got pretty hectic with all the TV crews we had to deal with. Our little family of witnesses was on “PETER JENNINGS“, “TOM BROKOW“, GOOD MORNING AMERICA, CNN, MSNBC, HARDCOPY, STRANGE UNIVERSE and other shows.

By Friday afternoon June 20 we were done with interviews for the week and nothing more until Monday. I went food shopping with my son Hal and while we were at the checkout counter I noticed a picture of Pope John 23rd on the cover of a newsmagazine called the SUN wearing his big helmet hat and all dressed up and above the pope's picture was this headline saying “CHILLING VATICAN PROPHESIES“.

Click on image for full size

While I was standing there I picked up the paper and began to read the article. The article said that the pope had a secret diary and in this diary he had been recording contacts with Jesus and with Mary. The last contact in his diary with Mary is dated July 2, 1962. The pope writes: “the Madonna tells me this will be her final visit and it is a joyous one for she shares tremendous news. As the year 1999 arrives visitors from outer space will descend in chariots of flaming steel and under God’s direction share with mankind much of their advanced knowledge. Scientist will at last wipe out most of its diseases and our life span will increase to 150 years or even longer. The visitors will also have the gift of resurrection and they will make the ancient Dead live again”.

I stood there at the checkout counter thinking about the UFO that passed over my house and remembering what I had said that night when the craft passed over and I was so astonished by the technology of the craft I said “whoever has this technology was “in cahoots with God”. Why did I say that? I said “cahoots” because I recognized the relationship between the amazing technology of the UFO and God. This was not just the intellectual realization that if there is a God then all knowledge comes from God. That’s a no-brainer if you believe in God. But also based on my own experience in the past. I bought the paper and took it home. I didn’t know what to believe about the supposed diary but I didn’t dismiss it in the light of my experience with the UFO. So now this gets really interesting. That Sunday, June 22 we went to church. We regularly attend Most Holy Trinity Catholic Church. Our children went to school there. My son Hal sang in the choir. On that Sunday we went to early mass so we could hear Hal sing. When we got there people were remembering seeing us on television on Friday June 13 and talking about the UFO. Some had read the USA TODAY article or saw us on some TV show. My state of mind certainly reflected all of the media activity. The UFO and what it was just dominated my mind. I went to communion and I came back to my pew and I knelt down and I was meditating about the Eucharist and about God and naturally I began to think about the UFO. I then talked/prayed to God and said to Him that if these people (of the UFO) are friends of His could He please have them fly by my house again so I can photograph them. I was totally sincere with this prayer and really believed that God had heard me. He answered the prayer the following Wednesday June 25, 1997. That morning I went out and sat out on my back porch facing the western sky. I had my Bible with me and began reading through it. As I was reading it I began thinking about the UFO people because when I was reading it seemed relevant to them. From the Scripture passages I was reading it seemed that these visitors had originally passed over the house because God wanted them to. From the Scripture passages I was reading I got the impression that I had been chosen for his contact because I was trustworthy with God.


As I sat there I was thinking about how the UFO people knew where I lived. They knew because they had seen the image I did on my computer on the TV and in the newspapers. They knew because they had flown over my house previously on March 13th. I began to think that maybe I was being watched by them and I looked up in the sky. I was completely amazed at what I saw. Way high up in the sky in the West was a very tiny but incredibly bright light. It was very slowly moving toward me. It looked like something in a very high orbit. I stood up and looked at it and I just knew it was them. I immediately went into the house and got my camera and I yelled to my wife to get the binoculars and come outside. I told her that they were back.. Then I went back outside and aimed my camera at this object. What I saw through the viewfinder was a golden, gleaming geometric alpha shape with a golden, gleaming globe in the middle of its arms. It was the same shape that had passed over us on the night of March 13, 1997; the object was tilted in such a way that would reflect the sun behind me directly down into my face. Wow! This was unbelievable! This object looked like a golden Alpha Omega. It was the carpenter’s square shape with a globe between the arms. My wife came out from the house at that moment with a pair of binoculars. I grabbed the binoculars and tried to look at the object but I couldn’t find it so I gave the binoculars back to my wife and went back to my camera. I found it right away and continued taking pictures. The object had stopped moving from the west to the east and now had turned 90 degrees and was traveling across the sky from the South to the north. My wife was able to find the object in the binoculars and watch it clearly. She was totally amazed not only about what she saw but that she was able to keep it in view through the binoculars all throughout the sighting. Now that it was going across the sky in front of us instead of coming at us it was no longer standing straight up and down but rather tilted sideways to the right as it moved northwards. My wife described it to me as it traveled; she said the arms were bright silvery and the sphere was crimson; then all of a sudden it stopped. While it remained in place the object turned in the air 360 degrees like two hands of a clock about ten minutes apart going around the entire clock face; then it laid flat pointing to the west and took off so fast it appeared to disappear.

As we stood there afterwards and talked about what had just happened I told my wife that this sighting was for us so that we would not doubt the reality of the UFO and of God’s involvement with the people on the UFO. I told her it may be a number of years before the fullness of this UFO visit was revealed to the world and that we would never forget this sighting (and the original one from March 13, 1997). So now the two of us were in a position where we would never doubt what we had witnessed

My Eyewitness Third Sighting of Phoenix Lights UFO Craft - 7/23/1997

CGI of July 23, 1997 UFO

July, 23, 1997 – Phoenix AZ – Ley family back yard.

After my wife and I had the 2nd spectacular sighting [on June 25, 1997] of the E.T. craft that we had first seen on March 13, 1997 [the evening known as “the Phoenix Lights”], I began to hang out in my back yard every evening after I came home from work. My back yard was a pretty large green lawn and I would sit in a lawn chair just looking at the sky looking for any E.T. craft that might show back up. On this particular evening my son-in-law came by to visit with my grandson. We sat together and I spoke out loud what I had been thinking about before they came. I talked about the sighting that my wife and I had a month earlier on June 25th and because of the circumstances of the sighting I had come to a certain conclusion about the inhabitants of the craft. I knew that these beings of the craft were friends with God and do whatever God asks them including coming into the view of my wife and I and do a sky show to let us know that it is them and they are friends of God’s and they are aware of us. I further concluded that they were related to us as children of Jesus and were human. As I was sitting there quietly in the yard before my guests arrived I was wondering how there could be people like us in a craft that is not from this planet and I had an idea as to how to solve this puzzle. In 1966 when I was in graduate school I had written a summary and an outline for a TV series that was to be called Restoration. I felt this story filled in the pieces of the puzzle so I could see exactly what was going on with these UFOs. So this is what I spoke about to my companions and then I told them the story of Windsloop. This is it:

The Story Of Windsloop

The time of this story is 400 years after China and the U.S. had a world-devastating war using non-radioactive weapons of mass destruction. The United States was completely reformed by the destruction and now 400 years later both the East and West coasts had developed into feudal-type domains. The middle parts of the country had various tribes engaged in hunting and gathering. Windsloop was in one of those tribes. His father had died when he was 9 years old and he was raised by his mother and her brother who was the tribal shaman. Windsloop was 26 years old; he was a great bowman not only respected in the tribe because of his hunting abilities but also because of his healing knowledge which he received from his uncle. In his travels, Windsloop came across many remnants of the old civilization and its rusted, decrepit residues of technology. Windsloop’s tribe had a tradition that you could call their religion which said that the reason the way things were the way they were was that there had been a war in the heavens between the “gods”. This tradition was a very strong force in their society because it had enabled them to survive. The primary keeper and interpreter of this tradition was Windsloop’s uncle. Windsloop began to develop his own interpretation of things and started talking in the tribe about his interpretation. He thought that the battle wasn’t between gods but rather between people. Because of his position of respect in the tribe Windsloop’s opinion started causing discord in the tribe. His uncle had to make him leave the tribe so that traditional unity could be maintained. He told Windsloop to go across the mountains into California and go to the feudal seat in San Francisco. As Windsloop was coming over the mountains on the west side he came upon a bear attacking a man called Tan. Tan was Chinese mix; when the end of the war came 400 years before a huge invasion force of Chinese had landed in the state of Washington and their remnant had integrated with the remnant of the American population. Windsloop killed the bear with a single arrow shot. Tan was not seriously hurt – just badly scratched. Windsloop noticed a cave in the side of a nearby hill and helped Tan into it. It was a fair sized cave that not only had a front section big enough to hang out in and have a fire but also a back section that went deeper into the side of the mountain Early in the following morning it was not quite light outside and raining slightly. Windsloop needed to relieve himself so he walked into the back of the cave; when he leaned his hand on the wall of the cave in the process of relieving himself a heavy camouflaged door slowly opened to reveal a high-tech lit up entrance way into an underground military base. Windsloop was astounded, fascinated and afraid all at the same time. He quickly went to get Tan and show him what he found. After Tan saw this entry way into what seemed almost magical they both decided that the best thing to do was to get out of the cave immediately and maybe come back later. The whole affair was frightening to both men in their simplicity. After they gathered their things they left the cave. As soon as they left they were again shocked with a new surprise. Standing in a half circle in the early morning twilight about 20 meters from the cave entrance were 7 men with uniform-like jumpsuits on. Before Windsloop could get an arrow onto his bow flashes of light came from the strangers and Windsloop and Tan lost consciousness. The next thing they know they come to in a well lit room that looks like a classroom. The people that are in the room with them are definitely human but very unusual in appearance – enough difference from your average human that they would stand out like a sore thumb if they were to walk around in earth society. These people explain themselves to Windsloop and Tan. They say that right before the war of destruction their ancestors left the earth in multiple space crafts and traveled for 100 years in space to a habitable planet where they settled. For 300 years their civilization had grown and their science had progressed until they discovered how to transcend time limitations in interstellar travel and move from one place to another in the Universe in what appears to be many times the speed of light. These visitors explain that the first place they traveled to after their faster than light discovery was back to the earth and when they arrived they found the earth in its devastated condition. There plan was to restore the earth by introducing technology to all earth people that is beyond the imagination. This technology enables these people to not need anything from the planet earth. They hook Windsloop and Tan up to a device that enables the two men to absorb knowledge and attitude from these people’s civilization. They then ask the two men to go to San Francisco and contact the feudal chief and begin the introduction of technology for the restoration of mankind.

In My Backyard again

After I told the story of Windsloop to my companions my mind was still in the same direction it was when I brought up the Windsloop story in the first place: I had been thinking that the story had relevance before the start of the conversation but now after voicing it out loud to two witnesses I felt an intellectual sense of certainty. I saw with greater intensity that the Windsloop story could very well be talking about the E.T. visitors operating the craft that my family and I had seen. So I told my companions about my thinking concerning the meaning of the Windsloop tale. that it’s possible that the E.T. craft that visited me twice is operated by people whose ancestors had left earth at some point long ago when there was a great civilization and they traveled to a new world and developed an incredible civilization with a technological knowledge given to them by God. Keep in mind that everything I’m thinking about in regards to these ET. visitors is shaped by the sighting that my wife and I had a month earlier on June 25th. That particular E.T. craft appearance came after I had prayed to God and said to Him: “If these beings in the craft are friends of yours then would you have them come back by my house so I can take pictures of them?” And the E.T. craft showed up a couple of days later. Anyway, once I had concluded telling the story and giving my viewpoint on it, The three of us stood up at that point because they had to go home.

The UFO Shows Up

We were facing the west looking at the dark sky. I remember my friend suggesting that I should have the Windsloop story published and then the most incredible thing happened. We noticed a dark mass low on the horizon right in front of us and not far away; It appeared to be drifting like a cluster of balloons on a breeze. It seemed to be traveling from the southwest to the northeast; (from our left to our right). As it moved to the right side of the sky we began to walk north across my yard all the time keeping our eyes glued on. As it moved around to the north of us we could very clearly see the object. At that moment of clarity my son-in-law said nervously: “What the hell is that?” Without even thinking about it I replied: “Who do you think it is? It’s them – they heard us talking about them and flew down.” As we watched it came all the way around the yard in the same lazy drifting manner so we could very clearly see it all the way and when it was to the North of us we could see it very clearly because the sky was lighter because of light in the atmosphere from the Paradise Valley mall Finally it sped off very rapidly to the north and disappeared from our view. When we were watching the craft it seemed to be flying with its top facing us because as we observed it we saw atmospheric glow on both sides of the craft as if there were lights on the other side causing the glow. Take a look at the CGI at the beginning of this post that I created to represent what we saw.

My son-in-law was totally taken aback by what he witnessed. At the moment it happened he kind of went into denial and started saying that maybe it was some kind of government experimental craft. My answer to that was it sure seemed more than a coincidence when the craft showed up. The exact timing to just be a government craft? How about what happened with my wife and I. I said these things to him because he needed to calm down. He went home but two days later he came with us down to Village Labs for the filming of the Discovery Channel special. When he was at the town hall meeting being taped by the Discovery channel he felt much more comfortable because of all the other witness there so he drew a picture on a legal pad of the UFO we had seen two nights before. This is his drawing:

Scan of original drawing made July 25, 1997

What do you think your conclusion would be about all of this that I have witnessed? If you read my posts on the first sighting and the second sighting and then you accept my testimony about this sighting posted here I think that if you believe in God you could agree with the following conclusions: The crafts being operated by these beings have unearthly technology advanced beyond our imagination; the reason they have this incredible technology is because they are "in cahoots with God"; they demonstrated their friendship with God by making an appearance to my wife and I after I asked God to have them do that; they are of the human family; they come from another planet; their ancestors came from earth.

For me I am taking this all into mind and I am remembering all of the spiritual revelations that I've had during my life since I was born in 1943 and I have come to this amazing conclusion: The Day of the Lord will be soon; it is the beginning and the end of things; it's the day this world of death and suffering ends and appears to be transformed into a world of eternal life in joy; it is the moment from which all reality is created by the God who raised Jesus from the dead; it is the center of time; all life comes from that moment; the context of all reality is dictated by that moment; It is out of that moment that the life, death and resurrection of Jesus comes; in order for reality to be heaven on earth with everyone having friendship with Jesus forever it is absolutely necessary for Jesus Christ to exist and to go through everything that he did. I believe the reason these E.T.s are visiting us now is because God brought them here so they could be here for the Day of The Lord. This is not complicated to understand but it is difficult to believe.