General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: UFOs exist and everyone needs to adjust to that fact [View all]anarch
(6,535 posts)I think of 21-years-old as "kid;" which is actually funny when I think about it, I wasn't much older than that myself at the time.
But this sort of illustrates my point. You have one person that was found that seemed to provide a reasonable explanation within the bounds of things humans know about and are master of, and testimony from those who provide this type of confirmation bias are given much more credence than people who will swear to the day they die that what they saw wasn't any damn plane or flare or whatever else that is a normal everyday thing. That one person's testimony, with the additional enlightening piece of information that the kid...sorry, the guy was an amateur astronomer, as if that makes him a more trustworthy witness than the thousands of people who saw the thing up close.
Here is what I saw: I was camping on a hill outside of Prescott, off of Rte 89; at a little bit after 8:00 or so local time, I saw what appeared to be a V-shaped formation of lights--I would call them white lights, but they did not resemble airplane landing lights or any other aircraft lighting that I know of--and I saw them appear to descend from very great altitude, and travel from a point on the horizon to a point directly overhead in a matter of just a few seconds--this whatever-it-was did not make any noise at all. And it covered a huge arc of sky--I can't vouch for whatever anyone saw south and east of me, but the formation/V-shape made what appeared to be a banking turn to the right, and then disappeared to the southeast, toward Phoenix. I can assure you that this was profoundly affecting and unlike anything I have seen before or since.
I would be curious to know more of Mr. Stanley's story. Perhaps he saw an unrelated formation of aircraft, perhaps he did actually spot the A-10s from the Maryland ANG, I don't know...but the description he gives does not sound anything like what I saw, or what the thousands of other up-close witnesses from the area described.
But who are you going to believe? You weren't there (I assume); you don't have anything to go on but other people's reports...so you, and I think basically everyone, will find the answer that best meshes with your worldview, and you probably won't be budged. I can continue to try to describe the actual events that I recall, but I seriously doubt it would make you reconsider your apprehension of something that is a discrete, historic event involving what I would still consider to be an unexplained phenomenon...a specific incident, with a great deal of testimonial evidence...and mind you, nobody here is saying "it was aliens!" or "it was angels!" or "it was our ancestors' spirits" or whatever other theory--I have no slight idea what I saw. But I can flatly say that it wasn't "just planes" or "just flares." It still gives me goosebumps to think about it, more than two decades after the fact.