PHOENIX,
AZ - Some
people are reporting a mysterious sighting of a string of
lights in Valley skies last week.
A
NewsChannel 3 photographer spotted them, turned on his
camera and captured on film the so-called "Estrella
lights."
"We
watched them for about 2-1/2 hours," said Sheila
Jones-Vega, who said the lights moved back and forth.
She
and her husband, Frank, said they could hardly believe
their eyes while on a drive to the Estrella Mountains
where they're building a home.
The
Goodyear couple considered the possibility that pilots
from nearby Luke Air Force Base were dropping flares.
"I
would think a flare would kind of burn and then fizzle
out. These things turned back on," she said.
Jones-Vega
was right about the flare activity, says Jim Dilettoso, a
professional film analyst. But his analysis came with a
word of caution.
"But
I don't jump to conclusions. I don't hold a vial of lab
blood up to the window and say, 'Well looks OK to me.' You
know, there's testing that has to be done, extract the
data, compare it to normals. Well now, I have found that
it is not flares that I am familiar with in my
database," he said.
A
spokeswoman at Luke Air Force Base said U.S. pilots there
drop flares almost every night of the week, but said the
Estrella lights did not originate from the base.
After
their impressive view June 14, Jones-Vega and her husband
said they spent the next night watching the skies from
their second-story bedroom window. They said they saw the
fighter jets and the Estrella lights not only on the 15th,
but again this week.
"We
saw jets come up from the airport, numerous jets come up,
and it seemed as though the jets would approach the
lights. The lights would turn off," she said.
"It wasn't as though the jet was dropping something
and the light turned on. The lights were already there and
the jets came up near them and the lights turned off. I'm
a little embarrassed that people will think I'm crazy, but
I know what I saw."
Watching
the lights blink out one by one, the couple is pretty sure
they'll be back.
The
couple said they will be watching and wondering if the
truth is out there. After all, their new home is out there
too.
"Like
I said, I don't want to be living on a landing pad out
there for something," she said.
Many
people are comparing the Estrella sighting to the Phoenix
lights of 1997. Dilettoso said there are similarities but
also significant differences.
Luke
Air Force Base said pilots reported nothing unusual over
the past two weeks. And there were no other reports of
other military or private organizations admitting to
flying in that area.