Mornin' MC,
What you wrote sounds consistent with aircraft in a v formation to me.
What I wrote were direct quotes taken from the original reports by two key witnesses, and there is "nothing" consistent with their observations and "aircraft in a v formation."
I might reiterate that in Tim's case his whole family saw the same thing, and with Mike, his wife Nann. observed the huge craft as well.
Again he in part wrote:
"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."
Mike in part wrote:
" . . . the city lights gave us a grey background in which to view this huge black V shaped object. It was so low to the surface we could not believe it. I remember saying, 'what the hell is that?'"
Note the fact that both men (and their families) recount "a huge structured craft!" (Printy conveniently omits these facts). Both Tim and Mike have re-verified their accounts time and time again over the years and the event has had a significant impact on their lives.
You didn't really address what Mitch Stanley and the man who observered the lights through binocluars witnessed, instead you attacked Printy. I don't care about grudges or rivalries between skeptics and believers I care about what happened that night.
Hmmmm . . . perhaps I wasn't being to clear; I'll try this again; first I am not "attacking" Printy the man--I am criticizing his research methodologies and approach, along with his cognitive bias, and I might add--backing it up with facts.
Moreover, I don't have any grudges or rivalries with anyone, much less Printy; in fact I've recently published some of his penscript, and no doubt will do so in the future. Additionally, Printy by dictionary definition is "no skeptic," as the definition is as follows:
"One who is yet undecided as to what is true; one who is looking or inquiring for what is true; an inquirer after facts or reasons."
Printy's mind was made up long ago, and as stated before--he works in reverse, attempting to "fit" his "selective" offerings of evidence to meld with his preset ideologies. These are the attributes of a debunker--not a skeptic.
Furthermore: the noun "believer," does not apply to Ufology--the acronym was borne by the Air Force in 1952 to label the unknown craft that had been flying in our space for years; to associate the verb "believe" or the noun, "believer" to a factual thing is nonsensical; it's like referring to "the Mt Rushmore believers," or "he believes in the Empire State Building" . . . all are cockamamie.
Certainly you'd agree that if he is basing his "conclusion" on erroneous data and or a flawed schema, then by default his "result" is suspect (at the very least)!
Printy carefully culls "pieces" of both Mike's and Tim's accounts to fit his mindset; if one reads their entire statements the minutiae quashes Printy's
selective quotes.
As to Mitch Stanley, I believe he saw what he said he saw--PLANES." This has nothing to do with a huge v-shaped craft at very low altitude (below 1200' in Mike's case).
I found this on the wiki page for the phoenix lights;
The
National UFO Reporting Center received the following report from the Prescott area:
<table class="cquote" style="border-style: none; margin: auto; border-collapse: collapse; background-color: transparent;"><tbody><tr><td style="padding: 10px; font-weight: bold; font-size: 35px; color: rgb(178, 183, 242); font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; text-align: left;" width="20" valign="top">“</td><td style="padding: 4px 10px;" valign="top">While doing
astrophotography I observed five yellow-white lights in a
"V" formation moving slowly from the northwest, across the sky to the northeast, then turn almost due south and continue until out of sight. The point of the "V" was in the direction of movement. The first three lights were in a fairly tight "V" while two of the lights were further back along the lines of the "V"'s legs. During the NW-NE transit one of the trailing lights moved up and joined the three and then dropped back to the trailing position. I estimated the three light "V" to cover about 0.5 degrees of sky and the whole group of five lights to cover about 1 degree of sky.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-7">
[8]</sup></td></tr></tbody></table>
More evidence of planes, seen by another amatuer astronomer, he even gave an estimate of apparent size, about the size of a full moon.
Again. no argument there; anyone who has been through Phoenix immediately becomes aware of all the air-traffic in the area.
I didn't see where the witness's got the estimate of altitude other then just guessing. It's fine to guess if you are gonna say it was apparently at low altitude, or it appeared to be at very high altitude, but it's another thing to assign specific numbers. I think we all know how hard it is to judge true size and altitude of an airborne object, especially if it is an unfamiliar one. That leads me to believe these planes could be at a higher altitude and thats why most of the witness's couldn't see the individual lights on the planes.
In this instance I used two key witnesses; with Mike, I quoted the minutiae in regards to how he ascertained the altitude . . . here it is again:
We live app. 23 miles ESE of Sky Harbor in Phoenix. Planes coming in to land (most of the time) will come out by us, bank to the north (left), proceed for app. 10-12 miles, bank left again (west) and land at Sky Harbor. This is normal landing pattern. I have talked to airline pilots, tower operators, and investigators about the altitude of planes coming in to land at Sky Harbor, at the point of the first bank north where we live. The altitude..1200'. The massive V shaped craft we saw was under 1200' altitude! (my emphasis]
Tim Ley deduced the altitude in this way:
"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."
I was a fence sitter on this case, but I admit I only looked at the pro exotic explanation for these accounts. I never heard the proponents of the exotic bring up any of the evidence from the winess's who saw this thing through telescopes and such. It reeks of cherry picking to me, and that is not helpfull at all to understanding any of this stuff. I don't see any reason for exotic explanations for this case any more, I am no longer on my fence.
Re: "cherry-picking," I couldn't agree with you more, and Printy's hands are stained "red!"
My advice is to "get back on the fence" and research "raw data"; read the unedited accounts from direct eyewitnesses etc.
Here is an early interview of key proponents:
