Former AZ Governor Does About-Face on UFOs
Recent news:
Former Arizona Governor Now Admits Seeing UFO
Fife Symington Decides To Set Record Straight Ten Years After Famed Phoenix Lights Incident
By Leslie Kean
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 strange unidentified flying objects, even though he originally did not say so publicly.
“It was enormous and inexplicable”, he said in an exclusive interview from his home in Phoenix. “Who knows where it came from? A lot of people saw it, and I saw it too.”
On March 13, 1997, during Symington’s second term as Governor, thousands saw multiple triangular and V-shaped craft, gliding slowly and silently across the sky for half an hour beginning at approximately 8:15 pm.
Awestruck witnesses, throughout the state, estimated that the eerie, lighted vehicles were bigger than many football fields, up to a mile long.
Last night on Radio Misterioso, a caller asked my guest Paul Kimball what he thought about this Symington business. Kimball replied that the former governor was not a reliable witness because he had been convicted, and then pardoned of bank fraud. I don’t agree that someone who has a shady past should be shut out of the witness paddock, and in this case there were thousands of eyes looking at the same phenomenon. The importance of this news item is that it gives the case a high-profile witness, which may bring some pressure to bear on those who can provide an explanation.
However, I am not holding my breath.
Some of you may remember that Symington called a press conference on June 19th, 1997, some three months after the Phoenix lights incident(s). He brought out a member of his staff in an oversized alien costume and proclaimed the mystery solved. Why has he changed his mind? Symington claims that he was trying to calm hysteria that was swirling around the Phoenix area, but now says that it is time to admit what he saw. In a quote from the article, he dismisses his actions weakly: “I wanted people to lighten up and calm down, so I introduced a little levity. But I never felt that the overall situation was a matter of ridicule.” As Paul Kimball pointed out, this is the coward’s way out. Kimball also suspected that the governor possibly didn’t want to jeopardize his political career, which is now finished.
Due to my conspiracy-addled mind, I would also like to speculate that someone may have suggested that Symington sweep this one under the rug as best he could. While many have suggested that the lights were “merely” flares dropped for a training exercise at nearby Luke Air Force Base, this of course does not explain the huge, triangular-shaped craft witnessed on multiple nights by the greater portion of metropolitan Phoenix. Either the authorities know what happened, or they don’t. Either way, no one from the military is going to admit to it. Not for a very long time, anyway.
“Fife Symington, III” sounds like some sort of prep-school name from a movie parody anyway.
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Mar 26 2007 
March 26th, 2007 at 10:03 pm
relevant from one of the news postings;
Later in 1997, Symington was convicted of bank fraud charges stemming from his bankrupt real estate empire. The conviction later was overturned and he was pardoned by President Bill Clinton in 2001 before federal prosecutors decided whether they would retry the case.
———————
[kt]: Symington had his chief of staff, Jay Heiler, dress up as a grey and led to that press cibference in cuffs, saying that they had caught the culprit behind the Phoenix craft. I wonder if this idea of turning such things into jokes to put the public at ease might have a broader application in the UFO community in general.
Anyway, the news report included this as well, suggesting that Symington’s ideas about aliens came from TV more than an authentic dismay over whatever he witnessed:
——————————–
Heiler, who says Symington is one of his closest friends, said he is not surprised he believes in UFOs. He described his former boss as a “Trekkie” — a Star Trek fan — who believes earthlings will travel to distant solar systems at above the speed of light “in our lifetimes.”
March 26th, 2007 at 10:32 pm
Blimey, Greg, if Paul (Kimball) thinks being ‘accused’ of something warrants total dismissal of someone’s possible contribution to the ufo/paranormal field, well then we best take no notice of Paul himself anymore, because I’m sure I’ve read him referring to a time when Kal Korf, (…something like that), ‘accused’ him over his legal crdentials.
Now regardless of the fact Korf was, as is often the case, talking out his fundament, (because Paul actually had the credentials he was impugning him over), it remains the case Paul was ‘accused’.
March 26th, 2007 at 10:53 pm
Kenn,
Haven’t heard from you for awhile. Thanks for clearing things a bit. The UFO community does not take kindly to jokes about them. If it did, perhaps the public would take them more seriously!
March 26th, 2007 at 10:55 pm
Alan,
I misquoted Paul. He said basically the same thing as Kenn did in his clarification about Symington and his pardon by Clinton. Kimball’s not a UFO witness either, at least not that I know of. You also have to take a look at the accuser.
I have changed the text in the post. Thanks for pointing out my laziness.
March 27th, 2007 at 2:48 am
Greg,
A sense of humor is great and much needed in any subject.
A sense of humor around UFOs is needed or one will quickly lose sanity.
A sense of humor about UFOs in the media is warrented and carries the average reporting. In the UFO community it is much needed and usually not to be found.
But when your the governor; the executive of the State and a commander of military forces, a press conference addressing public scrutiny and concern is not the place for that sense of humor.
A simple “An object was seen by many citizens, we do not know what it was and we have a small team of top officials reviewing the evidence, thank you and have a nice day.” Would have sufficed and left the governors image nicely intact.
People have a right to expect competence and tact from public officials don’t they?
I know, where do I think I am? The United States or something?
Jess
March 27th, 2007 at 4:56 am
Greg:
Yes, I pointed out that Symington had credibility problems (and I’m sorry, but a criminal conviction, even when overturned, is a PR problem if nothing else), but the more important thing, as I was at pains to point out, is that he’s really irrelevant. Even assuming he was 100% clean, spot on A plus solid citizen, so what? He’s just another witness in a parade of witnesses who saw… something. Add him to the pile, but being Governor in and of itself doesn’t make him any more credible.
It’s like people who jumped on the Paul Hellyer bandwagon two years ago. Yes, Hellyer was Canada’s Minister of Defense forty years ago. So? He said he didn’t see anything back then related to UFOs, but rather based his belief in ET on Philip Corso’s discredited book.
Thud.
A final note to Alanborky - there is a world of difference between some guy like Korff (wrongly) nitpicking over one’s legal bona fides, and a man who was charged with, and convicted of, bank fraud, with the conviction overturned on appeal on legal grounds, and then a pardon issued in the dying days of the Clinton regime before the prosecutors could file to re-try him.
Paul
March 27th, 2007 at 2:12 pm
This guy is just an inconsequential political hack trying to “be” somebody after the parade has gone by for him…and doing the traditional politico trick of taking multiple stands on the same issue (for which read “talking out of both sides of his mouth” or “politics man speak with forked tongue”). He’s a non-event. Fuggettabout’im.
Oh, yeah, he’s also a weenie.