Following two nights in a row (1/12 & 1/13/98) of sightings of one, two and three amber orbs hovering in the Casa Grande area, along the Gila River, and in Rainbow Valley, we were on alert at Village Labs along with our key 'video witnesses', hoping that more lights might be seen and recorded simultaneously.
One of our primary witnesses, living on a hillside near Squaw Peak, had gotten both videos and 35mm stills of the orbs the first two nights (her first since March 13) and was ready and waiting to alert us if they returned again.
Sure enough, on the third night, January 14, and beginning about 7:30 PM, the amber orbs started appearing and she gave us a call to announce 'They're back!'. I immediately called one of our other witnesses who had just seen them and were already taping ('We're on it!'), next calling yet another of our witnesses who saw them just as we were talking on the phone; we hung up and they grabbed their camcorder.
The director of Skywatch had a busy line so I reasoned that he was already alerted; I last called our Buckeye witnesses who had been getting the tapes of the orbs over Rainbow Valley over the last year and a half (including daylight footage). They got their camera and waited. I then went up on the roof of our building to see if the orbs could be seen from our location in Tempe.
Having a 360 - degree view from the roof, one by one I identified the incoming airline flight patterns, eliminating the known lights and established clear references for comparison if the orbs were visible from our position. I didn't expect to be able to see the orbs if they were to reappear in the same locations as March 13, 1997; the Village Labs building was likely too close to South Mountain to see those locations. Not seeing anything unusual, I went back down to resume making calls while Jim wrapped-up some business.
Upon return to the room at around 8:00 PM , I set-up our spotter's scope for bearing and azimuth (angle of view) measurements, should the orbs appear.
Soon after setting the scope up on its tripod and getting out my binoculars, I saw the first orb to the southwest of an 8-light sequence to come; I looked at my watch and it was 8:11 PM, precisely the time our witnesses noted as they taped what was now unfolding as a major orb display. I lined up the scope on "Light #1", placing it just between two nearby trees branches for reference and to have a firm position for later measurement. Just as the second light in the sequence came on, Jim joined me on the roof and witnessed the rest of the sequence as well.
We called out the numbers together as they came on or went off - , and came on again in the same positions ("One, two, three ...eight! now the last three are in a triangle (Oh wow!") We were especially elated at the sight, knowing that we had at least three of our witness-colleagues videotaping what we were seeing ourselves, all from different angles in the Phoenix metro area and giving us conclusive evidence of the location of the orb formations. Soon after, we confirmed over the phone that each of our witnesses had all caught on tape what we had seen ourselves. When checking with our Buckeye witnesses, I was happy to learn that they had taped virtually the same patterns that we had witnessed and that seemed impossible from their location, angle of view and the direction of the lights ö but they mystery would soon clear up.
At one point in the sequence that we witnessed, there were four orbs on at the same time in a perfectly straight row, evenly spaced and at an angle of about 10 to 15 degrees. The last three lights formed a large triangle after the row of four appeared, spectacular in itself, but truly incredible when we got the videos together to compare them. In addition to confirming by triangulation that the orbs were in the same area as before (over the Gila River between South Mountain and the Estrella Mountains), both the videos taken by both witnesses had a second group of orbs further to the west in the direction of Buckeye.
It was only when we could retrieve the Buckeye witnesses' tape and do a separate triangulation in the field that we could conclude the incredible: the January 14, 1998 display consisted of two separate groups of amber orbs that exhibited similar, yet slightly different patterns of four-in-a-row, then three-in-a-triangle.
Our position at Village Labs turned out to be virtually perpendicular to the large array in a straight line over the Gila River (about 8 to 10 miles end-to-end), while our Buckeye people were also perpendicular to the smaller array that they witnessed along with others in the Rainbow Valley area. By comparing the overlapping of the individual videos (and their differing perspectives), we can conclusively demonstrate that the mysterious 'Phoenix Lights' are, in fact, back and the favored locations for their displays are the same as for March 10 through 14, 1997, that is, both sides of the Estrella Mountains and the Gila River and Rainbow Valley and far from the Barry Goldwater gunnery range more than forty miles away, the site of occasional flare drops and other military exercises.
