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From the High Desert book cover

From the High Desert

A Cultural History of Art Bell

Thumbnail for March 13, 1997: Phoenix Lights - Peter Davenport | UFO's - Sean David Morton

March 13, 1997: Phoenix Lights - Peter Davenport | UFO's - Sean David Morton

Mar 13, 1997
3h 6m
0:00 / 0:00
Peter Davenport of the National UFO Reporting Center joins Art Bell with a breaking report on one of the most significant UFO events in American history. Dozens of witnesses across Arizona are calling in frantic accounts of massive formations of lights traversing the sky from Paulden to Prescott to Phoenix, covering over a hundred miles in mere minutes. Military jets from Luke Air Force Base reportedly pursued the objects before they vanished.

Sean David Morton follows with an examination of stunning new UFO photographs from a Pleiadian contactee in Miami named Audrain, whose images rival the famous Billy Meyer case. Morton details the contactee's extraordinary claims about his relationship with tall Nordic beings and shares insights from his recent expedition to Egypt's Giza Plateau, where he investigated rumors about hidden chambers beneath the Sphinx and debunks several widely circulated conspiracy theories about scheduled openings.

The episode captures a pivotal night in UFO history as real sightings unfold during the broadcast itself. Art navigates between hard evidence and fantastic claims, pressing Morton on prophecy, earth changes, and the potential for a coming global shift in consciousness around the turn of the millennium.

Key Moments

  1. Davenport reports the formation moving south from Paulden: Peter Davenport of NUFORC tells Bell that within the last three hours he has taken roughly 18 calls from Arizona, beginning with a retired police officer in Paulden who saw a cluster of four to six lights followed by a single trailing light heading southeast.

  2. Paulden to Prescott to Phoenix in minutes: Davenport traces the timeline of the formation: seen over Paulden, then over Prescott a minute later, then over Phoenix, Glendale and Tempe two or three minutes after that, with calls coming in on top of each other.

  3. Amateur astronomer sees five paired lights moving in unison: Davenport relays the night's best report: an amateur astronomer in Phoenix said each of the five lights was actually two faint lights paired together, and that when one turned, they all turned together as if by the same command.

  4. Two jets scramble from Luke and the objects vanish: Davenport says two witnesses reported military jets coming from the northwest toward the formation; the objects suddenly disappeared, the jets turned back toward Luke Air Force Base, and a staff sergeant later told Davenport he could not put him in touch with any commissioned officer at Luke that night.

  5. Morton's 1996 prediction of UFOs over major US cities: Sean David Morton reads from his February 18, 1996 Delphi Associates newsletter, where he predicted that UFOs would make dazzling displays over major US cities including New York, Arizona, Los Angeles, Reno, Chicago, Miami and Seattle, and that they would be filmed and picked up by national media for the first time.