Was it a plane, a balloon, UFO? Valley residents see mysterious lights

PHOENIX - Was it a plane, a balloon, a UFO?

ABC15 received several reports about lights in the sky in the northwest Valley Saturday night.

Amy sent us an e-mail saying she was sitting in a friend's back yard in north Phoenix when they saw "what looked like 2 meteors falling from the sky, with flames and sparks trailing behind them, began turning and moving. Lights were going off and on, the flames and sparks would come and go."

Phoenix Fire Department spokesman Scott Walker said what people saw around 8:30 p.m. were parachute exercises, possibly involving pyrotechnics, in the Deer Valley area.

Walker said he wasn't sure who the group was performing the exercises.

They don't appear to be the same as the "Phoenix Lights" seen in a triangular formation on March 13, 1997.

The United States Air Force later identified the lights as flares from the Barry Goldwater Range, but many continue to believe differently. Even former Arizona Governor Fife Symington reported seeing the lights, describing his encounter as a huge carpenter-square object moving over Phoenix.

So mystery solved... for now.