1) The formation of the lights is consistent with independently moving objects, not fixed lights on an aircraft. They rose into the air together, stayed in more or less the same formation while in the same air currents, then drifted apart as they gained altitude. Also, the mysterious lights drifted toward the east-the same direction as the wind.


2) Air traffic controllers reported that nothing showed up on their radar. If the lights were the only visible part of a metallic spaceship or airplane, they would have been clearly on radar. However, "UFOs" consisting of small balloons, road flares, and some fishing line would be invisible to radar.


3) The way the lights disappeared also supports the hoax theory. They did not zoom away at high speed, as one might expect from an aircraft. Nor did they all suddenly and mysteriously disappear. Instead, eyewitnesses reported that the lights were visible for between 15 and 30 minutes, until they went out one by one. This is exactly the pattern we would expect to see from flares that were lit (and launched) in sequence: they would go up, remain lit for about 20 minutes, then first flare would extinguish. A minute or two later the second would burn out, and so on.


4) One of the hoaxer's neighbors, a Mr. Mailo, actually saw the hoaxer launch the helium balloons and flares. Mailo said the flares were lit about 8 p.m., just before the UFO lights were first sighted.
Thus the mysterious Phoenix Lights of 2008 are explained. Any object seen in the sky, especially at night, can be very difficult to identify, and it's no wonder that the lights puzzled many people. All that is needed to create a UFO sighting is one person who may not recognize a light or object in the sky. But just because people - even thousands of people - don't know what they are seeing doesn't mean that someone else (maybe a hoaxer), doesn't know exactly what it is.