After hearing the hoax story, I contacted a friend who lives in Phoenix. He agreed to try and reach Mailo or his neighbor. Since the article came out on Tuesday, attempts to contact Lino Mailo have failed. He does not answer his door and his neighbor wasn't home when my friend stopped by on two occasions. In fact, people living two houses down from Mailo say that they know Lino's next store neighbor and he was not home on Monday night. They claim they were out in their own backyard that evening and would have seen balloons with flares being launched. They also agreed to ask him about the flare story when they next see or speak with him.

The FFA says that the lights did not appear on radar and weren't a threat to any air traffic, so no action was taken. However, the FAA has issued a statement saying that they will not allow the Air Traffic Controllers to talk about what they saw.