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he presented his "explanation." His six-foot-four Chief of Staff, Jay Heiler, handcuffed and wearing an alien outfit featuring a large, gray rubber mask with huge black eyes that fitted over his entire head, was escorted to the podium by public safety police officers. The governor presented the Halloween-costumed extraterrestrial as the "guilty party." While laughter filled the room, he joked that "this just goes to show that you guys are entirely too serious," and the mask was removed before the cameras. [4] Symington also announced that he'd made inquiries with the commander at Luke Air Force Base, the general in charge of the National Guard, and the head of the Department of Public Safety, but had not learned anything at that point. This important statement was overshadowed by reactions to what he now calls his "spoof press conference. As one might expect, Councilwoman Barwood's office was As one might expect, Councilwoman Barwood's office was bombarded by calls from outraged people, and the governor received his share of complaints as well. Unable to get anywhere on her own, Barwood approached Arizona's Senator John McCain and asked him to conduct an investigation. McCain asked the Department of the Air Force to investigate, and as he explained in an October 1997 letter to a constituent, "The Air Force informed my office in July the Department no longer conducts investigations into UFOs." McCain w'ent on to explain that local military installations, however, did "make an effort to resolve the issue" by checking records from that night, and he was informed that the National Guard had dropped high-intensity magnesium flares southwest of Phoenix between 9:30 and 10:00 p.m., which could be seen for 150 miles. [5] Indeed, television news and documentaries about the Phoenix Lights repeatedly feature a video taken at around 10:00 p.m. by an amateur photographer, as if it represented actual footage of the UFO. The now- infamous video has been subjected to detailed analysis by at least two qualified professionals, and both determined that the brilliant lights shown hanging in a row over the mountain ridge and then dropping out of sight, were, in fact, flares. [6] Since the amateur video was taken at 10:00 p.m., at the same time that the National Guard states it was dropping LUU2 flares as part of a training exercise known as "Operation Snowbird," and the photo analysis confirms that the lights in this film were almost certainly flares, the questionable later video is not the evidence many people had wished for. This fact seems to be overlooked by the media, hungry for Barwood's office As expect, one was McCain asked the of the Air Force to something visual when they report on the story. The time of the flare drops is extremely important. The most widely viewed sightings of unidentified objects across Arizona that evening began at approximately 8:15, although some objects were viewed earlier in daylight. Clearly, the UFO flyovers were a separate event occurring independently of the later flares. It is interesting that in his letter, Senator McCain, a longtime friend of Governor Symington, informed his inquiring constituent that he was still exploring other possible explanations. In a 2000 press conference, McCain