Phoenix Lights (truTV)On March 13, 1997, thousands of people in the Phoenix area saw a huge triangular shape, outlined by bright lights, moving slowly in the night sky. The formation was seen by air-traffic controllers, airline pilots, cops—even the governor of Arizona. UFO hysteria soon descended over the Valley of the Sun. But a writer named Randall Fitzgerald began asking hard questions about the “Phoenix Lights” phenomenon. He theorized that the lights might not have been a UFO at all. Working from eyewitness accounts, Fitzgerald recreated the flight path. He discovered that the huge triangle seemed to originate from the area around Groom Lake. Then it followed Interstate 10 almost exactly. Why, he asked, would an extraterrestrial craft with the ability to cross space, need an interstate highway to navigate its way to Phoenix?

It’s widely known that the U.S. has advanced cloaking and stealth technology. What isn’t realized is America’s robust holographic technology. This is the ability to project images of startling reality from unknown sources. Some scientists claim we are far more advanced with these exotic optical effects than we admit. There are even rumors that this technology has been used on the battlefields of Iraq. After his research, Fitzgerald came to believe that the Phoenix Lights phenomenon was an incredibly advanced lighter-than-air craft originating from Area 51. The goal was to experiment with holograms over a populated area, to test the public’s reactions. And Fitzgerald has what he believes is a smoking gun: what appears to be a secret CIA document authorizing experiments with holograms. He theorizes that stories about aliens at Area 51 are planted by the government itself. The idea is to distract the public—and our enemies—from the real work going on at Groom Lake, and incidentally, to make sure we don’t question how much it all costs. [Watch Conspiracy Theory with Jesse Ventura on truTV]