Was actor Kurt Russell the pilot who reported the Phoenix Lights?
Jun 13, 2017, 2:48 PM | Updated: Jun 14, 2017, 11:20 am
PHOENIX — It’s been more than 20 years since the Phoenix Lights phenomenon was spotted in the Arizona sky, but we’ve just now learned the name of the pilot who reported them.
Apparently that pilot was … Hollywood star Kurt Russell?
The actor made the claim in April during an interview on the BBC’s “The One Show” that began to pick up steam online this week.
In the interview, the host described the Phoenix Lights and, briefly, the pilot who reported the event. He ended by saying, “mystery unresolved.”
Or not! That was when Russell, who starred in several space-related movies, took the UFO and ran. He said he spotted the lights while flying his son to Arizona.
“I was flying him to go see his girlfriend, and we’re on approach, and I saw six lights over the airport — absolutely uniform — in a V-shape,” he said.
While we were skeptical at this point, we certainly had our doubts after Russell said he didn’t give the incident another thought. That is until his wife, actress Goldie Hawn, watched a special about the lights on television two years later.
“They said, ‘A general aviation pilot reported it on landing.’ I had never thought of it since then, [and I said], ‘That was me,'” Russell said.
Of course, Russell never mentioned this publicly until this year. If he played such a large part in one of one of the most famous UFO sightings in American history — that certainly made headlines in Los Angeles — you think he’d, you know, phone home about it.
“Had I not seen that show, I would have never thought of it. That, to me, was the weird part,” Russell said, adding that he felt like Richard Dreyfuss from “Close Encounters [of the Third Kind].”
If you can’t tell, we’re doubting Russell’s account. There are just some specific details — like which airport he reported to — that were left out.
We also couldn’t help but notice that his big reveal came just a few days after the release of “Phoenix Forgotten,” a found-footage horror film based around the Phoenix Lights. We couldn’t find any ties between Russell and the film, however, so maybe we’re the conspiracy theorists now.
Whether Russell was telling the truth, playing a joke or helping promote a new movie, his account is just one of many that surround whatever was in the night sky more than 20 years ago.
