Governor Flipflops

Sources Paul Davenport of Associated Press via CNI News, 7/1/97, and NHNE reporting.

In one of the weirdest turns yet in the ongoing Arizona UFO saga, Governor Fife Symington called a press conference on June 19, 1997 to announce a serious investigation of the UFO sightings that have rocked the state since March. The governor, an admitted Star Trek fan, said he was ordering a state investigation into a strange, boomerang-shaped light formation reported over Phoenix on March 13, 1997. "Obviously it wasn't an American West airliner or something like that," Symington said in the news conference. "The video that I saw was intriguing, so I'm going to order a full investigation."

A few hours later, the governor called reporters to his office for a second news conference to announce "important leads" in the case. With Department of Public Safety officers beside him, Symington said that the source of the lights had been found. At that point, Chief of Staff Jay Heiler entered the room in a glittery, pink-and-silver space alien costume. "This just goes to show you guys are entirely too serious," Symington said, while his aides laughed heartily. No one seemed able to explain the governor's bizarre response to the UFO controversy. Outraged UFO researchers were quick to point out that Symington is currently on trial for multiple charges of fraud.

In an oddly-related story, CNI News recently published an unconfirmed report that on June 22, when New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson was asked by an Albuquerque TV reporter what he thought about all the Roswell hoopla, the governor responded that Roswell really happened and it was alien and that he had access to information that the public was not privy to but he couldn't say anything else about the matter. However, when a call was placed to the governor's office a couple of hours later, the governor's press secretary stated that what Governor Johnston said was "tongue in cheek" and that there was no substance to it. He had no further comments and there would be no printed statement handed out.