Balloon Sighting Near Hazelton, BC

July 3, 1896

William Retoff, "UFOs in History: The Great Canadian Starship Invasion"

Ideal's UFO Magazine, No. 11, Aug. 1980, p. 53.

UFO*BC NOTE:

On the 16th of May, 1896, the Swedish Government informed Canada that they would be sending a balloon from Sweden heading to the North Pole in the early summer of 1896. This information was requested to be widely disseminated across Canada so that any sightings could be reported back to Sweden and any assistance could be given to the explorers if needed. However, due to poor weather, the departure was delayed until the following year. Eventually the balloon set sale on July 11, 1897, but crashed on the pack ice after only 2 days (nowhere near Canada). Strangely enough, many sightings that were assumed to be this balloon were reported in Canada and the USA in 1896 and early 1987 (including this one).

Two days later, a skycraft was sighted twice, to shadowing the highlands of western British Columbia some 1,380 miles northwest of Winnipeg. An Indian boy first spotted “a balloon" near the town of Hazelton on the Skeena River during daylight hours. That evening a band of prospectors in the vicinity caught sight of a flashing celestial light. Both observations were forwarded to the superintendent of Indian Affairs for British Columbia, who relayed word of them to Victoria, the province capital.

The sightings elicited little excitement in the press. "The balloon is evidently the same that passed over Winnipeg on July 1,'' the Portland Oregonian cautiously offered, “but whose it is and whence it came is yet an unfathomed mystery.”