In the spring of 1967 the late Dr. Olavo T.
Fontes of Rio de Janeiro, an intensely interested student of the UFO mystery, predicted
the fall of that year would record more UFO sightings than any period in the 20-year
history of the phenomena.
Asked on what basis he made this prediction,
he explained that he and other researchers had noticed that UFO waves occurred every 26
months. In addition he had made the personal observation there was a peak period every
five years, and according to his calculations two cycles would merge late in 1967.
Some weeks later when Dr. Fontes was visited
by Jim and Coral Lorenzen of the Aerial Phenomenon Research Organization, the three of
them discussed his forecast and tried to select the areas where activity would be most
pronounced. Because Canada and England always had their share of visits, but so far not in
any unusual number, they picked these two countries as the probable areas of most
noticeable activity.
All this is described in the Lorenzens'
recent book UFO and possibly elsewhere, but we had read nothing of it at the time last
summer when our bank manager was telling us of sightings in the Cariboo country where he
was previously stationed.
"You should go up there," he
urged. "Speak to Brian Grattan at Lone Butte. I'll drop him a note and send him a
copy of your magazine." And that was how we learned Canada was indeed
"invaded" in the late summer and fall of 1967, though barely a ripple of it came
to public attention. On our visit to the beautiful Cariboo country we heard of sighting
after sighting and came to know in advance what year would be mentioned as the time of
occurrence - 1967.
Still not aware of the dimensions of what we
were after, we thought perhaps there had been some particular circumstance in the Cariboo
country that had attracted this attention. Out of curiosity on our return home, however,
we looked up the account of our visit to the Yukon in issue no. 1 and there was that year
cropping up again, 1967.
The next step was to write consulting editor
Brian Cannon to ask if his voluminous UFO files showed anything special for 1967. His
reply, in effect, was - and how!
So that was our introduction to the
incredibly extensive but quiet "invasion" of Canada which, for all we know, may
establish 1967 as one of the most significant years in our history. As the story is too
broad in scope to be told in one issue, we will start with the Cariboo chapter while
Cannon assembles his material for the national coverage.
Here then is the extraordinary story of how
Canada was "invaded" without knowing it. (Note that although) Canada may have
been an area of special activity, the UFO wave in 1967 was worldwide. Jacques Vallee in
Flying Saucer Review records there were 95 landing reports in that year, the highest
number for any year except 1954 when an incredible 236 landing incidents were reported.)
WEIRD FLIGHTS OVER GUEST
RANCH
"Every now and then a reporter from one
of the city papers shows up with kind of a smile on his face and says. 'I hear you people
have been seeing flying saucers around here. How about a story?' Well, I haven't anything
to say to him. If they think this thing is a joke or some kind of publicity stunt, they
can forget it." The speaker was Brian Grattan, a young man who, with his wife Pat,
operates the "Big G" Guest Ranch on the broad cattle country at Lone Butte off
the Cariboo highway. He was the first contact we made in gathering material on the strange
incidents that happened in that country two years ago, and which to a lesser extent were
still going on.
Friendly and approachable as they were, the
time needed for our interview with Grattan and later with his neighbors Mr. and Mrs.
Ernest Hills of Green Lake, was not easily spared. Even though the visitors season was
over, these people were hard at work preparing for the harsh bite of a Cariboo winter and
making plans for next season.
But as we sat over coffee with Brian Grattan
and he carefully drew sketches on a paper napkin to illustrate what he, his ranch-hands
and guests had seen, we understood what a deep impression his sightings had made. He
wanted to discuss them as long as there was no suggestion of disbelief. And, of course,
there was not.
"There were several scattered things
that happened," he said. "So many, in fact, that I can't sort them out any more.
But there were three incidents in particular that I do remember, and one of them was the
very first sighting we had that summer. (1967)
"I remember the time distinctly. It was
the eleventh of July, in the evening, and I was with Sean Broc, a wrangler from Texas,
when I saw a peculiar red light over Taylor Lake. I asked Sean what he thought it was and
he didn't know, so we went over to the lake to have a better look.
"Well, there were five of those things
there. Four smallish ones in a neat rectangle and a larger one in front."
At the time of this interview the last issue
of Canadian UFO Report was just going to press. On its cover was a remarkable photo of a
carefully investigated sighting over Victoria, B.C., in 1968. It showed four strange
lights in rectangular formation with a larger one in front!
"The lights were red with a bit of
green in them," (Grattan continued, "and they were making a loud hum, as if they
were charging up. It was in a low frequency of about 400 megacycles, sounding like the key
of F. It was so loud it was uncanny."
Fascinated, the two men stood on a pier and
watched and listened as the uncounted minutes ticked by. Suddenly a sixth object appeared.
To illustrate, Grattan made a circular design on his napkin.
"It was moving so fast we couldn't make
out all the details but it had a red light on the top which I think was revolving, and the
rim was lit up and it may have been revolving, too. Anyway, it came down at a terrific
speed, went right between the other lights, then shot up out of sight. How it missed
diving into the lake I don't know."
Although this occurred in split seconds, the
witnesses had a definite impression the sixth object was acting in concert with the
others, perhaps as a scout ship.
"It must have given them some kind of
signal," Grattan said, "because pretty soon after that they disappeared. They
all shot off in different directions."
After that, strange red lights were seen on
various occasions, though never in such dramatic fashion as that first sighting. Grattan
recalled a night he saw one low overhead just after one of his ranch-hands, Billy O'Neil,
had left him to go to bed.
"I called Billy and he was out of the
bunkhouse in about six seconds, but by that time it had climbed way up and looked just
like a very bright star. "That's how fast they can travel." On another occasion
a glowing red object made a Saturday night appearance, over the local dance hall as if
interested in the action. But then the crowd started shining lights at it and the object
took off.
"In a fixed position those lights are
greenish-red," Grattan said. "But when they move they are completely red."
The second outstanding incident he
remembered occurred on an August evening of that same year.
"There were two couples from Oregon
staying with us at the time and we had been telling them about our UFOs but they were
pretty skeptical and just laughed. Then on this particular evening some of the other
guests were sitting outside when one of the ladies there pointed to a bright light in the
sky and asked what it was. Someone said it was Venus. "In that case," she said.
"Venus is moving."
"Well, that light was moving all right.
It came right on down and hovered for a while, It was about the size of a DC8 and lit the
whole place up. The two men from Oregon came out just then and were just as amazed as we
were. They called to their wives and they came out and stared like the rest of us, then
the light went across the highway and settled behind a clump of trees three or four miles
away. We couldn't see the light itself after that but everything around it stood out plain
as day."
If any of the group considered having a
closer look at the light, they were soon dissuaded by what happened next.
"That thing started a dry electric
storm that lasted all night," Grattan continued. "Lightning flashed around it,
yet the sky remained absolutely clear."
Obviously close exposure to such activity
could be dangerous, but Grattan was determined to maintain watch on the light even though
they could not see it directly. He arranged that not less than seven of his men be on
lookout at all times for whatever period the light stayed there.
"We kept an eye on it from about nine
o'clock to 4:15 the next morning, then somehow it disappeared. As the sky started to
brighten, the aura of light just wasn't there any more. After a while I had some of the
men go over to see if it had left any traces but there was nothing. There wasn't a mark or
a sign of burning anywhere."
As already said, there was a scattering of
incidents between the three main events which were too varied to keep track of. Although
most of the sightings were of lights, metallic looking objects were also seen
occasionally. Grattan recalled one day when his guests came back from a picnic in great
excitement, having seen an unmistakable flying saucer.
"They thought it was a DC3 at first but
they couldn't see any tail. Then it flipped over and they could see it was shaped like a
disc,"
In issue no. 4 we reported the experience of
Albert Kershaw, a logging truck-driver on Vancouver Island, who in 1966 saw a low-lying
object which he first took to be an airplane coming in for a crash-landing. Then, to
navigate a passage through the trees, it turned on its side and he saw it was a disc.
"Whatever they are, these things
operate in a highly sophisticated way," Grattan went on. "Most of the time,
though it's certainly not always the case, they give the impression they don't want to be
seen. Sometimes those lights stop dead in the sky and look exactly like a star. They even
twinkle like one and have the same colors."
Then on the night of Feb, 7 or 8 there
occurred the incident that Grattan remembered perhaps most vividly of all.
"I was having a shower when it
happened," he said. "We operate on diesel power at the ranch, so when the water
suddenly stopped running, I put on my dressing gown and slippers, grabbed a pocket
flashlight and went out to the diesel shed to check on the pump. It was just a small
difficulty, so I was only in there a minute or two,
"Now the entrance of the shed looks out
directly toward the corral where we keep the calves, and as I started to leave I noticed a
dim light moving above the corral.
"My small flashlight wasn't any help
but there was just enough light to see what the thing looked like. It was disc-shaped, I'd
say about 28 feet in diameter, with a dome on top and a dim light on top of that, I
couldn't tell whether the rim was lighted or whether it was reflecting the light on top,
but it was a little brighter than the rest of the object and seemed to be revolving.
Around the base of the dome there was more faint light coming from what looked like three
or four windows. I couldn't see anything inside."
As the snow was melting in the unusually
warm night, making a quagmire of the corrals, Grattan went back to the house to put on a
pair of gumboots. Then entering the corral, he sloshed through the mud and stood almost
directly under the object.
"It was about 110 feet up, moving
slowly along with a wobbling motion, and underneath it I could see three equally spaced
markings pointing toward the center." (See Lesley Footner's illustration based on
witness' sketch.)
Convinced after numerous sightings over the
"Big G" ranch that UFOs were not hostile, and in fact tended to shy away from
humans, Grattan shone his small light at the object, waved his arms and tried as well as
he could to show friendly interest.
"It didn't seem to notice me at
all," he said. "It just kept slowly following the calves across the corral as if
it was studying them, and all the time it was making a low rhythmic noise like an IBM
computer."
Asking the inevitable question about its
effect on the animals, we received a surprising reply.
"It wasn't bothering them at all and,
from what I've noticed, that is: usually the case. These things only seem to get animals
excited when they're making a loud droning noise, like that time over Taylor Lake, or when
there are quite a few of them around. Maybe that's not the case everywhere, but that's
been our experience."
This remark suggested an answer to the
Cariboo mystery we had not considered before: perhaps the UFOs' main purpose in visiting
the area was to study its unusual animal life. To our visitors from space the sights of
herds of animals wandering freely about in this part of the country, and not in others,
might have seemed strange indeed. If so, maybe they were equally mystified to see groups
of these animals penned up as if for some reason of selectivity. If we remember that for
cattle-raising productiveness the Cariboo is quite unlike the country surrounding it, we
have more understanding why it could attract our visitors' attention. Assuming they were
curious about the cattle as obviously they were, we can see why they avoided causing a
disturbance - apparently a factor under their control.
Whatever its purpose over the calves' corral
that night, the low-flying disc never once paid attention to Grattan. Its study completed,
it wobbled leisurely off into the night, leaving Grattan probably more puzzled than his
unannounced sightseers.
FLYING LIGHTS, CIGAR AND
COWBOY HAT
Obviously a basic part of our space
visitors' roving-eye equipment is the comparatively small ball of pulsating light, usually
reddish in color. In another of countless episodes this was made quite evident during the
Cariboo flap of 1967 when one paid a widely witnessed visit to McLeese Lake, a small
community on the Cariboo Highway north of Williams Lake.
It was 10 o'clock on the hot still night of
August 26 when at least a dozen residents there saw a glowing blood-red object about the
size of a soccer ball move into sight from the south. It was travelling directly above
newly installed cables leading to the giant Peace River power project-to-be far to the
north .
"It didn't seem to be in any hurry and
it stayed right over those lines as if it was studying them," said Mrs. Alfred Heck.
"It was pulsating from dull red to bright red and it was moving so slowly there was
plenty of time for many of us to see it. We watched it for three or four minutes."
As the power cables ran along a high ridge
skirting the community to the east, the witnesses had a good view of the whole
performance.
"I turned off my washing-machine to see
if I could hear anything," Mrs. Beck continued, "but it wasn't making a sound,
at least as far as I could tell."
Although observing the object with naked
eye, she had the impression there was "something dark underneath" but could not
see exactly what it was.
Jerome Olson, operator of a chinchilla farm
who with his wife and son watched the Light through binoculars, said it had a greenish
spot. Evidently, however, this was not what Mrs. Beck observed as Olson described the spot
as being in the center.
A noteworthy point of this incident was that
the Peace River project had not then started operation, so no power was passing through
the cables at the time. Therefore the object's interest, for reasons unknown, must have
been focused on the mere existence of the system.
On a third witness, Mrs. Barbara Begin, this
and other sightings that summer had such an effect that she bought a telescope, started
studying astronomy and for a while made nightly visits to a point where she had an
unobstructed view of the power cables. Unfortunately nothing more happened there but
meanwhile she kept a notebook of local UFO incidents and, in doing so, wrote another
chapter in the story of the Cariboo flap.
Her diary of events showed that the red ball
was not the first UFO observed at McCleese Lake during that eventful summer. At 8 p.m. on
August 2, just two weeks before, the Beck and Begin children and one or two others, making
a total of about nine, saw a cigar-shaped object appear above Sheridan Hill to the north
and head silently southward. Although the sun had not quite set, the children had the
impression that the bright silvery look of the object was caused by self-illumination, An
aircraft seen at approximately the same place and time the next evening appeared shadowy
by comparison. They said the object had no protrusions, made no noise they could hear and
was much larger than any aircraft they had seen in the area.
Mrs. Begin's notebook went on to show that
early in the morning after the red-ball incident something else made a mysterious
appearance over McLeese Lake, this time much higher.
Outside to get a breath of fresh air in the
oppressively close night, she noticed an unusually bright star she could not identify. As
she studied it, she saw what appeared to be a satellite move up from the south. But as the
"satellite" approached the "star" it suddenly stopped and the
"star" took up the flight until it disappeared in the north. Fascinated, Mrs.
Begin went across the road to awaken her friend, Mrs. Beck, and with marvelous
determination they watched the now-stationary "satellite" for another two hours
but the light of dawn came without any more action being noted.
According to Mrs. Begin's notes, glowing red
balls were seen over McLeese Lake on two occasions after the first. Then, in full daylight
on Nov. 25, the Beck and Begin children saw another extraordinarily aerial object. In the
words of Lynn Beck, then 13, it was like a flying "cowboy hat" changing from
brown to red as it travelled eastward across the sky. The youngsters joked about a cowboy
being bucked too hard at a rodeo and losing his hat but their earnest description left
little doubt that the Cariboo skies had once again received a visitor from space.
UFO BIG AS BUILDING
PAYS VISIT
In opening this report on the Cariboo we
described how in July, 1967, glowing red lights were seen in formation over Brian
Grattan's guest ranch at Lone Butte. This was our first lead into the mystery of the
pulsating red balls - "the beating-heart UFO" as one witness described it - that
featured so prominently in the flap two years ago over the rolling plains of that great
cattle country.
Shortly afterwards, we heard of another
spectacular group visit.
This time, having completed our trip north
to McLeese Lake, we had sought out Mr. and Mrs. Ernest Hills who operate a lodge on
beautiful Green Lake immediately south of the Grattans' place.
Their extraordinary experience occurred on
the cold dismal night of October 30 in that same flap year. Mrs. Hills was preparing to go
to bed.
"From our bedroom upstairs," she
told us. "there is a wonderful view south across the lake. On that particular night
there wasn't much to see as it was very cloudy and dark, but I was looking out when I
noticed this odd red glow appear over the hill on the other side. It was growing brighter
and shining off the clouds when I saw two red lights come up over the hill and then
another, much larger, move up between them. Then two more small ones appeared, so there
was this immense red light with four little ones -- two on each side - in perfect
formation around it. I had never seen a UF0 before but somehow I knew right away 'this is
it.'"
Suddenly this was it in a still more
dramatic, way. Having cleared the hill, the awesome formation now started swiftly across
the lake on a collision course toward the lodge! Answering her frantic shout, Ernie Hills
and their son, Robin, rushed in just in time to see the lights veer off on another
collision course toward their neighbors, the Gammies, to the west. When this happened,
Mrs. Hill:: flew to the phone. ("As soon as Shirley Hills called," Bert Gammie
of the Flying U Ranch told us later, "I just dropped the phone, rushed outside and
stared. I thought it was going to hit us." Unfortunately, as he and his wife were
preparing to leave on a trip, we were able only to speak to him briefly on the phone
during our Cariboo visit.)
But at the last moment the huge glowing
object and its satellites -- Mrs. Hills compared their relative sizes to a door and a
door-knob - again changed course and shot off toward the southwest end of the lake, where
it stopped abruptly about seven miles away. Here it added another trick to its already
remarkable performance which particularly impressed Hills.
"That thing was obviously looking for a
place to land but its speed was absolutely unbelievable," he said. "First it
would shoot off to one side, then back again, then up and down and so on, but moving so
fast it was impossible for the eye to follow. It seemed to be in several different spots
all at once. Then suddenly it stopped and that was it. It had found its spot."
There was no doubt the object was looking
for a landing - or hovering - place as Ernie Hills conjectured, but how could its
operators pinpoint that exact spot while performing at such fantastic speed? We would
think such eye-boggling manoeuvres would be utterly confusing even for our remarkable
space visitors. One possible answer is that such an operation is carried out by
exquisitely precise instrumentation working under automatic control. Though primitive by
comparison, our lunar landings are designed to operate on the same principle, with the
option of pilot takeover if necessary.
But even if the whole operation is carried
out by instruments, the possibility remains that these alien spacecraft have, like ours,
some sort of pilot back-up system, and this may give us one more clue in the study of our
space visitors: namely, that in all likelihood they have acquired physical reflexes far
superior to our own. Although in many UFO-occupant reports these strangers are described
as frail-looking creatures, it does not follow we are giants of physical prowess by
comparison. Accustomed to handling vehicles that operate at blinding speed, they almost
certainly have a correspondingly greater physical dexterity than we. Sometimes they are
described as awkward in their movements but in such cases they are outside their craft and
moving in an environment that to them is unnatural.
When the enormous brilliantly red object
finally came to a halt -- because of the reflection underneath Mrs. Hills was inclined to
think it was on or just above the water, but her husband believed the reflection was
caused by ground mist or a thin coating of fresh snow - casting a glow on the clouds
around it, the witnesses were reminded of a spectacular version of the B.C. Hydro building
in Vancouver seen at night in the distance with all its windows alight. Although the
outline of the object itself was not clear, the Hills agreed it was at least equal in size
to this spacious office building.
Then, through binoculars, they made, a
curious discovery. Horizontally across the face of the UFO ran two parallel lines of
whitish light, resembling rows of windows lit from within...and there were stranger
discoveries to follow. As they watched, the four little balls of light that had maintained
their formation on the large one suddenly darted off in different directions in the same
way as those observed at Lone Butte by Brian Grattan. But for the Hills there was an extra
surprise package.
"After a while those things started
coming back," Ernie Hills said. "First of all a beam of light would come out of
the big light, then one of those red balls would come sailing into view and shoot right
down it. We weren't sure if the little lights actually entered the big one but Bert Gammie
next door said he could see them going right in."
Because the witnesses were staring directly
into the glow of the object, it was understandable this part of the performance caused
uncertainty. Conceivably the beam of light was caused by the opening of an entrance into
the main object, in which case the small UFOs undoubtedly would have gone right in like
aircraft returning to their hangar. But basically this element of the account, though
intensely interesting, was a detail. More significant was the obvious overall manner in
which the satellites acted as scouts for the central body. While there is a variety of
mother-ship reports on record, this is the first we know of in which the scouts have been
dispatched and brought back to a fixed position with such evident precision. To the
witnesses the scouting intent of the whole performance was completely obvious.
Whether each satellite made more than one
trip was not entirely clear, nor were the witnesses sure they saw all four return.
Puzzled, and after a while exhausted, by their unbelievable experience, the three Hills
lay down in bed to watch in comfort as the drama unfolded. (This was after Ernie Hills had
dissuaded his wife from venturing out to have a close-up look at what was happening. He
believed there could be unknown dangers, and it is true that witnesses approaching UFOs
too closely have occasionally suffered burns and blackouts.)
But the final act was denied them. As the
night wore on they all fell asleep, and when they awoke their strange visitor had left.
LOOKED LIKE AIR RESCUE
So abundant were UFO reports on our field
survey of the Cariboo that ironically after a while we hoped we would not hear of any
more. Probably like most ufologists in similar circumstances we were Looking for a
pattern, and now that we thought we had found it - sketchy though it was - we wanted it to
remain intact. In that flap of 1961, we concluded, the core of work - for whatever purpose
- was carried out by those vari-colored balls of lights that showed up everywhere.
Apparently they were some kind of sensors gleaning information which they then relayed
back to a central body of information.
It was all so clear. Brian Grattan at Lone
Butte had told us how he had seen four of these lights storing up energy, or whatever, in
company with their parent body. Next we had the McCleese Lake report of a red light
carrying out its mission, and finally the step-by-step account of the Hills at Green Lake
who saw the actual system of dispatch and return.
Scattered throughout were high-flying
objects of various forms but these seem to be a part of any flap and we made no special
effort to fit them into the pattern. Right from the, start, however, there were two other
objects that posed a problem: namely, the conventional saucer-type that flew over
Grattan's cattle, and then the brilliant white light that landed near his ranch and
created an electrical storm. How did they fit into the picture:' As the ball-of-light
sightings intruded themselves more and more into our report, we began mentally to isolate
these two incidents from the rest of the flap. In the manner of our scientific friends, we
argued they were oddities and therefore had no more than coincidental bearing on the main
events.
Then, just about the time our minds were
comfortably made up, we stumbled across another incident and our pattern fell apart, or
seemed to. It happened when someone suggested somewhat mysteriously we get in touch with
Herman Sten at Lac La Hache.
When we did so, we understood the mystery.
Clearly Herman Sten is not a man given to ready conversation, particularly when approached
at work by a stranger. He has the look and manner of one who gives himself quietly and
completely to his job, which is the maintenance of heavy equipment. Unless we had shown
him a copy of Canadian UFO Report he might have had little to say to us. But the magazine
convinced him of our real interest and, like a man trying to rid himself of a disturbing
dream, he described what happened to him one evening in the late fall of 1967 (unknown to
him, the Cariboo flap year).
"I don't remember the exact date,"
he told us, "but I do remember it was a Friday. I was driving home from work about
six o'clock and at that time on a Friday there should have been lots of traffic on the
highway. But this time there was hardly any."
Since he was living then at 100 Mile House
about 30 miles to the south, he had plenty of time to observe the rolling ranch country
through which he was driving. The only restriction was the approach of night.
"Soon after I left Lac La Hache I
noticed something in the air away ahead of me to the right. It looked like a blinking
light at first but it wasn't moving very fast so I thought it must be a helicopter on some
kind of exercise, and I kept my eye on it."
Several miles farther on he realized he was
catching up to the light, and by the time he reached a small lake at the 108-mile point he
was abreast of the object and had a close look at it.
"It was hovering about 200 feet above
the lake and I could see the light wasn't blinking at all," he said. "It was
revolving around some large dark thing that looked like two plates pressed together, one
upside, down on top of the other. On top was a dome-shaped piece and on top of that was a
steady red light, not very bright. The whole thing must have been more than 100 feet
wide."
Despite a complete lack of sound from the
object, and its strange shape, Sten still believed he was looking at some sort of
conventional aircraft.
"I thought something must have happened
out on the lake and this was an air-rescue operation. Then I began to wonder because all
at once the thing flew across the highway right in front of me and hovered over a small
hill on the other side. A moment later I knew for sure something funny was going on. The
object started to come down among some trees on the hill, and when I saw the light
flashing around on those trees, I figured it was time to get away from there."
About three miles farther on he stopped the
car again and looked back just as the object was climbing in a sweeping curve toward the
west. Finally reaching home at 100 Mile House, he looked for the object once more and for
an instant saw the intermittent light before it disappeared high in the darkness.
So here was yet another type of closely
observed object that we had to fit into the Cariboo flap. Definitely not of the red-light
variety, it seemed more like a larger version of the disc-shaped craft seen by Brian
Grattan over his corral at Lone Butte (though this sighting actually took place early in
1968).
Did this mean, then, there were two flaps
going on - one composed of glowing lights and the other of flying discs? Both are a
frequently seen type of UFO but, since we hold the view that our space visitors probably
have various origins, it bothered us that objects of such dissimilarity should be
operating in the same areas at about the same time. By some weird chance, was the Cariboo
being visited simultaneously by two sets of aliens'!
Then we remembered that Grattan had seen a
disc and a group of red lights together, and that seemed to answer our question. Different
though they looked, the two types of UFOs were related and on the same mission.
In ufology, however, answers are not won
that easily, if at all. How, for instance, would we explain the next case'!
OCCUPANT ENTERS CAR
The locale this time was in
Idaho which, with sections of Washington and Oregon, might he considered the U.S.
continuation of Canada's Cariboo country. As reported by the National Investigations
Committee on Aerial phenomena which gave considerable attention to the case, it was about
9:30 p.m. Friday, Nov. 2, 1961 (note it was a Friday in late autumn and so perhaps the
same night that Herman Sten had his experience) when two Navajo Indian youths, Will Begay
and Guy Tossie, were blinded by a sudden brilliant flash as they were driving on Highway
26 outside Ririe. Although Begay, driving, did not apply the brakes, their car stopped and
a small domed UFO appeared just above the highway ahead of them. Flashing green and orange
lights seemed to be revolving around its rim, and through the transparent dome the
startled young men saw two small humanoid figures.
After a moment the dome swung
open and one of the creatures drifted lightly to the ground. Then, to quote NICAP:
"His height was a little over three feet. His face had a rough look - like 'scars,
deep scars,' as one of the Indians said. He had large 'high' ears; his eyes were round,
and his mouth was a slit with very thin lips or none at all. No nose could be seen in the
roughness of the face."
To the horror of the witnesses,
the creature approached the car, opened the driver's door without apparent difficulty and
climbed in as the frightened Indians huddled toward the other side. Whether the humanoid
then actually drove the vehicle or it was pulled somehow by the UFO remains unknown, but
it did move ahead into a field of stubble wheat while the UFO manoevred in front.
When the car stopped after a
short distance Tossie, on the right hand side, leaped and ran to a nearby farmhouse where
he babbled out his story. Eventually the farmer and his son persuaded the "incoherent
Indian" to take them to the car where they found Begay, paralyzed with fear, sitting
alone with his eyes closed. Later Begay said the creature in the car had jabbered at him
in high, rapid sounds "like a bird" until he was joined by the other humanoid.
The two strange beings then returned to the UFO which, with a flame-like light glowing
from the bottom, climbed off into the night.
Later there were two other UFO
sightings in the same area. A man in a pickup truck said he was stopped by a strange
flying device from which a small being emerged, while in the second case a woman, Mrs.
Quinn, said she saw a low-flying orange light that appeared to be rotating.
Considered separately, the U.S.
humanoid accounts, as in so many other cases, are completely puzzling. Why would bizarre
beings, presumably so highly developed they can visit us from another world, drop down in
lonely places to harrass motorists? On the face of it, they appear to be bad-tempered
idiots.
But considered as part of the
UFO wave to the north, the U.S. incidents make a great deal more sense. In this light we
begin to see a total intelligible plan in which our visitors examined us in a myriad of
ways, ranging from a look at our largest new power system to a personal on-the-ground
study of "what makes earthlings run?"
Some might balk at the idea of
lumping the Canadian and U.S. incidents together on the grounds that the UFOs were too
unlike each other. For instance, the object seen by Herman Sten on the Cariboo highway was
apparently massive compared to that encountered (possibly the same night) by the two
Indian lads. Respective diametric measurements were about 100 feet and eight feet.
Impossibly different though
these measurements may seem, we have a hunch that in both cases the craft was the same. On
the night of his experience Sten saw an object with a rotating light near a stretch of
highway where he was the only motorist at the time. It could almost have been waiting for
him. Just over three hours later - if it was the same night - in the neighboring State of
Idaho on another lonely stretch of highway the two Navajo youths had their remarkable
encounter. The object thev saw apparently had rotating lights, plural, but any of the
witnesses might have been mistaken in this respect. The actual number of lights would
probably seem to vary with the speed of rotation. Also it should be remembered that Mrs.
Quinn's description of a UFO over Idaho that night tallied closely with Sten's in British
Columbia.
As for size, all the witnesses
made their observation at night. with nothing but a dark shape and moving light- or lights
to judge by they could be expected to vary widely in their guesses. Also all the witnesses
were in a state of alarm - to put it mildly in the case of the two Indians. This would
certainly add to the confusion.
The point we are after is that
the seemingly absurd activity of some UFOs may actually have great purpose. If we put all
the reports together, no doubt is left that two years ago North America, or at least its
northwest section, was given minute hut barely noticed scrutiny by our strange visitors.
Somewhere in space the results of that scrutiny, plus many others, have been tabulated.
The time almost certainly approaches when the purpose of all this will become clear.
Now, what about that other
totally different object, the brilliant white light that landed near Brian Grattan's ranch
at Lone Butte?
To touch on a possible clue we
will refer back to an incident described in our issue no. 3 when, on Vancouver Island in
the summer of 1968, building contractor Hans Sorensen saw a strange light over his place
which seemed similar to the Grattan sighting in brilliance and size. From this light there
emerged a smaller one of conventional soccerball size.
So here again we have the
mother-ship performance. Possibly the Grattans were visited by a mother-ship smaller than
that seen by their neighbors, the Hills, but performing a similar function. If so, it
keeps intact tle pattern of lights and discs carrying out their strange but related
duties.
NEW FLAP
STARTS
Although the Cariboo flap of
'67 and early '68 had an intensity all its own, our strange aerial visitors still roam
over that country sporadically but in noticeable number. At the very time we were making
our survey in September the radio stations at Quesnel and Williams Lake had a sudden
flurry of reports of a mystifying light being seen between the two towns. While a trainman
on the Pacific Great Eastern line decided it was a meteor, others claimed it was pulsating
and one or two said they saw it make a turn.
Isolated incidents like that
may be dismissed, if we are so inclined, as quickly as they arise. There is no doubt,
however, that earlier this year the Cariboo experienced another flap of sorts, giving
weight to Fontes' theory there are cycles within cycles.
We began to realize a second
flap had occurred when we followed up on a tip to speak to Mr. and Mrs. Alexander
Robertson who own spacious farmland off the highway south of McLeese Lake.
"Yes, we did see something
we couldn't explain," Robertson affirmed. It was a reddish light that looked more
amber at times, and it came from the south and moved north toward McLeese Lake. We watched
it for about 20 minutes."
This sounded so much like one
of the McLeese Lake sightings, we expected to hear it occurred in 1967. But Robertson said
not. The date was about the end of March this year.
Not only that, but soon
afterward in full daylight he saw something else that puzzled him. He was in his station
wagon in the vicinity of Alexis Creek, west of Williams Lake, when he was startled to see
a long metallic object fly across the road in front of him and disappear behind a hill.
"It was no airplane or
helicopter," he insisted. "I could see it much too plainly to make a mistake
about it. It had no wings and wasn't making any noise. Just before it went behind the hill
it looked as if it tipped on one side a little, and I thought maybe it was more circular
in shape."
So there we were, back with the
same sort of object seen by the picnickers at the: "Big G" ranch in 1961!
In precisely the same period
this was happening, a young woman at Williams Lake, Mrs. Arthur Millard, had an experience
that brought the impact of this secondary flap quite literally closer to home. For the
reader to understand the upsetting effect this had on Mrs. Millard, it must be explained
her house is on tle still sparsely developed north side of Williams Lake. Much of the
property there is woodland, with the result that residents feel somewhat more isolated
than those in the town itself.
On the evening in question Mrs.
Millard was preparing dinner. Unlike her usual custom she had chanced to leave open the
curtains of her kitchen window facing out to a cluster of tall trees behind the house,
where it was now getting dark.
"I was in front of the
window when I noticed a bright Light shining through the trees," she said. "it
puzzled me because it was near the top of the trees and was bright red." Suddenly the
object began to alternate between red and bursts of flashing white, and Mrs. Millard, now
thoroughly alarmed, realized she was looking at something utterly strange.
In issue no. 4 we reported the
experience of Mrs. Paul Hillman on Vancouver Island who, on a summer night in 1968, was
startled to see a red glow outside her window. Our report continued: "Mystified and
alarmed, Mrs. Hillman called to her husband who entered the room in time to see the red
light change to an almost blindingly brilliant white, then vanish. "
"It just hovered there
sending out these weird flashes of light," Mrs. Millard said. "Sometimes the
white flashes seemed almost blue, and then at times they had tinges of yellow."
Gradually the thought asserted
itself that she must be watching a UFO and she rushed to phone Michael and Myrna Halsall,
a couple she knew had studied the subject. By the time she described the incident and
returned to the window the light had gone, leaving a disturbed but curious witness to
ponder what had happened.
It is appropriate here to say a
word of appreciation for Mr. and Mrs. Halsall. Motivated by the prodding interest that
serious ufologists everywhere can understand, this young couple has made their attractive
house on the shore of Williams Lake a sort of informal headquarters for those seeking or
giving information about UFOs. By press, radio and conversation they have made known their
willingness to receive and discuss sighting reports, and for many puzzled witnesses this
has meant a welcome contact. They helped us greatly in providing leads for this Cariboo
report and we are grateful.
One, of the leads the Halsalls
gave us was the name of Alex Whitecross, a writer living at Alexis Creek where, as we have
reported, a strange flying object was seen by Zander Robertson. Alexis Creek is in the
uniquely beautiful and scantily developed Chilcotin country of the Cariboo which has
inspired other resident writers to describe their struggles against the wilderness. Since
the road was unnavigable by our car at the time, we spoke to Whitecross by phone and
include his story here because its dating seems to place it in the secondary flap.
The incident occurred late one
afternoon in the Christmas season last year as the Whitecrosses were driving home after a
visit to Williams Lake.
"It was dark on the ground
when we saw a tremendous bright green light passing high in level flight in front of
us," he said. "The sun was still shining at that altitude but this light was
self-illuminated. It was as bright as a magnesium flare. I've never seen anything like it
but I'm not saying it was a UFO. I don't believe in them. I just don't know what it
was." Disbelieving though he was in the existence of UFOs, Whitecross did not suggest
what he saw was a meteor. Obviously the impression it made on him was too strange to allow
such a ready answer. Others merely reading of his experience, however, might conclude that
was exactly what he saw.
Perhaps it was, but it should
be remembered that 20 years ago green fireballs established themselves as a spectacular
part of what was then the embryonic UFO phenomenon. So many were seen, particularly over
the American southwest, that commercial airlines became seriously concerned. Eventually
Dr. Lincoln La Paz, head of the university of New Mexico's Institute of Meteoritics, was
called upon to head up a team to investigate the mystery, and later Project Twinkle was
established for the same purpose.
Although no official conclusion
was ever reached, Dr. La Paz formed his own opinion that the fireballs were not meteors or
meteorites. His reasons were the trajectory was too flat, the color was too green, and no
fragments were found even though his team knew where they should have landed if they were
meteorites.
Taking it from there, some
ufologists theorize the green fireballs are a device to check conditions in our atmosphere
or even to clean out nuclear pollution which may be causing danger on a far vaster scale
than we realize.
During our visit to the Cariboo
we visited Mr. and Mrs. Ernest Beaulieu at their comfortable home perched high at the edge
of Williams Lake.
"It's just like an
observatory." Beaulieu joked and there was a germ of truth in his remark. Their house
had a sweeping outlook over the big landscape to the south and, by the same token, a view
of strange lights as they followed a route roughly south to north along the upper reaches
of the Fraser River valley.
Beaulieu described some of
their sightings when starlike objects moved in a curious manner across the night sky. His
interest in UFOs was evident and sincere, and he and Mrs. Beaulieu were generous with
their time in discussing the subject.
Soon after returning home we
learned with shock and dismay that Ernest Beaulieu had met his death in a car accident. To
his family we extend our sympathy.
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