A gentleman
whom we shall refer to as "Gary Yates", phoned to
say he had a story we wouldn't believe. "Well try
us out", is our standard reply. After hearing what
he had to say we felt that the circumstances
warranted a fast response and further close
attention. Consequently, on November 7th, Dwight
Atkinson and myself visited this person in his
home at Sechelt. Dwight was in charge of the
recording and barely had time to produce his
equipment before Gary was off and running with his
story. The telling was emotional and rambling.
Trying to secure some sort of sequential outline
and coherency was not an easy task. The essence of
the account is as follows.
Gary, 35 years of
age, is a handy man, stone mason and brick layer.
The latter qualification resulted in him being
contracted to construct a barbecue pit for a
family friend, who lives about a mile north of
Gary’s home. It was a miserable night, raining
hard and windy. To make working conditions
bearable Gary constructed a shelter over the work
area out of a tarpaulin, illuminating the interior
with a halogen lamp. The bricks he was using were
recycled and set out on a plywood sheet in the
formation that they would ultimately be cemented
in position.
Sometime between 7:30 -
8:00 pm he became aware of a strong feeling that
he was being watched. Looking out from under the
tarp, he was surprised to see a bright light,
"like a car headlight, but smaller". The light
pulsed and quickly grew in size over the roof of
the friend’s house. "It got closer, and closer,
and closer, then BOOOM, I was thrown up against
the bank".
"Next I knew, the
light was receding, away, away, away, then it was
gone." He added that he saw a gray face in the
light as it moved off. Considerably puzzled by all
this and also quite shaken, Gary decided to drive
down to the "Corner Cupboard", his local
convenience store, for some cigarettes. On his
arrival he was again surprised to find it was
closed! He assumed for some reason they had closed
early. He continued on to his brother's place, who
wasn’t particularly pleased to see him, as it was
now 11:00 p.m.! He arrived home to learn that it
was indeed 11.O5 pm and he had somehow lost three
hours. He couldn’t believe it nor could his wife
"Helen".
The following morning
he discovered a small object in his beard. This
tightly curled organic object was about 4mm
across, dark brown in colour with golden,
translucent edges. He found it strange that this
would remain in his beard and felt that it had
special clinging (static or moisture?) and
animated qualities, which he attempted with some
success to demonstrate. It appeared to Dwight to
be a ferrule as would encase a tiny blossom at the
end of a stem.
Some time later, he
also discovered a short wound on his right hand
side, outboard of the right shoulder blade
(particularly difficult place on the body to see).
This wound healed rapidly. When we both examined
it, the "cut" appeared elevated, scabbed over, a
wound about 20mm in length. The wound appeared to
have some pus beneath the scab. On further
questioning Gary stated that there was no cut
visible in either the rain jacket or T-shirt that
he wore that night. Nor was any blood to be found
on his T-shirt.
Gary was anxious and
distracted during our interview. His wife stated
that these experiences haven’t changed his
interest, but greatly confused him.
We also learnt that
he and his wife have noted unusual events, such as
the radio in the bedroom came on by itself, even
though its not a clock radio. That it also has a
habit of changing stations, "by itself". The
telephone displays a high degree of static and the
portable phone acts in an unpredictable manner,
(i.e. shutting down completely). A week after the
previously described event the radio in the living
room was very difficult to hear due to static.
When Gary left the room it returned to its usual
clarity. On his return the radio resumed its
previous distortion.
Gary frequently
experiences "bad dreams" which are accompanied by
him yelling out, "No! Leave me alone!" He feels
that "something is trying to get hold of him".
Frequently falling asleep on the couch, he screams
in fear if his wife tries to wake him. She feels
"like a monster". He has become more paranoid
since the episode and thinks that he is psychic
and can predict tragedy.
We continued to seek
answers in other directions and discovered that he
had not used a wheelbarrow at the job site, which
ruled out the scarring on the surface of the
bricks. Four of which were "rutted"; the centre
(fifth) did not readily display the two "melted"
holes that Gary claimed. The saleil shrubbery on
the embankment appeared undamaged, as did the
surrounding trees with their sparse branches
overhanging the construction site. Gary made a
point of mentioning, with a degree of pride, that
he would only use bricks with a smooth upper
surface for this type of job.
Dwight had brought
along a dosimeter designed to detect radiation.
Bearing in mind that ten days had elapsed since
the occurrence, he was unable to detect anything
out of the ordinary.
I asked Gary if had
been drinking prior to starting the job? The
answer was no. Had he been drinking on the job?
Again no. But he added he most certainly did when
he got home that night!
It turns out that
Gary has had six previous UFO events in his life,
the first being when he was two years old in
Winnipeg. Gary brought up the topic of hypnotic
regression into the conversation. He was visibly
torn between wanting to learn what happened during
the missing three hours, but was equally
apprehensive about what he might discover. We
discussed this subject and its potential
ramifications. It also came to light that his
family considers hypnosis "devil worship"! Clearly
this looms large on his mental horizon. Another
hurdle he most certainly doesn’t need.
Our questioning
elicited the fact he suffered a nosebleed, from
the left nostril, the night following the episode.
He does not regularly suffer nosebleeds.
Altogether our visit
probably encompassed a period of two hours. After
asking questions and taking photographs we
returned home. Three days later he called again,
suggesting that I contact the lady who owns the
property on which he was working. Consequently I
phoned "Helen Peters". She too had a rather
interesting story to relate. This incident took
place only three days afterwards.
On October 3Oth,
1999, Helen woke at 2:00 a.m. to find a bright
white light swirling into her room from the
backyard area, (where the barbecue pit is
located). There was no discernible noise. She was
not able to wake her husband, "Michael". Helen
continued to watch the light until 03:15 when she
went into the living room for a hot drink. After
35 minutes she returned to the bedroom to find the
light had gone. It is also worthy of note that the
dog that normally sleeps in the bedroom was hiding
in the living room.
She also mentioned
that something similar happened in the summer of
1999, (possibly June) only on that occasion she
had a ringing in her head for a period of two
hours. Again she was unable to awaken her husband.
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