On July 25, 2002 UFO*BC was contacted by
Gord Kijek of the Alberta UFO Study Group (AUFOSG).
He was forwarding us an interesting e-mail he received on July 11. The e-mail contained
the digital image (Figure 1) with no additional information other than the subject line
that read "Taken North East BC" and the image file name that contained the words
"CabinLake". The originator of the Cabin Lake e-mail was sent a request for more
information but a response was not received until a much later date. His e-mail address
indicated that he worked for a certain company associated with the oil patch. We will call
it company "X".
Figure 1. A 580 pixel wide version of the
original 1280 pixel wide image taken near the Cabin Lake Road northeast of Fort Nelson, BC
on July 7, 2002. The inset showing the UFO is at 100% resolution.
Also on
July 25, 2002 UFO*BC received a telephone message regarding another UFO picture that was
taken, this one near Kitimat, BC. The fellow was contacted and the image from the digital
camera below was obtained on July 26, 2002 (Figure 2). The image had been taken on July 21
at about 2:00pm. The photographer had taken a few pictures of his family and later zoomed
in to the mountains in the background to take another shot. He did not notice the object
while on location but only in the image after returning home.
Figure 2. A 580 pixel wide version of the
original 2265 pixel wide image taken in Kitimat on July 21, 2002. The inset showing the
UFO is at 100% resolution.
The two
images are amazingly similar and a distance of 700 km separates the two locations as shown
in Figure 3. It is coincidental that we were notified of these two nearly identical images
on the same date.
Figure 3. Map showing locations where the two
images were taken. The Cabin Lake image was taken on July 7, 2002 and the Kitimat image on
July 21, 2002.
After we
obtained all the necessary information with the Kitimat image originator, we forwarded to
him the e-mail regarding the Cabin Lake image for his interest. Here is his response on
July 26: "Wow, I go by this place all the time. The Cabin Lake road is just an
oilfield road east of Fort Nelson. I am up there all winter. … It's funny though, I
am betting that the person who took this photo works in the oil patch, and I never heard
of anybody spotting anything like this, usually word would get out, the oil patch is not a
huge world." Upon learning that the Cabin Lake image originator worked for company
"X" he had this to add. "I see that photo was from a guy named so and so
(name deleted). By looking at his email, he works for company "X". I just had
breakfast this morning with an engineer who left the Cabin Lake road this morning. He also
works for company "X"." Wow, talk about additional coincidences!
On
September 5, we finally received a response from the Cabin Lake image originator. As it
turned out, the original e-mail was not from this fellow but from a work mate of his. Here
is the originator's response: "A work mate of mine sent in a picture that was taken
just north east of Fort Nelson B.C. I took that picture. I took several pictures at the
same location, as well as a short digital video with the same camera. Unfortunately none
of the other pictures had that object in them, they did however disprove everyone's theory
that "it was a cloud". I actually never even saw the thing. It wasn't until we
flew back to our control room that I saw it. I wanted to see how the pictures turned out,
so I threw the disk into a computer, and there it was." The image was taken on July
7, at 11:45 am, 14 days prior to the Kitimat image.
Below are
enlargements of the two objects. Both have a lighter area on top. The Kitimat image
appears to have slightly more noise resulting from image compression. The resolution of
both objects is such that it is difficult to tell what either object is.
Figure 4. Ten times magnification of the Cabin
Lake UFO image.
Figure 5. Ten
times magnification of the Kitimat UFO image
Comments from our Readers
To whom it
may concern;
In regards to the Cabin Lake UFO sighting which occurred on the 7th of July 2002, I have
some things to add which the photographer may not have mentioned. I also work for the same
oilfield company as the photographer, and I was in the same vicinity as him on the morning
of the 7th. I have traveled the oilfield roads of Northeastern BC for years, putting on
hundreds of thousands of kilometers. In that time, I have seen hundreds of game animals,
and have learned to predict their basic behavior.
What I
witnessed that morning had me puzzled, it wasn't until I was back at the control room that
afternoon, and was shown the pictures that it began to make any sense. I witnessed 2
Caribou that morning acting unlike any I had ever seen. The first one I spotted was
running down the road towards my service truck as I was driving towards him. I first
spotted him from about 1/2 kilometer away, the Caribou continued running down the road
towards me. I flashed my lights, and honked the horn to no avail, he just kept running
towards the truck. I had slowed to a walking speed, wondering what got into him. He
finally stopped when about 20 meters separated us, at which point he finally turned
around, and started running back the way he had came from. He made no attempt to get off
the road. I followed him for about a kilometer before he finally ran into the ditch. Then,
it was not more than a minute or two later, when the exact same thing happened with
another Caribou. The exact same behavior, acting confused, or frightened?
Also I
came upon a Lynx that would not get off the road, again I slowed to a walking speed, and
had to literally drive around him. He never once acknowledged the truck's presence, just
remained crouched in the middle of the road staring at nothing.
There was
also a small group of ducks shortly after that were just milling around on the road, again
I had to slow and wait for them to move. I had never seen anything like that before, or
since.
I
commented about the animals behavior to my passenger, neither of us could explain it. I
think it may have had something to do with the sighting, It happened around the same time,
and all occurrences were within about 20 kilometers of the sighting.
Also of
interest are the pictures just prior to the one with the UFO in it. One picture shows the
helicopter they were using to fly to the different well sights. In the picture, the rotor
blades are spooled up, turning at a high rate of speed. Yet the blade looks stopped,
the only way to tell is a bit of blurring on the trailing edge of blade. The camera
shutter speed is fast enough to capture a rotor blade turning at speed, yet the object in
the photo is blurry. Just how fast is that thing going? (UFO*BC
comment: We have added Figure 6 and 7 to illustrate Ryan's point. The person who took
these images also made this point and provided the images to us) One other note of
interest is the fact that there was quite a lot of helicopter activity in that area that
morning. Could that have been an attraction? Thank you for the opportunity to add to this.
Regards.
Ryan Kendrew.
Figure 6. The helicopter's rotors were
spinning, and they were not blurred from their speed.
Figure 7. The helicopter's rotors were spinning, this shot shows that they were only
slightly blurred.
Good day
Martin, thank you for the prompt reply. Go ahead, feel free to use my whole name. It would
be good to see what I wrote added to the page. The picture in question was actually
e-mailed to the digital photo people at Walt Disney by a fellow in Fort Nelson who has a
friend working there. The consensus was that the photo was original and untouched,
although no one was speculating as to what the object is. Another interesting chapter of
this story. Happy New Year, regards, Ryan Kendrew.
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