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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