At 2:30 pm, 22nd July, 2001
the witness, a ground crew worker, was busy
servicing an aircraft when a glint/reflection of
sunlight caught us attention. He looked up and
spotted a metallic, highly reflective "ball
bearing" shaped object in a northeasterly
direction that was slowly rotating in the sky and
appeared to have a dark "oily" patch on its
underside. After some further thought he concluded
that the dark area was actually trees beneath it
reflected onto the body of the craft. He watched
the object for about 5 minutes on his own. A young
mechanic came off the aircraft so the worker
called him over to confirm what he was seeing but
the young man just seemed to shrug it off and
left. A short time later yet another mechanic was
at the scene and the two watched the object for
another 5 minutes (He later learned that there had
been a 4th mechanic that observed it also). As
they watched the round object turned and appeared
to become an oval (possibly rotated). The object
then moved left, then right, then back to its
original position then, after a pause, descended
into the tree line west of the Fraser Arms Hotel.
Total observation time 12 - 15 minutes.The ground
crew claimed that the object would have been in
view of the control tower. They were working at
Gate #75. The original witness described the
object as being ½ the size of a 737. The sky was
clear blue.
The
worker also noted that air traffic on the busy
runway stopped during the sighting and resumed
some time afterward. The next day the worker
noticed 2 unmarked Chevy Safari Vans with tinted
windows and 3 YVR trucks in the brush just past
the airport fence in the same area that the UFO
descended. There were people in suites walking
about the area.
In an attempt to seek confirmation I called the
airport, Control Tower (5 times no reply!);
Operations Centre ("not under our
jurisdiction!,"); Media Centre ('we'll get back
to you' . . . they didn't); Airport Regional
Control ("Dave Nowzek is not in at the moment I
will have him call you" . . . still waiting!).
About fifteen phone calls in all with no
results.
On the 31st July, 2001 I received a phone call
from Lisa Pike @ 604-666-9517 of Transport
Canada Systems Safety asking "for more details"!
Again I provided everything I had minus the name
of the ground crew worker who I had spoken to. I
was told they had checked all their sources and
found no reports or radar confirmation.
UFO*BC
investigators visited the area subsequently and
the only thing of interest that was found that
may have been associated with the event was a
series of orange spray-paint lines on the
bicycle path several hundred meters apart,
roughly marking the span of the region where the
UFO was seen. This may had been coincidental.
The bike path runs between the brush area and
the Fraser River so conceivably the object could
have submerged into the river.
P.S. The
worker described the direction of the UFO as
follows: The UFO was at the 12:00 o'clock
position, a large green metal treatment tank was
at the 11:00 o'clock position and the Fraser
Arms Hotel (on the other side of the river) was
at about the 1:00 to 2:00 o'clock position. All
directions as viewed from Gate 75.
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