Vancouver Airport UFO

by Graham Conway - written Aug 18, 2001
(Further details added Aug 28, 2005)


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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