Sir:

In mid-summer, 1967, the following occurred. My husband, now retired, was working in the Nitinat area (British Columbia) for B.C. Forest Products, and was away from home each week from Sunday evening to Friday evening. I was therefore alone at home five days out of seven. (I teach at Nanaimo District Secondary). One night I became aware that our dog in the basement was barking restlessly. I woke groggily and subsided again into sleep several times. (This is an unusual way for me to behave; if something disturbs me at night, I usually wake completely, though I readily fall asleep again.) The duration of the time is impossible to assess - 10 minutes? - 30 minutes? I simply do not know.

At any rate, some time passed in which I was blurrily semi-conscious at times and aware that the dog continued to bark. Suddenly my room was lit up vividly and momentarily. (My eyes were closed - I saw this through my eyelids.) That really wakened me - completely! In a panic I snapped on my bedside light, leaped out of bed and proceeded to turn every light on inside and outside the house. Of course, my first thought had been that intruders had shone a powerful light on the house, and were trying to find an entrance into the house. For ten minutes, I prowled around while the beating of my heart gradually returned to normal. I finally convinced myself that all was safe and well, the dog had stopped barking, and I eventually went back to bed and to sleep.

The next day, or very soon thereafter, I took my dog for a walk down a bush trail near here. About 200 yards from the house, I stopped and stared at a peculiar flattening of the tall lush grass in a small open area beside the trail. But what actually frightened me was that a narrow straight path had been opened from this flattened spot through a swampy tangle of undergrowth, to the sea, some 50 feet away. My reaction to the flattened grass was "why on earth would anyone roll over and over on the ground here?" but the strange new path actually panicked me, it was so inexplicable. I hurried on and never went back for some time. I was trespassing, anyway!

Not until nearly a year later did I see in a UFO paperback a picture of a 'saucer nest' - in Australia, I believe. At that moment, I realized that what I had seen was a saucer nest, for it was exactly like that in the picture. All a coincidence? I cannot tell.

In the other incident, I at least saw something tangible. In mid-September of 1967, again alone, I turned off all the lights before going to bed, but came out into the living room to look out over the Stuart Channel. My drapes were not drawn, and at that moment, I saw what I first took to be a huge bonfire across the channel on the shore of the island opposite (one of the DeCourcey group). Then I saw the light was moving, not very fast, and apparently quite low over the water. This UFO was quite distinctive, not only for its size, but because of the nature of the light - not a white light, but a blending of colors. The most amazing thing was the pulsating, vibrating appearance of the light. It proceeded slowly southward until it passed beyond my line of vision. I heard no sound. In all, it passed through about 100 degrees of arc, and took approximately a minute and a half.

Mrs. Margaret A. Smith
Ladysmith, B.C.