Massive Wing-Like Object at Mary Lake
Mary Lake Subdivision, Whitehorse, Yukon
Dec 12, 2001, 7:28 am
Investigated by the witnesses' parents and Martin Jasek

 

In the late afternoon of December 12, 2001 a man came home from work to find that his daughter was very excited to tell him about a strange sight that she and others had seen early that morning. The event occurred while several youngsters were walking to catch their school bus in this rural subdivision.

Having an interest in the UFO subject as well as a career in the aviation industry he asked his daughter to write down as well as draw a description of the event. His daughter's drawings at right and below and her description in point form follows:

  • I heard a "high flyer" jet sound

  • looked up out of curiosity

  • saw the blinking lights out of the corner of my eye

  • saw a massive, wing-like thing, slowly flying over, southeast

  • thought it was a commercial plane because of wings

  • then realized the level of its flight was completely abnormal to a normal plane of its size; "just above the trees" !

  • the lights had no pattern (referring to the blinking), the ones along the wings just twinkled back and forth.

  • cluster of lights on the bottom

  • didn’t know exact structure, very dark !

  • saw it for about 12 seconds ?!

"All I know is that it was not a plane !" she added as an ending note.

 

marylakewing-scene.jpg (37800 bytes)
Fig. 1. Drawing by daughter showing the layout of the scene as well as the wing-like UFO observed. The figure at the bottom represents herself walking eastbound on Buttercup Place towards the school bus stop at the intersection with Fireweed Drive. The object flew slowly left to right. The other figures depict her schoolmates waiting at (or walking towards) the bus stop. Her sister, who also saw the UFO, was running to catch the bus about 100 meters behind her. Although the outline or shape of the object was not visible the drawing above illustrates what she deduced the shape to be based upon the arrangement of lights.

marylakewing.jpg (16972 bytes)

Fig. 2. Drawing by daughter showing the arrangement of lights. The object itself was "very dark" and its outline was not visible but this was the shape that was impressed upon her. The white lights on the wings were blinking out of sequence while the yellowish cluster of light at the centre back remained solid. She remarked during an interview at the location, "there were definitely no red or green lights on either wing. The arrangement of lights above would be unconventional for a normal aircraft.

The mother who also worked in the aviation industry was equally perplexed at her daughter's sighting, especially after seeing the drawings. The lighting configuration looked like that of no known aircraft, to either parent. They believed their daughter who said "it was not a plane". Furthermore, their children have grown up around airports and know what conventional aircraft look like. A call to the Whitehorse Airport Control Tower was in order. The answer that they received was that no aircraft were inbound or outbound at the Whitehorse Airport until 8:30 am that day, about an hour later.

Follow-up
On March 11, 2002 I had the pleasure of interviewing the main witness at the location of the sighting. She had her facts straight and was sincere when recounting what occurred approximately 3 months before.  Other details of the event came out. For instance, she remarked that she ran the remainder of the way to the bus stop and that the bus immediately pulled up as she reached the intersection. The bus was facing the same direction as the UFO was flying and she was still observing the lights flying slowly away as she was boarding the bus. Inside the bus, her view was obscured and she no longer could see the lights. This begs the question; did the bus driver see anything?

During the time when I was standing with her where she first spotted the UFO, Air North's Hawker-Siddeley (A 44 passenger twin engine aircraft) flew overhead at about 1000 ft . She remarked "it was quieter than that" comparing it to the sound of the UFO that appeared to have been just above the tree tops. I asked her to show me with her hand the size of the UFO above the trees, this turned out to be between 15 to 20 cm at an estimated 60 cm arm’s length distance. A 20.4 metre long Hawker-Siddeley at arms length at 1000 ft would only appear to be 4 cm long. What ever she saw took up a significant portion of sky, the way only a low flying aircraft would, yet it was much quieter. In other words the volume of the sound it made was inconsistent with its angular size in the sky; she remarked "it sounded like it was far off" yet she states "it was just above the trees!"

The young woman's sister was further back behind and just around a slight bend in the road and doesn't recall much detail other than some lights over the trees. An attempt was made to interview the other witnesses but they were not interested in speaking about the incident. However, one of them confirmed that they did see something.

marylakewing-image.jpg (22497 bytes)
Fig. 3. Graphic depicting the Mary Lake sighting by the principal witness when she first observed the UFO. The trees depicted are alongside the right of the road. The UFO was heading so slowly to the right that she was able to keep it in view the entire time she ran towards the bus about 10 to 12 seconds down the road. The drawing is based on a visit to the site with the witness. The lights were about 30 degrees above horizontal and 30 degrees to the right of the road axis when first sighted.

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