Dennis’ Account

Initial Sighting and Investigation

by Dennis Stitt

I live in a cabin, a mile north of Deep Creek, up on a 200 foot bluff looking over Lake Laberge. (30 miles as the crow flies north of Whitehorse). Last June 18, 1997 at 2310 hours a little flying object zipped over my cabin.

Figure 1. My view of the object from underneath.

I had been visiting my neighbour Bob, three cabins north of mine. We had been sitting outside enjoying the still quite light-out evening. An almost full moon hung in the southern sky. I left Bob’s just after eleven, walked along the bluff trail to my "look out" bench, then turned and headed up towards my cabin. Suddenly I heard an extremely loud fluttering sound above me, like that of a kite turned upside-down twirling speedily towards the ground. A flag fluttering or flapping in a strong wind also makes a similar sound. Looking up I was shocked to see a "V" shaped black object, just ahead of the sound, heading east out over the lake.

It wasn’t more than 100 ft above the ground. The object was 6 to 8 feet long and 3 to 4 feet wide. There was no visible jet stream or flame coming from the rear of the object. The bottom of the object was flat and I noticed lines marking the back.

Figure 2. From my vantage point, the triangle appeared to take the following path. The sharp change in direction in the drawing is about twice the actual angle as the map is not to scale.

The object dropped down over the 200 foot bluff (I thought it was going to hit the water), then levelled out at about 100 feet above the surface of the lake. Halfway to Richthofen Island (just less than two miles from my cabin) the object began to shimmy and then made an immediate 20 to 30 degree turn towards the southern tip of the island. Before it disappeared from sight it looked like it might splash down near the tip of the island

Considering the distance to the island from my cabin and that I only saw the object for 2 to 3 seconds, it had to be travelling at least 2,500 mph. I didn’t hear a sonic boom.

Figure 3. At left is the side view of the object as seen by my neighbor Bob. Bob was about 120 meters (400 ft) to the north of me at the time of the sighting. At right is the rear view of the object as it was flying away from me. Both Bob and I agreed that the detail on the top of the object was difficult to make out and appeared "blurry".

I was freaked out! That thing just missed crashing into my cabin! I ran back to Bob’s. He was outside brushing his teeth, and before I could say anything he said something like "Did you see that?!" He heard the fluttering noise too and saw a dark brown, almost black flat bottomed triangular object shoot over the trees near my cabin and then out over the lake. (Bob estimated the length of the object to be about 12 feet long as opposed to my estimate of 6 to 8 feet).

Next day while Bob and I worked on his new house we saw 5 or 6 fighter jets travelling south very low down the centre of the lake towards Whitehorse. That seemed to confirm our idea that maybe what we saw was a military missile of some sort.

Since the object looked like it may have gone into the lake near the tip of Richthofen Island, a friend and I took a boat out to the site and searched the area for about an hour. We combed the shallow area where the bottom of the lake was visible but found nothing.

We saw the object on Wednesday night. For the next two days I experienced dizzy spells whenever I was standing still, sitting, or lying down. As long as I was moving about I was fine. When I laid down to sleep I felt like my room was spinning as though I was drunk. By Friday afternoon I was concerned enough to make a doctor’s appointment for Monday. However, by Monday the dizzy spells were gone so I cancelled my appointment.

I made a little wooden model, 6 inches long, of the object based on what Bob and I had seen. Within a week of the sighting, I found out that another friend, Doug, staying at Ed’s cabin about 1000 ft south of mine heard the same loud fluttering sound for about 2 to 3 seconds while taking a "leak" outside. He didn’t see anything but remembered thinking "Oh, one of those UFOs"

The next Monday I did go to Whitehorse and talked to the member of the Yukon Legislative Assembly for the Lake Laberge Area and he knew nothing about military missile testing. He didn’t believe any secret testing would be done so close to Whitehorse.

I later looked at some military magazines in a local book store, hoping to find a picture of a "V" shaped missile. I didn’t so I went to the Yukon News (newspaper) and told my story to a reporter there. I didn’t want the story printed but I wanted him to phone government and military officials.

The reporter talked to a Yukon Government official about the incident and was told that the government knew nothing about military testing. The reporter got in touch with the Commander of Canadian Forces, Northern Area, who also claimed to know nothing. The commander, however, did say he would like me to give him a call.

I spoke with him on the phone and related the sighting to him. He said that he didn’t know what it could have been and that we don’t possess the technology that would match the performance of what I saw. He said what I saw was a "UFO" and that I was lucky to have seen one. He went on further to say that he makes out 4 or 5 UFO reports each year. I asked him about the fighter jets and he said that they were Canadian fighters on a routine mission out of Cold Lake, Alberta.

Now, I’ve always been fascinated by the idea of life on other planets and spaceships coming to earth. And as much as I wanted to believe this object may have been a probe sent to Earth much as "we" had just sent a probe to Mars, my gut feeling was that it was man made.

I told lots of people about my UFO sighting until someone told me they had seen a T.V. show on unmanned aircraft. This was new to me.

I got on the internet at a friend's and was introduced to the scary world of "Robot Warriors". Then a friend gave me a stack of recent Popular Science Magazines. There were many articles on unmanned aircraft and I even found a picture of a small delta winged aircraft. I read articles on Area 51 and H.A.A.R.P (High-Frequency Active Auroral Research Program, now being conducted in Alaska).

I began to think the flying object that just missed my cabin was somehow connected to H.A.A.R.P. Maybe it was sent out so it could be tracked (See September 1995, Popular Science showing an illustration of how H.A.A.R.P can be used to track the location of a triangular reconnaissance drone ! ). A small local bookstore turned me on to a book called ANGLES DON’T PLAY THIS H.A.A.R.P by Dr. Nick Begich. This book introduced me to some pretty "weird" stuff, and if true, very scary. On page 105 the book talks about SABAR (Semi-Autonomous Beam Rider). Could this flying object been powered by microwave transmission? Could that have been the reason for my dizzy spells? Could that have been why the object made such a strange sound and yet there was no visible jet stream? I find it difficult to believe that the Canadian Military knows nothing about this object which was flying 100 ft above ground level, some 2500 miles per hour, within 30 miles of Whitehorse.

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