2002 YUKON UFO SIGHTINGS
Thanks to Hans Grasholm
for monitoring our UFO hotline
and documenting many of the UFO reports below
25-Jan-2002, Alaska Hwy. Yukon River
Bridge at Marsh Lake, Yukon: 6:40pm
A woman left her home at the Army Beach Subdivision at Marsh Lake
to travel to Whitehorse. She was about to make a left turn onto the Alaska Highway
westbound when she noticed a very bright stationary object the color of a welding torch
over the mountain ahead of her to the north. She continued on her way.
Just after crossing the Yukon River Bridge and , she saw an object (glowing dark emerald green) come from the Marsh Lake water level control gates below on her right side (duration of flight was about two seconds). The object was saucer shaped, it stopped in front of her car about 10 feet up for a few seconds and was gone. She didn't noticed which direction it disappeared to. She stated that that there should be at least two other witnesses as there was an oncoming truck-trailer and a car following behind her.
26-Jan-2002, Army Beach at Marsh
Lake, Yukon: 7:15 am and 6:30pm
A woman noticed a blinking star-like object that was visible in
the morning as well as later in the evening that was stationary and would move slightly
some times. The witness video taped the light from her home in the evening and the light
remained there all night.
28-Jan-2002, Army Beach at Marsh
Lake, Yukon: 4:30pm
A woman turning right off the Alaska Highway into the Army Beach
Subdivision saw a green glow (shape depicted below) in the sky above the Marsh Lake dump.
The glow was very large and then suddenly was gone. The dump is to the left of the highway
when looking east from the Army Beach turnoff.
29-Jan-2002, Alaska Hwy. Yukon River
Bridge at Marsh Lake, Yukon: 6:40am
A woman driving towards Whitehorse just passed the Yukon River
bridge when she noticed a light about 300 metres above the river flow control gates. In 5
seconds the light descended towards her and stopped about 60 metres away above and to her
right side. The witness kept on driving and thinks the light stayed in the location where
it stopped as she drove on.
30-Jan-2002, Whitehorse, Yukon:
7:30am
A woman videotaped a light from the parking lot of the Whitehorse
General Hospital. The light appeared in line with the wind turbine on Haeckel Hill but
below the mountain top to the east.
31-Jan-2002, Whitehorse, Yukon:
4:10pm
A woman was driving up Robert Service Way (South Access Rd.) and
had just passed the traffic lights at Ear Lake Road when she saw a metallic object (as
shown below) low in the sky, coming from the Carcross direction. She was close to the
Alaska Highway when she lost sight of the object which at the time was above Miles Canyon
(southern direction). She wondered if the object went down in that area. The distance from
the Ear Lake turnoff to the Alaska Highway is about 1 km therefore the duration of the
sighting would be approximately 1 minute.
31-Jan-2002, Whitehorse, Yukon:
9:10pm
Heard on CBC radio on Feb 1 at about 8:00am:
Some caller(s) saw what they described as a "meteor" last night, Jan. 31/02,
approx. 21:10 in the eastern sky. One caller described it as having a big bright light at
the front, followed by a long tail, and ending with a small "star". She said it
was travelling slowly. I heard another caller describe the same thing.
February 1, 2002 Friday Whitehorse Star, p.
6:
"Residents see lights in Whitehorse sky
It was a close encounter of an unknown kind over Whitehorse on Thursday night.
"We to no indication of what it is," Whitehorse RCMP Const. Shawn Lemay said in
an interview this morning.
At around 9:00 last night, police received eight calls about strange bright lights in the
Yukon sky.
The calls were from Riverdale, Lake Laberge and Porter Creek.
Although police have confirmed it wasn't an aircraft, they are unsure what else it could
be. "
At least 8 independent witnesses reported this sighting.
Note: There were subsequent reports that this was a reentry of a satellite. The satellite
was evidently tracked by NORAD and the H. R. MacMillan Space Centre in Vancouver.
UPDATE: The details of this reentry of an Iridium Satellite can be found at the following link:
http://www.reentrynews.com/24947.html
31-Jan-2002, Whitehorse (Porter
Creek Subdivision), Yukon: 9:20pm
I was walking the dogs last night and was coming back onto the street at about 9:20 in the
evening and coming from the southeast and along side Haeckel Hill I saw a bright bluish
white light (silver-dollar size) with 7 or eight smaller lights following behind.This
lasted for about 8 seconds,they were heading northwest,low in the sky with no sound or
smoke trail. I guess there was several reports of people seeing the same thing (thank
god!). WOW!!!!! Kim
Report by same witness to Alberta UFO Study Group (AUFOSG)
Thank you to Gord Kijek for forwarding it to us:
How did you lose sight of the object?
lost sight of it over the horizon
Color of objects: bright bluish/white
Description of sighting: The first object was about the size if a silver dollar to the eye
with 6 smaller ones following behind. Low on the horizon heading northwest towards Lake
Laberge. No smoke or sound. It was seen be other people as I was told by local R.C.M.P.
Shape of objects: Disk or Ball
Please get in touch with us if you were a witness to this event.
2-Feb-2002, Whitehorse, Yukon:
approx. 7:00am
I saw a yellow light in the sky just as I'm turning onto the
Alaska Highway (westbound)at Army Beach. Just before crossing the Yukon River Bridge I saw
a small orange light on the left, high on the mountain. The light was going on and off.
2-Feb-2002, Mary Lake Subdivision,
Whitehorse, Yukon: 7:45 to 8:15 pm
A woman went out on her deck in the evening and was watching what
she thought was a satellite until it suddenly stopped dead in its flight (east to west).
After a while it continued its movement, but now going north. Then going back east, north
and west again. At one point she called at her family to come and look, which they did but
they did not stay long enough to see it change direction (Temperature was -20 deg-C). The
UFO was 30 degrees above the horizon when first spotted, and in 30 minutes had moved to
about 60 degrees above the horizon. Getting cold she went inside but went back out to look
an hour later. By then it was cloudy.
At the same location in the summer of 1997 she saw a what she later found out from the First Nations to be called a "Grandmother light". In her case it was a pale green Frisbee sized plasma like cloud moving above the ground in her yard. This report can be found by clicking here.
6-Feb-2002, Whitehorse, Yukon. 9:45pm
My Daughter (14 yrs) spotted it initially and I
also witnessed the tail end of the sighting. We observed three faint objects in the night
sky at 9:45 PST pass directly overhead in a west to east direction. The night sky was
clear except for some cloud cover on the southern horizon. The moon was below the horizon.
The three objects all had the same light intensity (low but easily visible with the naked
eye), in line in a north/ south direction, evenly and closely spaced, and were visible for
about 1.5 minutes. The objects disappeared from view at about 50 to 60 degrees vertical
angle, azimuth would be about 140 to 150 degrees. I suspect the objects were space junk
but I have never seen more than one object at a time - three pieces in line together seems
odd to me. I did make an attempt last night to determine what they were through a tracking
web site (http://www.heavens-above.com). The information I was able to get for my location
and time did not show anything passing overhead at nearly 90 degrees vertical in a
north/south direction. I don't know how good this site is over other sources so thought
best to pass this on to you. I thought maybe you may have access to some good tracking
information that could explain this sighting or speculate on what it could be.
Investigation:
After we posted this sighting to the Canadian UFO discussion group we received the
following reply from Frits Westra of the Working Group Netherlands. Both the witness and
myself (Martin Jasek) are satisfied with his explanation below:
Hello Martin,
I've entered the witnesses' data into Stephen Fels' Sathunt tracking program. Using Mike
McCant's element sets for classified satellites, I get an overhead pass of USA 121, USA
122, USA 123. These three are also known as a NOSS trio.
USA 121 1996-029C [NOSS 2-3C]
USA 122 1996-029D [NOSS 2-3D]
USA 123 1996-029E [NOSS 2-3E]
Note: NOSS Satellites are classified military satellites that travel in groups of three. Their function is to intercept and locate sources of communication originating from ships on the ocean.
At the observation location, the trio reached a
max elevation (culmination) of 80 deg at 21.44 hrs PST, which is almost directly overhead.
All three objects must have appeared in the West (azimuth 293 deg) at an elevation 20 deg
over the horizon. Culmination of 80 deg was at azimuth 021 deg. Objects disappeared in the
Northeast (azimuth 039 deg), still at an elevation of 80 deg. Calculated max magnitude was
3,5-3,8 during culmination.
(Above figures are not corrected for terrain elevation)
The trio should have looked like an extremely flattened triangle moving sideways:
*
*
* =====>
Please contact me if you need any further information.
Bests,
Frits Westra
UFO Working Group Netherlands
P.O. Box 2191
7500 CD Enschede
The Netherlands
Witness Responds:
Thanks for digging up more details on our siting - this is exciting stuff. My daughter will be pleased to know that the lights she saw can be explained. The details provided by Mr. Westra fit very well - I should add that my original estimate on the azimuth were in error. I went out tonight with a compass and found the path was very much a west to east track (sorry for not doing this from the outset). Thanks again to Mr. Westra for providing you with the information. Another mystery solved!
7-Feb-2002, Dawson City, Yukon: am
Witness was heard on the radio the following day describing a fireball including a description of multiple colors.
Late Feb/early March-2002, Top of
the World Highway: Evening
Documented by Hans Grasholm
A woman was paid $15 to drive two young men up on Hwy.9 the top of the world highway
west of Dawson. It was a clear starlit night with strong northern lights. They were
standing outside the car about 35 km from Dawson watching the sky, but were on the way
back to the car when the woman noticed a light blink and then another and four more
lights. She called out to the boys to watch. The lights were around 45 degrees up from the
horizon and in a northeast direction. There was only one light on at a time, but the
blinking lights formed a "Y". The woman thinks it was one big object because the
lights suddenly blinked in a different location in the sky, like the object had moved
forward and the lights still kept their relative position to each other. She says it
looked like the object moved forward and then back and to one side, lasting about 10-15
seconds, at which point the lights did not blink any more and they lost sight of whatever
it was. Returning to the car, the woman noticed the compass on the dashboard going wild,
and taking the compass out of the car made no difference, it kept on moving wild. She did
not say for how long.
The woman new how to describe the position of the lights accuratly over the phone, she
asked UFO investigator Hans Grasholm to get a piece of paper with squares on it with
letters designating columns and numbers designating row. She then told him where to put
the dots (Lights) 1F, 5F, 7D, 8H, 11A, 11J as shown below.
Other information:
Number of witnesses :3
Six blinking lights, each about the size and brightnes of a bright star.
Angular size: Three times the size of the Moon, (about 1.5 degree)
Distance unknown and no sound.
21-Mar-2002 Whitehorse, Yukon:
6:30pm
Documented by Hans Grasholm and Cher Davidson
A woman was sitting in a living room in a house on Liard Street feeding a baby 5 feet from
a bay-window when she spotted an object that was black with no markings. She estimated the
dimensions were 12 inches long, 3/4 inch thick (Cigar shaped). In an interview, it was
determined that the object had an angular size of 1/2 degree in length. It was above the
houses, but behind the trees at a height of about 30 degrees, due north and moving toward
N-E. The woman thinks it was 100 meters away (Investigator's note: object would have
crashed on the hills in that case, so suspect the distance would have been much greater).
Duration of sighting was about 3 seconds, traveling very fast, spanning a straight line of
about 45 degrees. She lost sight of the object behind some trees. The weather was cloudy
under daylight conditions.
22-March-2002, Whitehorse, Yukon: 8:00pm
Documented by Hans Grasholm
A young man went out with the dog and was looking straight up when he saw an oval-shaped
object, silver in color and reflecting the sun, which was low in the horizon. The object
was spinning (clockwise) at about 10 revolutions per second. It went up into the clouds,
came down again, moved 100 feet east, back west 50 feet, then straight up again into the
clouds. The young man said that his mother came out and also saw the object before it
vanished into the clouds. The duration of the sighting was 2 to 3 minutes. The size of the
object was about 1/10 that of the full moon. The sky was partly overcast.
8-Apr-2002, Watson Lake, YT:
6:10pm
E-mail report Nov 2, 2004: I saw an unidentified flying object near Watson Lake. As I was
driving home and rounding a corner about 1 mile from my home, I came upon a silver disc
that looked a lot like what we see on TV. It was hovering and moving fast and did not go
in a straight line, it moved all over the place. I tried to keep up with it and did not
get scared; I was more curious. There was an oncoming vehicle in the other direction but I
think they did not see it. I kept up with it a bit but as I we rounding another corner it
shot off like a bullet.
Subsequent Interview: Elizabeth was rounding a corner when she saw the UFO flying above
treetops on the side of the road. The UFO was going the same direction that she was. It
was going all over the place, (see e-mail) but at times it followed the same pattern as a
falling leaf, like flipping back and forth except it wasn't falling but going horizontal.
As she rounded the next corner she saw the object speed away and out of sight within 2
sec. The shape of the UFO was like an upside down pie plate, silver in colour. The
distance to the object was estimated by the witness to be about 0.5 km. The size of the
object appeared to be about ¼ the size of the full moon. The entire sighting lasted about
one minute. The weather was clear and sunny.
Mid August-2002 , Carcross, Yukon:
2:00
We were sitting at YAY! park, at first, I was looking at the northern
lights, they looked like they were bursting all different colors like purple and green,
then after they faded away I noticed one star..moving around in all kinds of weird
directions, so I called my friends over and they saw them too. After we were just focused
on the one star, like 4 or 5 more appeared..and they were dancing around the sky too..
How did you lose sight of the UFO? they all went off in
separate directions, we lost sight of them eventually
Location:
Chootla Subdivision
Number of witnesses: 4
Color(s), shape: like normal sized stars
Duration: 10-15 minutes
Angular size & distance: they were small orbs or
something, they looked like normal stars..and as far away as stars too
Speed & directions of motion and direction of observation?: They moved in different
directions, zig-zagging, circling, and kinda swirling around...they were moving quite
fast..like how a hummingbird moves
Weather & Sky Conditions , night or day ?: It was a very clear night.
Feelings, perceptions?: amused, it was like they were dancing
for us, like they knew we were watching. It was the most bizarre thing I've ever seen!
Did they report it to the authorities (specify)?: No, this is
the first time we've ever spoken about it to someone else other then ourselves
15-Sep-2002, Whitehorse, Yukon:
10:00 - 10:30pm
Documented by Hans Grasholm
A man was driving north (KM 1475) toward Porter Creek on the Alaska Highway when he
noticed a globe-like object with a bright orange color above Haeckel Hill (windmills). The
object was about 15 degrees below Venus and a little to the left. When the object was
first seen, it appeared to move about erraticly and then became stationary. The man, an
amateur astronomer, stopped the truck and got out to watch. It did not move, and after
about 10 minutes he decided to go home to Porter Creek and take the telescope out for a
better look. However, by the time he came out of Rabbitsfoot Canyon, the object was no
longer in sight, although Venus was still visible. The object had a bright orange glow,
globe-like and about 5 to 10 times larger than Venus. Distance to the object was unknown.
Duration of sighting was about 10 minutes. Conditions were night time with a clear sky.
20-Sep-2002, Whitehorse, Yukon: 7:30am
Documented by Hans Grasholm
A man was driving toward Whitehorse on the Alaska Hwy (km 1476) and had just passed the
Fish Lake Road, when, within 10 seconds, a small shining cloud formed just 2 degrees above
the mountains, looking straight East. The "cloud" was in the pink of the sky,
perfectly round and half the size of the Moon, and much brighter than the pink sky, almost
shining like a light. The "cloud" appeared like a vortex, (like a paintbrush
started at 11:30, going clockwise and almost running out of paint). The center was the
darkest and the color was white to yellow. The witness lost sight of the object going down
the "2 Mile Hill" into Whitehorse, but in the three minutes he looked at it, it
did not change or move. Sky Conditions: About 10 minutes before sunrise and possibly in
the same direction that the sun would rise. Horizon above the mountains was pink, no cloud
could be seen, the pink would gradually turn to blue higher up and a layer of gray and
white clouds formed a band about 10 degrees above the horizon.
25-Sep-2002,
Whitehorse, Yukon: 8:30 pm
Documented by Martin Jasek
Two women from an apartment window in downtown Whitehorse observed a bright white
"<" shape that hovered in the sky for about one and a half minutes and then
traveled to the right and rotated to a vertical "V" shape and descended below
the roofline of a tall building across the street. It did it gracefully and the witnesses
got the impression it was far away and huge. The total sighting time was about 3 minutes.
Just before the object rotated, a bright light appeared on the bottom corner of the
“<”. Several more lights appeared along the open end of the “V”
after it rotated. The witnesses were looking towards the clay cliffs (airport, west).
Several photographs were taken and are being analyzed. Although object and lights appear
very faint in the images, due to the bright sky following sunset, we have obtained the
negatives from the witnesses and hope to have them enhanced and analyzed. See witnesses
report and photos here.
14-Nov-2002 , Whitehorse, Yukon:
12:05 am
Documented by Hans Grasholm
A woman stepped outside for a smoke when she spotted a yellow object at an angle above the
horizon that put it just under the power lines (15 degrees up from horizon) and straight
east above Grey Mountain. Within 5 seconds the UFO was straight above her and almost
seemed to stop which gave her a scary feeling. The object was 1/3 the size of a full moon
at this point. It made a slight left turn and continued west-southwest and was out of
sight in about 5 seconds. It was a clear starlit night, except between the two houses
where the UFO disappeared. In that portion of the sky there were clouds and the UFO
appeared to fly below them. The woman stated that the object lit up the underside of the
clouds the same way city lights do. She was going to call her husband but things were
moving too fast so she was the only witness. The shape of the object was an oval except
for the two long sides that were parallel, like a circle with opposite sides cut off: 
The dimension
would be twice the length of the width. The color of the object was yellow with what
looked like red glowing speckles. There was no pattern to the speckles.
