2002 Yukon UFO Conference ufoyukon_parch-small.jpg (1571 bytes)

Well, we did it, a second time. The 2002 UFO conference held in Whitehorse on Saturday, March 9, 2002 was a success. Attendance filled the Alpine Bakery event facility to near capacity (65 people) and a good discussion lasting over an hour ensued following the main speakers: Hans Grasholm, Martin Jasek, Sue Malcolm and Sarah Baker. Some great cases were also shared by audience members. A special thanks goes to all who organized, helped out and participated in the event. If you missed it, you probably want to find out what went on. A good Whitehorse Star article by Chuck Tobin below describes some of the highlights. Send us your comments and suggestions to help the UFO Yukon Research Society plan the next conference: e-ufoyukon.gif (1144 bytes).

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A Whitehorse Star article originally published March 13, 2002, Pg. 6

Twins still mystified by UFO sighting

by CHUCK TOBIN

Sarah Baker says the Unidentified Flying Object (UFO) she witnessed as she crested King Solomon’s Dome in the Indian River country near Dawson City was one of the largest things she’s ever seen.

For several minutes, she and her identical twin sister, Susan Malcolm, watched the object until it disappeared behind Haystack Mountain, Baker said in an interview Monday. She spoke following last Saturday night’s second Yukon UFO conference at the Alpine Bakery in Whitehorse.

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Accompanying what appeared to be the mother ship in the early-morning hours in late July 1996 were numerous tiny fire-fly type objects, Baker recalled.

"The thing did not scare me," said the Whitehorse restaurateur. "I just wanted to get down to my house so I could grab the binoculars. I have never seen anything so big. It was huge and I had a bunch of little ones around it.

"... On one hand, I have never seen anything so humongous and I have never seen anything that small," she said of the bright lights dancing around the large UFO. "It was like they were stars."

As Baker and Malcolm watched, the UFO continued to move behind Haystack, as though it was driving itself smack into the side of the mountain or the ground behind it.

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Martin Jasek, a former Whitehorse UFO buff who moved to Vancouver last year, returned for Saturday’s conference.

When he interviewed the twins about their experience, he told the Star on Monday, they were apprehensive about recalling the details of the huge craft disappearing downward behind the mountain – why would the UFO seemingly drive itself into the ground?


In fact, however, the topography behind Haystack Mountain from where the women say they watched the UFO is a valley deep enough to accommodate the size of the vessel described by the twins, Jasek pointed out on a slide he prepared for the conference.

He also prepared slides of the original drawings he had the twins sketch in separate rooms when he interviewed them. Their renditions of a close-up of the windows, and an overall view of the entire vessel with the little objects dancing around it, matched.

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Baker said the sighting of the cigar-shaped object has not been the only UFO encounter in her life.

Like Jasek, she suspects there are countless people who have witnessed something they can’t explain – something entirely out of the normal – but who are reluctant to reveal their experience because of the ridicule factor.

But more and more, she believes, people of noteworthy backgrounds and credentials are coming out of the woodwork to share their UFO experiences.

Jasek said the conference, which was sponsored by the Yukon UFO Research Society, is a continuing effort to not only share experiences but to promote frank discussion without fear of derision.


It’s his and Baker’s hopes that eventually, the scientific community and other professionals will shed their reluctance and participate fully in the investigation of unidentified flying objects.

"People are interested, but are afraid to admit it," Jasek said. "Professionals are interested, but are afraid to admit it.... We would like to encourage professionals in different fields to come forward and help study."

Baker said in countries like Mexico and Chile, there’s no shame in discussing UFOs. They just accept it, she said.

It’s only the world’s bigger and stronger nations, like Russia, the United States and Canada, that don’t want to openly address the issue of UFOs, for whatever reason, she said.

Jasek said 64 people attended what was billed as the second conference. About 80 per cent were at the first conference in the fall of 2000.

The first gathering drew upwards of 300 people but was funded through the Millennium Fund. It featured several keynote speakers renowned in the area of UFO research, he pointed out.

Jasek, who was among the founders of the local UFO research society, was this year's keynote speaker.
In addition to the Baker and Malcolm experience, Jasek related three other reported sightings and encounters based on interviews he's conducted.

In 1958, the recently deceased Billy Blair of the White River First Nation was out hunting with a partner near Snag in the Beaver Creek area, Jasek recalled in Monday's interview. A UFO, he said, suddenly moved sideways from out of the trees and sat over a meadow, where Blair and his partner watched the object for about 15 minutes from 300 metres away.

Jasek said Blair's partner pointed his rifle at the object but Blair warned him not to shoot.
"He said, 'Don't shoot, there might be white man in there,' because they didn't know of UFOs, they had never heard stories, or seen pictures, or anything," Jasek said.

The UFO researcher also recounted two separate stories from the North Canol Road. They included testimony and drawings from an unnamed individual who also saw a UFO as well as some type of beings.

Included in the slide presentation was a photograph taken about a year later along the North Canol with an unidentified object in the sky.

As well, Jasek told a story of a row of lights that had been seen in the Pelly Crossing area.

The feature discussion during the first conference included several eyewitness accounts of an extremely large UFO first sighted over Fox Lake on Dec. 11, 1996 but eventually seen by some 31 Yukoners from Fox Lake through to Carmacks, Pelly Crossing and Mayo.
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