1966 Fraser Canyon, British Columbia UFO Sighting

Posted: December 26, 2007

In 1966, finding myself alone, except for the family cat, Caboodle, after the family breakup and ultimate divorce, I traveled up the Fraser Canyon to a small village of Lillooet, two hundred road miles north of Vancouver, BC.

My former C.O. from my Army days, (name deleted by HBCC) lived in a mobile home and worked with (name deleted) on her Bridge River - Lillooet News. I joined them, and having spent a month living over The News Office with (name deleted), I learned I could rent a dandy suite overlooking the Fraser River canyon.

The sliding doors opened onto a wide sun deck. The P.G.E. rails were just beyond the fence at the end of the lot. When the 110 - car freights rumbled by I was face to face with the engineers. I used to try to list the many boxcars, the rolling stock of railroads from all over North America in those pre computer days. At nights no lights shone from the few homes scattered on the bench land below, on the other side of the tracks. The highway connecting Lillooet with the outside world was on the far side of the river. Came the darkness the valley was pitch black except for the odd set of headlights of cars traveling into town. There was no road on the mountainside which loomed up on the town side of the canyon.

One winter Friday night my friend (name deleted) had walked over for a visit. The folks in the adjoining suite had the TV on for the Dean Martin Show which aired at 9:00 p.m. (name deleted) relaxed in an easy chair from which she could see out through the sliding doors.

I sat opposite on the chesterfield, too far back to share her view. As we chattered, she suddenly, turned her head, and staring out through the glass door, exclaimed in a sharp voice, "What's that ?" I jumped up quickly to share her excitement and immediately saw a huge red swirling ball with flaring red orange flaming edges coming towards us from above the west side mountain.

Grabbing the glass door catch I shouted "let's get out onto the deck !" which we did. As we stood side by side, we watched the whirling fire-ball hurdle towards us, so fast that we both ducked down, putting our hands on our heads as we truly expected to be hit as it crashed upon us. But, as we crouched and watched, the thing hovered "just above the mountainside" so to speak, spinning and flaring, to right, to left, to right again, for a few seconds. It hesitated on the final jerk to the right, then in erratic short jumps, still spinning and flaring, it began to recede, grow smaller, to nothing, back into the sky from whence it had come.

We returned to the room, quite shaken up, and (name deleted) snapped, "Exactly what did we see ?"

I put into words much as I have in this account, using my extended arm to describe the movement "Exactly ?" she snapped.

Being Friday night with everything closed for the weekend, we had no way of finding out if anyone else had shared the sight. The News was being printed, not in Lillooet, but in Fort St. John at Ma'sson Dan's newspaper shop, so nothing was "of the moment" news wise.

By the time the weekend was over the folks were back on the job, we felt rather foolish in speaking of our UFO encounter. had we not have rushed to the sun deck, causing us to be physically involved, had we just focused and seen it with our own sight, we may well have pondered if we had seen it at all.

I recall when I saw the movie "Strange Encounter" some years back I thought the UFO props were not nearly as exciting as what (name deleted) and I had shared on that Friday night in Lillooet, B.C.

So here in 1993, having watched a TV program on UFO sightings I am moved to record the event while sound of mind with 20-20 vision, from my notes written in 1996.

Thank you to the wonderful lady who shared her story with me. Brian Vike, Director HBCC UFO Research. email: hbccufo@telus.net Website: http://www.hbccufo.org http://www.brianvike.com, http://www.hbccufo.com, http://www.hbccufo.net HBCC UFO Research International: http://www.hbccufointernational.org/

HBCC UFO Research, Box 1091 Houston, British Columbia, Canada - VOJ 1ZO