Brian Vike's Favorite Cases.
Newspaper Article.
By David Connop
Price.
The UFO Triangle – Houston – Smithers – Terrace.
The sun’s first rays were creeping into the morning sky September 22, when Beverly Evans saw a strange object in the sky heading toward her. Little more than 100 meters from her car it changed direction, flying up and out of sight.
Beverly is not alone in seeing mysterious objects in the sky. So many have been seen in Houston-Smithers-Terrace region in the past few years, that Houston ufologist Brian Vike has called the area the UFO Capital of Canada.
Houston and Terrace have had the third and fourth highest number of UFO sightings in Canada for the last two years. In 2003 Houston’s 33 reported sightings were just one less than Toronto and just eight behind Vancouver, the leading city for UFO sightings.
The following are eyewitness accounts of some of the events that have some calling this area… the UFO Triangle:
Mellow Yellow – Wednesday September 22, 2004 6:40 a.m.
Beverly, a Telkwa resident, told her story to Brian Vike. Beverly was on her way to work in Smithers. As she came to the Babine Lake Road turn, she saw a bright yellow-white light coming in a downward motion from the Telkwa Mountain range.
It crossed Highway 16 about a hundred meters ahead of her and at an altitude of two-to-three telephone pole lengths. As it passed she noticed the object appeared round in shape and glowed light-green underneath.
Just as she thought it was going to crash, the object rose up and disappeared into the clouds. The object had made no sound and left no trail. She reports the incident lasted 15-20 seconds and that there were two vehicles behind her that may have seen the same light.
Bright Light of Houston – August 11, 2004 2:45 a.m.
Eddie Westgarde was having trouble sleeping and headed to the kitchen for a glass of water. He noticed a strange light through his kitchen window.
“It was strange because the light that came behind our place didn’t seem like it was the moon, it seemed like a different light and it (was) kinda startling, “ said Eddie.
“It was standing in behind the trees, but it came through the trees so that you couldn’t see any trees, because the light came right through the trees. But there’s heavy trees and there shouldn’t be light coming through there.”
The light wasn’t high in the sky. “It was right down more towards the horizon. It went down there, disappeared in there.” The light caused no visible damage to Eddie’s yard. “There’s nothing there. I couldn’t see nothing around.”
“It’s just seemed like an awful strange thing that the light can shine through trees.”
The Pink Think – April 8, 2004 11:20 p.m.
This bizarre phenomenon was seen by two different Smithers residents. One was retired teacher Anne Lauderdale. “I just went out to give my dog some dog biscuits before I went to bed, he has a dog house right on the deck, and I just turned around and there was the thing in the sky,” Ann said. It was a large pink spherical object, very bright pink, a colour all the girls like.
“It was not above the mountain it was hovering above the ski hill road and then it moved towards town in front of the mountain, you could see it moving down the valley and it just sort of disappeared. I only saw it for a few seconds I guess.”
There were no sounds coming from the object nor did it have a tail she said. But it did have “a dark blue aura around it.”
Anne, 62, laughs saying, “I haven’t lost my marbles yet so I wasn’t imagining things!
“I was fascinated. I’m , what am I seeing here? You know it’s really strange.”
The Pink Thing 2 – April 16, 2004 10:45 p.m.
Eight days later Ruby Charlie, 42, saw something remarkably similar. She said she saw a “big pink light” in the sky. At the time she had not heard of Anne’s sighting.
“I was going to work on graveyard (shift) and I seen it in the sky on Biliter Road there,” said Ruby, a house care worker at Bulkley Lodge. (The UFO was) coming west above Biliter Road, towards me. Then it backed up and disappeared.”
Ruby estimates the distance from her to the object was “a few blocks” and it was “three tree lengths” up in the sky. It was “about the size of a full moon.”
The object made no sound, but Ruby admits she may not have heard anything because she was in her truck. She said the pink light had no distinguishing features.
“I just couldn’t understand what it was,” said Ruby. “then I went on to work and told one of my friends that I just seen a UFO and she was jealous.”
The Bulkley Valley Speed Ball – July 29, 2002 10:20 p.m.
Mike Hill, a Canfor employee in Houston, stepped from a forklift to examine a phosphorescent-like white ball of light with yellow undertones, which appeared to hover, before slowly crawling across the skyline.
Mike called out to two co-workers, who caught sight of the glowing light. “I called them over because I wanted to prove that I saw something and that I wasn’t crazy,” Mike explained.
The object grew a tail as it gained speed towards Tweedsmuir Park and shot out of sight, ending the 20-second display.
“In my mind it looked like a meteorite, bit it was like no meteorite I’ve ever seen. I’ve seen meteorite showers before, but they never looked anything like this. I really don’t know what it was,” Mike concludes.
10:40 p.m. - Dina Hanson, a teacher in Quick, saw a white ball of light travelling silently in a south-westerly direction, from Quick to Telkwa. Her son Ryan Hanson also saw the object.
10:45 p.m. – Gordon Stewart settled down to watch a movie after spending a day on his Telkwa farm. The bay widows facing his chair overlook the valley. A bright light flashed by his field of vision and he was astonished by its peculiarity and speed.
He walked onto his porch, where he was greeted by only silence and a sky with light and cloud cover.
Gordon, who used to drive 200-mph dragsters, estimated the speed of the object at 650 miles per hour. “if you blinked you would have missed it,” he said. From where he sat, the light appeared the size of a pickup truck. He woke his wife Joanna and upon sharing his description of the round, white light with a yellowish hue, he learned his wife had seen the same light in the same location a few months earlier.
“I didn’t want to tell him because he’d think I was crazy,” Joanna recalled.
The flat trajectory and lack of sound would rule out a meteorite. A comet was spotted the same night, but it’s glowing green light, arc-shaped flight and Hudson Bay Mountain location do not tally with Gordon’s sighting.
Gordon called the RCMP and learned there was no air force activity in the area. Central Mountain Air reported there was one training flight aloft from 10:07-1104 p.m. However a Central Mountain Air spokesperson saw no connection between the occurrences.
She speculated that the tiny Cessna 185 would not emit a bright light of that magnitude and it’s engines would be heard at a close proximity.
Dina’s observation in Quick shared many of the characteristics with Gordon’s. Their phenomenon also moved silently, but at a speed exceeding the propulsion of a man-made object. The description of size, awe-striking brightness and the white-yellow hues of the light are similar too.
Dina’s light was an elongated circle shape, whereas Gordon’s was round. Dina also noted a slight downward trajectory on the object she saw, but Ryan contends that because the object was moving away from them, it may just appear to be dropping because of their perspective.
Although Gordon admits an open mind to the possibility of other life forms existing in the universe, he talked himself through the possible explanations and still came to the same conclusion.
“I knew I saw something out of the ordinary”
Ufologist, Brian Vike believes all these reports can be classified as high-quality unexplained events. For example, he thinks the pink object descriptions appear to rule out usual suspects like aircraft, meteors and planets.
Hoaxes aren’t common either, said Vike.
“I would say the percentage is pretty high that people are credible and I’m not saying they’re UFO’s, some of the things are very explainable, but the majority are credible.”
Chris Ruthowski is the Research Co-Ordinator for the Canadian UFO Survey. He collects data on sightings from across Canada and is the repository for UFO reports received by the government.
He said the activity in the Smithers-Houston-Terrace area is “very significant for the population.”
While noting sightings are down this year, Ruthowski said, “We’ve had many dozens of reports from British Columbia, particularly the Smithers, Houston, Telkwa area, compared to other regions over the past number of years.
“In fact, for the past five years or so it appears that British Columbia has had far more than it’s share of UFO reports than we would expect, based simply on population.”
If, as the saying goes, the truth is out there, it may be right here in the B.C. Central Interior towns of Houston, Smithers and Terrace.
*The names Beverly Evans and Mike Hill are pseudonyms.
