UFO's Spotted Over Barrhead

Brian Vike's Favorite Cases.

Newspaper Article

The Daily Record Newspaper.

Those spooky unidentified flying objects are at it again – this time in Barrhead!

The Paisley Daily Express has already revealed how eagle-eyed believers have reported two separate UFO sightings – one in Elderslie and another in Renfrew.

Now every Buddie’s favorite newspaper can reveal that a report has been posted on a top UFO-spotting website detailing a sighting in Barrhead.

The shocked eyewitness told the UK UFO website: “When I was out in the garden, I could see two luminous blue objects from a distance. They flew overhead silently and at speed.

“As they flew above me, I could see the bottom of the UFO, which looked like it was in segments and they were a very bright blue colour.

“As they passed, the nearest UFO was of a luminous red colour as if it had changed its colour. They were both too fast and too silent to be planes or helicopters.”

The sighting is the only one on this website from the Paisley area.

Previous sightings in Elderslie and Renfrew were posted on the Canada-based HBCC UFO Research website.

In Elderslie, a couple saw two strange objects flying high in the sky near to Glasgow Airport.

One of the believers told the website: “We saw the orange objects quite far apart outside the front of my home and went to the back of the house to watch them.

“They were about a mile from Glasgow Airport and we were able to observe planes arriving and taking off from the airport at the same time but these two objects were much higher and moving quite slow.

“These did not have landing lights on them, just an orange glow.”

And, in Renfrew, two UFOs were spotted close to the town’s police station.

A man who reported the sighting said: “At first, I thought they were helicopters but there was no noise and they emitted a bright, almost off-white light.

“They didn’t move and, when the bus came, I kept looking at them. The bus travelled for about four miles and they stayed in the same place.

“The height must have been about 200 feet and, as it was a clear, cold night, the stars were visible but these lights were an awful lot closer to the ground.”

UFO expert Brian Vike is urging Buddies to be on the alert amid suggestions that aliens could be keeping an eye on Paisley and neighbouring towns and villages.

Brian, who is director of the HBCC UFO Research organization, told the Express that sightings of unidentified flying objects are becoming more common in Renfrewshire.

And he believes the truth is out there.

Brian said: “There are still many people who do not have the use of a computer to search for a UFO investigator.

“ A lot of times, people will see something odd and keep it to themselves or maybe talk about it with their families and we miss this valuable information.” 

The Daily Record Newspaper - https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/

The Newspaper Article - https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/local-news/ufos-spotted-over-barrhead-2615733

UFO Sighting In Fort St. James

Brian Vike's Favorite Cases.

Newspaper Article.

Rebecca Watson - March 23, 2015.

Vanderhoof Omineca Express.

More than one person saw the unidentified flying object.

The day started out normal for Fort St. James bus driver Frances Honeywell, 47, who began her route down Tache Road. It was just before 8 a.m. on Wednesday, March 18 and she had already picked up a number of kids when she noticed an eerily strange looking object in the sky.

“It looked like a jet stream but very short and there where three symmetrical tails with a light blinking at the top. The thing that puzzled me the most was it wasn’t moving across the sky, it stayed in one spot,” Honeywell said, who included she watched the object for nearly 15-20 minutes. “It was so odd and very unnatural looking.”

At first she thought it might be a cloud but kept her eye on it for a few kilometres. She described the top of the object as an eye with an upper and lower lid, similar to what most might call a flying saucer.

“I’ve gone to many air shows since my dads a pilot but I’ve never seen anything like this from the ground or from in a plane. It definitely was not a plane or a jet. I thought about a helicopter which can hover but I’ve never seen a helicopter with jets underneath it and three jet streams at that.”

Environment Canada meteorologist Matt MacDonald said it may have been a lenticular cloud. A lens shaped cloud that is seen at sun rise or sun down often confused as a UFO since clouds at that time of day will take on optical affects from the sun.

“After looking at the archived weather observations from that morning I see there were a few alto-cumulus clouds (mid level puffy clouds) but couldn’t pick anything out in the sky,” he said.

There are a number of automated weather stations that read wind, humidity and temperature but, the closest human weather observer is in Prince George.

“It would be almost impossible to know for sure,” MacDonald said.

Many kids on Honeywell’s bus saw the object and talks about aliens made one little girl cry.

“I didn’t want anyone to be scared but it was bizarre,” Honeywell said. “It definitely wasn’t a cloud.”

Craig Houghton, the principal of Fort St. James Secondary also claims to have seen the un-earthly object.

“I did see something in the air from the window at the high school. It looked like when you see a plane but it had three prongs coming off of it and certainly didn’t look like your standard jet,” he said.

Brian Vike, 63, is a world-renowned UFOologist from Houston, BC. Since he started recording sightings of crop circles and mysterious flying objects in 2000, Vike’s received more than 1,100 reports from all over the world.

“I would say maybe it was a jet but not in that position and not for that length of time. Cloud formations dissipate… it could be something military or something coming back from space but it wouldn’t stand still for that length of time. I don’t know what it was,” Vike said in a phone interview, noticeably boggled by Honeywell’s drawing and description.

The northern lights have been visible for the past few days and were visible the night before the sighting. They are however ruled out as a culprit considering the sun had already come up by the time the object had been spotted.

“You could clearly see a blinking light at the top of it and at one point I could actually see the movement of the plumes. I later googled what I saw and the only similar thing was a plane that had gone through a cloud mixing the plane’s exhaust with the cloud’s vapour water but it didn’t explain the blinking, twinkling light on top. You have to take everything with a grain of salt but I’m not one to say there’s not something out there. Hey, it would sure be a good time to come with all those [beautiful] northern lights,” Honeywell joked.

If anyone has seen a UFO they can contact Vike at houstonbri7@gmail.com

Vanderhoof Omineca Express - https://www.ominecaexpress.com/

The Newspaper Article - https://www.ominecaexpress.com/news/ufo-sighting-in-fort-st-james/

UFOs Rising

Brian Vike's Favorite Cases.

Newspaper Article.

By Thom Barker

Houston Today News.

"The whole province has been really busy." - Brian Vike

After a very quite year, the Northwest is once again becoming the hotbed of UFO sightings.

"The whole province has been really busy," said Brian Vike, a world-renowned ufologist from Houston.

 "I haven't a clue why, 2005 was really dead."

Vike says he gets hundreds of reports a year from all over the world to his website www.hbccufo.org, but the sightings that really get him excited are the local ones.

The most recent of those occurred just three weeks ago in Hazelton. Three witnesses reported seeing a green object rise above the mountain, dash across the sky then disappear.

A week before, two reports came from Topley and Moricetown of very similar incidents on the evening of April 24. And on Feb 12, three people from Houston reported watching an egg-shaped object hover above Mount Harry Davis for two or three minutes before dropping out of sight.

Although Vike is a believer in extraterrestrial life, he said he ends up debunking most of the reports he gets. That was the case April 24 when numerous residents of Terrace witnessed brilliant blue lights in the early evening sky.

Vike tracked that incident to a meteor breaking up low in the atmosphere. "What residents of Terrace saw is a rare event and not to many folks get to see such a fantastic sight in broad daylight," he said.

Then there are the completely inexplicable cases like two Kelowna women who are unable to account for several hours of their lives after they sighted a mysterious object in the sky.

Both women sustained mysterious scars and have reported unceasing nightmares since.

That case is the subject of a segment on CTV's Creepy Canada May 26 and 27. Vike appears on the show as an expert.

Houston Today News - https://www.houston-today.com/

Sasquatch Are Here Says Outdoorsman

Brian Vike's Favorite Cases.

Newspaper Article.

By Bernice Tick.

Prince George Citizen Staff.

A Prince George man whose greatest passion has been hunting for big game admits he's hooked on proving the existence of sasquatch.

Leo Selzer, who has spent 41 years hunting in the bush around Prince George, is convinced the illusive creatures are around, and he spends as much time as he can in the bush area where he believes they live. He says he's had one pretty clear sighting and several occasions when he's convinced he was communicating with his" furry friends."

In the mid- 1980s when Selzer was moose hunting in the Gregg Creek area west of the city, he did his loud moose calls that bring in the bulls during rutting season.

After a few calls I heard a response -- like someone banging on a tree about a kilometer away. I would call. The right away, bang, bang. A small black bear appeared, wandering towards the banging sounds. The bear stopped and stood up on its hind legs looking towards a tall fir tree, and then all of a sudden it hightailed in the opposite direction toward me, veered off and went over the ridge."

It was then that Selzer saw a tall, dark-coloured creature step out from the cover of the fir tree into the open, and then quickly stepped behind the tree and was gone," said Selzer, noting that logged-off has little human activity. In 2000 Selzer was again hunting at Gregg Creek when, at about 400 metres, he spotted what he first thought was a large bear standing on its hind legs watching the hunters.

"It was standing next to a large, broken-off fir tree and was about the same dark colour, maybe greyish around its shoulders and on its chest.

Thinking it could be a grizzly, I kept a close eye on it, watching it shift its weight from one leg to the other a couple of times for about a half hour.

"All of a sudden it was gone, but later I realized a bear would never stand on its hind legs for that long without getting down and back up again," said Selzer.

After studying that area closely, he's concluded the creatures leave landmarks and directional signs by piling trees into X marks behind closely knit trees, and bending and shaping spindly trees into arches and shaped pointers carefully threaded through willow tops.

He believes Sasquatch eat bark from trees like aspens, and has seen markings showing large fingernails and teeth were used to remove bark.

He's also seen large footprints, but hasn't been fortunate to be able to photograph then fresh or complete.

"One footprint, going up a grade, was pretty clear, about 13 to 14 inches long, eight inches wide at the heel, and about six inches wide at the top of the ball of the foot. There were indications of possible toe impressions about one to three inches beyond the ball of the foot."

 

In 1994 on the Hoodoo Lakes road he could hear three individual voices give out a holler or two which was responded to by" jabbering type of language."

"I thought it must be some drunken people back there on a bush road or something, but I later found out there is no road or clearing in that area."

In mid-June, Selzer came across an area in the Gregg Creek, about 300 to 400 yards long, containing a series of blinds and shelters, and tepee-like frameworks he believes were built by a sasquatch.

The blinds are waist to shoulder height with logs and trees pushed together to form a lean-to like structure.

"The frameworks, up to 50 feet high, are made with long spindly trees intricately intertwined to form the structure., "said Selzer.

Brian Vike in Houston, who reports on unidentified flying objects and such matters, has received reports from residents about sasquatch sightings in the Buck Flats area.

"Two Houston women, driving up Buck Flats road, were startled recently when a large animal walked upright across the road in front of their vehicle.

"The animal, described much like a sasquatch, mad long strides into the forest, but did not turn to look back at the women."

He said a camping party at Silverhorne Lake reported hearing chilling screams in the night coming from around the lake, which cannot be associated with the known animals in the region.

"One other sighting was reported on the Morice River Road when two people fishing witnessed a large two-legged animal on the opposite bank of a river walk slowly into the forest and disappear," said Vike.

American William Dranginis, said he saw a bigfoot once - hairy, 7 feet tall, and sprinting through the woods of Virginia.

The 12-second sighting changed the life of Dranginis, who outfitted a 24-foot mobile veterinary clinic as a Bigfoot Primate Research lab.

Equipped with scopes, radios and a Night-Sight camera that can detect an animal in the dark at 800 yards away, he heads out at least two weekends a month. But still no second sighting for Dranginis, who would like to push legislation to protect the creatures.

"Do not shoot it," said Selzer.

"They mean no harm, but they are curious, and incredibly intelligent beings."

Selzer's latest reported sighting on July 20 came from a visiting couple from Saskatoon.

They told Selzer that, while driving Highway 16 East at about 8 p.m. near Tabor Mountain, they saw what they first thought was a large man crossing the highway.

Describing the creature as about 7 1/2 feet tall covered with hair, thick barrelled shoulders and narrow waist, they said it crossed the road about 100 yards ahead of them in about three steps.

The couple, who have never believed in the sasquatch theory, were so haunted by the experience they couldn't sleep.

After they got home they contacted Selzer, who has added his investigation of the area to his website: http://sasquatch-pg.net.

The Prince George Citizen newspaper - http://www.princegeorgecitizen.com/

UFO Sightings Down In Northwest

Brian Vike's Favorite Cases.

Newspaper Article.

By Rikki Schierer.

Houston Today Newspaper.

UFO activity has been fairly slow in the Bulkley Valley recently, ufologist Brian Vike said, however UFO reports elsewhere have picked up, especially in the United Kingdom.

The region from Vanderhoof to Prince Rupert was once known as the UFO capital for Canada, Vike said, due to a sharp increase in activity from 2002-2003.

Yellow  orange glows are usually a good indication of a UFO, Vike said, which have been highly reported in the U.K. After posting one such report to his blog, Vike shut his computer off for the night and in the morning he had 170 reports of the same thing.

“Pretty soon you could figure that one out as being those Chinese lanterns that people let go for New Year’s… but you still got a lot of people who will swear it was a UFO”, Vike said. “I must have had about 600 reports of these orange lights in the U.K., and then it started in Eastern Ontario.”

He’s fairly certain these light have been these Chinese lanterns, Vike said. A lot of the reports he receives are like that, leaving you to sort fact from fiction, but it’s those instances where there’s no explanation that he’s really keen for.

Vike said that he’s been interested in UFO’s since he was a kid. From there, it just sort of grew, until he started the UFO sightings website HBCC UFO Research in 2000.

“It was supposed to be a little hobby… because I enjoyed the topic a lot,” Vike said.

“So they’d send me a report … and eventually over time it just got bigger and bigger.”

His bigger cases were of Crop Circles in 2001 in Vanderhoof, he said, and there was some cattle mutilation elsewhere in B.C., where he worked with local RCMP to help sort that out.

“There was a lot of weird stuff going on,” Vike said.

He’s since sold the website earlier to someone in the States. Featured on radio shows, a T.V. documentary, an extended segment on UFO’s on Creepy Canada, as well as taking in thousands of reports of UFO’s world-wide, it just got to be too much, Vike said, so with regret he sold his domain name in 2009.

“It just got to be too much, there was just so much to do,” Vike said. “It was growing and just never stopped”

He was looking to retire from the business, but when a good friend of his asked him to partner up and bring back the Sightings.com domain name, he was all too happy to agree, he said. Now he and Jeff Rense run the domain, and now it’s just “insane, with the number of reports,” Vie said, but the workload is more manageable because Rense has a full-time webmaster to look after the site. Vike’s and job is to receive the reports, post to a blog, and speak to the people who do submit reports.

“I try to get more information on what day they saw it and try to figure out what it was they saw,” Vike said.

Sightings.com actually began in 1992 as a television program, built around a strong paranormal theme. From there, Rense created an award winning radio program in 1994, covering the UFO and paranormal field. By 1996, Rense had been signed to a five-year exclusive contract with Premiere Radio Networks. It was during this time that Sightings.com was developed, to expand the radio program into the internet, one of the first radio shows to pioneer into the internet active use of the internet in connection to a radio show.

In 1999, he shifted focus a bit, and instead of putting his efforts into Sightings.com worked on developing Rense.com, however now, 11 years later, he has teamed up with Vike to bring back Sightings.com, which he’d always retained.

“There’s a lot of stuff coming in, it’s incredible,” Vike said.

With Sightings.com, the reports are coming in steadily, Vike reports, who had 150 reports come in, in a two week time frame. Reports come in from all over the world, he said.

Types of sightings being reported include lights in the sky to fly triangles, cylinders, or spheres. Witnesses have also recorded a blimp-like object. There does seem to be more triangles reported nowadays than the once-popular disc-shaped UFO.

“There have been so many that I just haven’t a clue what they are,” Vike said.

To check out the new site, or to provide a report, check out sightings.com.

Houston Today Newspaper - https://www.houston-today.com/

The Truth Is Here

Brian Vike's Favorite Cases.

Newspaper Article.

By David Connop Price.

The Interior News.

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.

 The Interior News -  https://www.interior-news.com/

Bright Lights In The Valley

Brian Vike's Favorite Cases.

Newspaper Article.

By Andrew Hudson.

Interior News.

Brian Vike is one of the best-known UFO watchers in Canada. Google “red orange light” and his Vike Factor blog pops up.

A boy across the street from Brian Vike’s house was tilting a new-looking telescope at the moon.

Chances are, he saw what any budding stargazer would expect to see—eye-popping views of the massive lava basins and colossal impact craters that scar the lunar surface.

But if Vike’s young neighbour ever spots something strange in the Bulkley Valley sky, something he can’t explain, he won’t have to go far to make a UFO report.

“Just what I need,” said Vike, laughing.

Brian Vike is one of the best-known UFO watchers in Canada. Google “red orange light” or “large circular UFO” and his Vike Factor blog pops up in the top results.

The site lists 1,712 sightings reports for last year alone.

“Most people, I really do believe, are genuine,” Vike said.

“Their seeing something doesn’t mean it’s extraterrestrial or anything like that. But they are seeing something, and what is it?”

In one report dated New Year’s Day, a man from Duncan, B.C. told Vike that his girlfriend had repeatedly told him about the pairs of “strange orbs” she had seen glowing red and orange in the sky.

“I thought she was off her rocker until last night when I seen this myself,” he wrote to Vike.

“We watched in awe trying to figure out what they could possibly be. An airplane or a helicopter always has beacon lights—these did not!”

Vike said reports come in waves, and it’s not unheard of to get 300 a week.

“It’s amazing stuff, but most of it’s explainable,” Vike said. A lot of the glowing “orbs” turn out to be Chinese paper lanterns—thin paper lanterns that can float up hundreds of feet in the air on the heat of a tiny candle.

In fact, Vike said that lantern “sightings” have become a bit of a nuisance since more and more people in Western countries have started lighting them for weddings and holidays.

Some people get a little upset to hear that their UFO sighting might be nothing more than a hot paper bag.

“You don’t want to tell too many people that because they’ll start cursing at you,” said Vike, laughing.

Standing six feet tall and wearing a plain black baseball cap, it’s hard to imagine anyone getting upset with Vike.

He has a friendly, funny manner that would make him a shoe-in for one of the Lone Gunmen—the squad of amateur conspiracy busters who used to make cameos on The X-Files TV show.

But before he flies off into science fiction, Vike has to check off a list of real-world possibilities for every new UFO report.

That’s the idea, he said—to try and help people discover what they saw.

Vike often starts with websites like Heavens Above, which posts real-time tracking data for satellites, the International Space Station, space shuttle flights and visible meteor passes.

On New Year’s Eve, for example, Vike got a string of UFO sightings from across Arizona, New Mexico and southern Colorado that seemed to follow in the wake of a brightly burning meteor.

Vike also tries to follow launch times at big air bases like the Vandenberg air force base in northern California.

“They’ll send up a lot of rockets, space satellites, and military hardware,” Vike said.

“A lot of people are interested in that alone.”

Many people who stumble on Vike’s website report things they saw years ago. From 1993, Vike noticed a wave of sightings are most likely from people who saw F-117 Nighthawk stealth fighters flying low over North America to fight in the first Gulf War.

“I had a whole whack of reports of triangles coming in along their flight path,” he said.

Military jets, northern lights, space junk and comets—those are all sightings that even alien hopefuls aren’t likely to be disappointed in.

But Vike said it’s easy to be caught off guard by much more Earthly things.

Vike said he once a V-shaped something fly over his home in Houston. He got pretty excited before he heard wings and realized it was a flock of geese.

“At night time, you get town or city lights and they’re low enough that the lights hit their bellies and you get that big V-shape,” he said, laughing.

Still, other reports don’t lend themselves to easy explanation.

This January, a crew from the Canadian Discovery Channel will speak with Vike on camera about a “missing time” case.

Two Kelowna women told Vike that on July 31, 2003, they were walking a dog along a lake and saw three strange lights in the sky. The lights came together in a triangle shape, they said, before dropping and hovering over the highway.

“They claim that they had missing time, and the next morning bruising, bleeding noses,” he said. “And they’ve been very sick since.”

What is really interesting about the Kelowna case, Vike said, is that it is one of many strange reports that followed the terrible number of forest fires in the Okanogan that year.

Despite slowing down a bit, and shutting down a larger website that was getting some 2.5 million hits a month, Vike is still in high demand for his UFO expertise.

For years, he has fielded calls from the likes of CBC and BBC radio, the Discovery Channel and others.

“I just spent more time on this than anything else,” he said. “I think that’s why it kept moving along.”

Fifty years ago, Vike said he was just like the boy across the street, armed with a 50 mm Sears telescope from his parents and a boundless curiosity.

“Yep—I always look in the sky,” he said.

“You never know what you’re going to see.”

Interior News - https://www.interior-news.com/

The Newspaper Article - https://www.interior-news.com/community/our-town-bright-lights-in-the-valley/

Unidentified Flying Object’s Course Plotted To Smithers

Brian Vike's Favorite Cases.

Newspaper Article.

Interior News.

Scientists split: some argue it has a shiny nose, others even say it glows.

North American Air Defence Command (NORAD) has confirmed the Bulkley Valley is the projected touchdown point for an unidentified flying object Christmas morning.

At a press conference on Dec. 22, Smithers Deputy Mayor Gladys Atrill said she has been informed by NORAD the object will enter Bulkley Valley airspace at precisely 12:01 a.m. PDT tomorrow..

“We better watch out,” Atrill said. “This thing is coming to town.”

A highly-placed confidential source inside NORAD told The Interior News they have been monitoring the object since 1955 as it appears in the sky above the North Pole every year on Christmas Eve. The object moves too fast to be tracked by even the most nimble fighter jets, but now, using historical satellite data with the latest sophisticated algorithms, they have been able to precisely plot its course.

“We’re still at a loss to completely explain this phenomenon… it’s almost like it sees us when we’re sleeping and knows when we’re awake,” the NORAD source said. “But we’re very confident with our projections — the Bulkley Valley, the Hazeltons and Kispiox Valley are directly in its path.”

The only other thing known about the object is that infrared sensors on defence satellites have detected a small, but radiant heat signature at the front of the craft. For years scientists have debated the nature of the signature. Some argue the object simply has a very shiny nose, while others even say it glows.

After the NORAD notification, Atrill immediately convened a meeting of Bulkley Valley first responders and initiated what they are calling Operation Mistletoe.

Fire Chief Keith Stecko said Smithers Fire Rescue is ready and residents should not be too alarmed.

“This thing has been around for decades, but we haven’t seen any evidence it’s destructive,” he said. “However, it sounds like there may be a source of ignition associated with it, so we will be keeping an eye out for that.”

Smithers RCMP Staff Sgt. Terry Gillespie has also mobilized his force.

“Our officers are making lists and checking them twice,” he said. “We’re going to find out who’s naughty and nice, but so far it has been a silent night, there’s not a creature stirring.”

Brian Vike, a renowned ufologist in Houston, B.C., told The Interior News the annual phenomenon is well-documented, but governments have long kept it hidden from the public.

“Most of the stuff we see in the sky is explainable, but there are sightings that I cannot figure out, like this one. Usually it’s just one bright red light, but there’s a structure to it. It’s tracking very quickly across the sky and has a kind of comet spray behind it. Sometimes it comes to a hover, or it may make a wide loop around and drop down onto a rooftop. Some people have even reported hearing what they describe as a jolly laughing sound.“

Deputy Mayor Atrill appealed to residents to remain calm.

“We don’t anticipate it poses any threat,” she said. “I would just say, Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night.”

Interior News - https://www.interior-news.com/

The Newspaper Article - https://www.interior-news.com/news/unidentified-flying-objects-course-plotted-to-smithers/

Did You See The Ahwatukee Lights?

Brian Vike's Favorite Cases.

Newspaper Article.

By Allison Hurtado. 

Ahwatukee Foothills News.

Just over a month after the anniversary of the Phoenix Lights some mysterious lights appeared over Ahwatukee Foothills.

I didn’t see the lights myself, but Ahwatukee Foothills resident Laurie Elle did and she did her best to snap photos and video before the lights disappeared.

Laurie said it was Saturday, March 24 when she saw the lights. She was sitting in her front room working on Facebook and getting ready to leave for the night. When she opened her door she saw some strange moving lights near Pecos Road.

The lights were flashing red and moving from west to east in clusters of about 10. Laurie says the lights were very close but they made no noise.

As someone who grew up with a dad in the military and later married an airplane technician, Laurie said she would be someone to recognize an airplane or helicopter and that’s not what this was.

“I just cannot figure it out,” Laurie said. “How could something be so low and so close and make no noise? It was just incredible.”

Laurie wasn’t the only one to see the lights. A posting on ufoworldnews.com tells the story of several orange-red lights seen moving from west to east over Ahwatukee around the same time.

The poster saw six to eight lights in a formation first, then more lights lower on the horizon in no apparent formation moving much quicker.

“In all, I believe I saw approximately 18 lights moving around the sky,” the post said. “What we saw did not seem to fit with anything that any of us had seen before. These lights did not match the videos of the original Phoenix Lights… These objects weren’t following any of the usual airline traffic patterns and did not have the same lights as commercial aircraft. We could see other aircraft coming in to approach Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport and other regional airports at the time of this sighting, and these lights were in a very different area, displaying different colors, and behaving very differently.”

I asked the Federal Aviation Association about the lights and Ian Gregor, spokesperson for the FAA, said they had not observed any unusual aircraft in the area.

He didn’t offer any guesses of his own as to what the lights could have been.

Brian Vike, who runs his own blog documenting strange sightings (http://the-v-factor-paranormal.blogspot.ca), said so far in his research he hadn’t seen anything about the lights over Ahwatukee on March 24, but that he’s seen a rise in sightings recently.

“I might have something in the inboxes, but I am so swamped with sighting reports it isn’t funny coming from worldwide,” Vike wrote in an email. “Seems we can post anywhere from 10 to well over 20 sighting reports per day.

“So far in 2012, this is for January, February and March, we have posted 1,179 and there is still close to 70 to 80 reports to get to. For some unknown reason, sightings are up over every kind of object you can think of.”

Vike encourages anyone who has seen something to tell him about it through his email, houstonbri7@gmail.com.

So with a rise in sightings worldwide, is there something going on or just more paranoia?

Laurie said if it was something strange flying over Ahwatukee on March 24, it was nothing to be feared.

“It was peaceful,” she said. “If it was them, then they didn’t do anything. They were in a hurry, they were quick, checking things out, and then they were gone, and I just watched. There was nothing scary about it.”

Ahwatukee Foothills News -  https://www.eastvalleytribune.com/

The Newspaper Article - https://www.eastvalleytribune.com/local/the_valley/ahwatukee/did-you-see-the-ahwatukee-lights/article_36a8c8ae-b88a-56ea-a814-f012cf1c369b.html

UFOs Or Paper Lanterns?

Brian Vike's Favorite Cases.

Newspaper Article.

By Jennifer Lang.

Cloverdale Reporter.

Dozens of Cloverdale residents have recently reported seeing strange lights in the night sky. An explanation may be blowing in the wind.

Was it a practice run for the Mayan calendar prediction? Was it E.T. phoning home?

Or was it a group of illuminated, floating paper lanterns, released into the skies over Cloverdale by some celebrant who got carried away by the spirit of the season?

We may never know for sure, but at least one Cloverdale resident who saw bright, moving lights in the skies on Dec. 22 (“Strange Lights Over Cloverdale,” Jan. 12) believes the sighting was really paper lanterns, which float on the air using candle power.

“That night my sons and I saw nearly 20 of these,” Jonas Lee Photography posted on the Reporter’s

Facebook Page after reading the story.

“We followed one and found where it crashed. It was a metre-diametre Chinese paper lantern! The wind was causing these to blow quite far.”

He didn’t get a photo, however. “The rice paper dissolves quickly,” he wrote, “leaving a wire frame and foam pad that the candle rests in.”

Another local eyewitness concurs with the lantern theory.

“I do believe what you saw was lanterns,” the witness told UFO expert Brian Vike, submitting a report to the Houston, B.C.,-based researcher’s blog, The Vike Factor.

This eyewitness has seen them floating in the skies here on Canada Day and other holidays.

“If you find out who let them go I would sure love to know the story.”

The lantern theorists are among dozens of Cloverdalians who reported seeing unusual lights in the sky on Dec. 22, and over the Christmas holidays as part of a Yuletide flood of UFO reports submitted to The Vike Factor from B.C., the U.S. and elsewhere.

Vike found it curious that there were so many reports coming out of Surrey.

Among the reports was the story of a local man who posted video footage captured after he and his son pulled over on their drive home to watch the strange sight.

The lights – which were silent – didn’t appear to act like aircraft, according to the man who shot the footage. But he’s not yet convinced that what he and others saw that night were lanterns.

In coming forward with his sighting, the man is hoping someone will be able to identify what he – and the other people who stopped their cars along 60 Avenue to watch – saw that night.

“I hope someone has an explanation,” he said.

Since his story was featured in The Reporter, more Cloverdale residents have now reported seeing strange, bright lights over Cloverdale, snapping photos and shooting video, and posting their findings on Facebook pages.

A couple who were up late wrapping presents went out to their backyard after noticing a cluster of strange lights travelling across the sky on Dec. 22.

“It was eerie to say the least, and I wanted to notify someone but thought I would sound like a lunatic,” she said. “I was relieved to see the sighting in the paper yesterday, but it still leaves me with an uneasy feeling.”

Another witness was equally baffled, describing how, a few nights before Christmas, three orange lights could be seen moving very slowly, one at a time, very high in the sky. One seemed to stop, make a 90-degree turn and start moving east.

“I dragged my 17-year-old son outside onto the deck to watch, and he thought they were definitely not airplanes, especially given the extreme right turn they each made.”

Another person was also relieved after reading the story. “Unless you’ve seen them yourself, it really is a bizarre sighting.”

It’s hard not to conclude it’s all really part of a sneaky advertising scheme dedicated to stirring up that all-important buzz for a product.

“Don’t be surprised if your display makes front page news in your local paper!” A website that sells paper lanterns called FlyingLanterns.co.uk gushes. “Flying lanterns can easily be mistaken for UFOs!”

If so, then a lot of people will feel duped.

It’s worth noting the site carries this warning: Please ensure you contact the local coast guard if you intend releasing your lanterns on the beach or near the coast. This will avoid causing unnecessary alarm.

Vike, who’s investigated hundreds of UFO sightings, concedes the strange lights may turn out to be lanterns but he doesn’t expect it will dampen the debate for now.

The time of year – the festive holiday season – may further underscore this theory.

“It would be the time of year that folks would let things like this go, and they are becoming a popular addition to fireworks. I just wish we [could hear from] the folks who know for a fact, the folks who let them go. This would be awesome.”

See related story: Strange Lights over Cloverdale - https://www.cloverdalereporter.com/news/strange-lights-over-cloverdale/

Cloverdale Reporter - https://www.cloverdalereporter.com/

The Newspaper Article - https://www.cloverdalereporter.com/news/ufos-or-paper-lanterns/

Strange Lights Over Cloverdale

Brian Vike's Favorite Cases.

Newspaper Article.

By Jennifer Lang.

CloverdaleReporter.

UFO expert says Surreyites saw something unexplained in the skies over Cloverdale this Christmas.

A couple of nights before Christmas Eve a Cloverdale man and his son were driving home along 60 Avenue west from 176 Street in Surrey when they were distracted by some unusual lights in the sky near their house.

The driver pulled over, grabbed his cell phone, and immediately started recording, hoping to capture the strange sight on video.

His Dec. 22 footage – since posted to YouTube – shows several clusters of bright, white lights that appear to change pattern and move against an inky black sky.

“That can’t be planes,” the witness says, his voice tinged with wonder and curiosity.

“Do you see them there?” he continues.

“Some are moving sideways. See that one that was just flashing? What the hell? That’s above our area. This is in Cloverdale,” he remarks incredulously.

It seems there was something unusual over the Surrey skies over the Christmas holidays, but it wasn’t Santa’s sleigh.

As many as nine different eyewitnesses reported seeing strange white and orange lights over Cloverdale between Christmas and New Years Eve, according to B.C.’s premier UFO researcher, Brian Vike.

The Surrey sightings were part of a much larger wave of UFO reports that flooded his email inbox over the Yuletide season.

“All of a sudden, everything started popping up and flying every which way, almost all at once,” he said, adding reports came in from B.C., the U.S., U.K., and even Australia and South Africa.

It’s all fascinating stuff for Vike, an astronomy buff who first began looking into UFO phenomena and other mysteries in 2000.

These days, he runs a blog called The Vike Factor from his home in Houston, B.C., 800 kms northeast of Vancouver, collecting and investigating reports from all over the world.

Normally, most sightings can be explained; stars, planets, aircraft, satellites, and meteors can be all mistaken for UFOs, which he believes was the case with a rash of colourful New Year’s Eve sightings that came in from Arizona, New Mexico and Colorado.

Chinese paper lanterns – which can float high into the sky on the heat of a candle – are increasingly popular among celebrants on holidays and weddings, leading him to caution that a number of the nearly 400 reports he’s sorting through from Dec. 22 to Jan. 8 can probably be explained.

But so far, the veteran UFO chaser is stumped by the Cloverdale sightings. “How do you explain these other orange lights going off in other directions? What the heck is it? We just don’t know.”

He sporadically receives reports from Surrey, but never so many in a short time frame.

“In Surrey, Cloverdale, definitely, that was an influx in sightings for whatever reason,” he said. They include a Dec. 22 report from a jogger who was running along 60 Avenue near 171 Street and saw six orange lights.

More reports followed on New Years Eve, when a group of revelers went outside at midnight with the kids to make noise and light sparklers and all saw orange lights in a line zooming at intervals across the sky.

For now, Vike hasn’t determined what the true explanation may be, but he doubts they were paper lanterns or even weather balloons. “They just don’t fit this sighting.” Maybe the answer lies in the simple fact that people take time off over the holidays, and are traveling at night to socialize.

“They have more time to sit back, they’re more relaxed and have more time to look up. It’s the same when summer time gets here.”

The Cloverdale man who took the Dec. 22 YouTube footage told the Reporter Wednesday he doesn’t think the lights he captured using his cellphone were extra terrestrial in origin.

He doubts they were aircraft of some kind – there was no engine or propeller noise, for example. Plus, the lights appeared quite low in the sky, below a layer of low-lying cloud cover that evening.

“They were too close [to the ground] to be stars,” he said. “It didn’t look like planes.”

The episode lasted about 10 minutes, he said.

At around 9:30 p.m. that evening, dozens of lights appeared in the sky to the north of 60 Avenue near 168 Street and moved south towards Highway 10.

“At first they seemed to be in a line and they were moving,” he said. The lights then slowed and some stopped, setting into motion again once he’d turned on his cell phone camera.

In coming forward with his sighting, the man is hoping someone will be able to identify what he – and the other people who stopped their cars along 60 Avenue to watch – saw that night.

“I hope someone has an explanation.”

For more information, visit The Vike Report at: https://canadaufo.blogspot.com/

Cloverdale Reporter - https://www.cloverdalereporter.com/

The Newspaper Article - https://www.cloverdalereporter.com/news/strange-lights-over-cloverdale/