Brian Vike's
Favorite Cases.
Newspaper Article.
By John Barker editor@thompsoncitizen.net/ Thompson Citizen
January 5, 2011 03:00 a.m.
A Thompson woman says she saw three
unexplained reddish orange lights in a triangle" Christmas Eve at 7:47
p.m. in the night sky over Thompson.
The strange lights were apparently visible
for close to an hour between 7 p.m. and 8 p.m. Christmas Eve.
"My boyfriend came running into the
house yelling at us to come look at the sky, says Kimberly Wavey. "When me
and my mom got outside we saw three reddish orange lights in a triangle. They
looked the same size as the stars. Then after about a minute the middle light
fell and faded then the first light faded. I ran inside to grab some binoculars
and when I got outside the last light wasn't there.
Wavey said before she got outside her
boyfriend saw "five lights in the distance that could've been confused
with something else then with great speed was almost right above me, and I
could see the lights in the front that formed a triangle while the lights in
the back seem to fade and it seemed like it was cloaked, like there was
something I wasn't fully seeing."
It's at least the second reported UFO
sighting in Northern Manitoba this month. On Dec. 10, near Bird, two hours
north of Fox Lake, between Gillam and Avery on the Bayline, there were reports
of red, blue and green lights hovering over, or off to the side of the tracks,
and illuminating a train.
The two recent Manitoba reports, "UFO
Interferes With Railway Trains Controls 2 Hours North Of Fox Lake
Manitoba?" and "4 Orange Red Balls Of Light Over Thompson
Manitoba" appear on Brian Vike's The Vike Factor into the Paranormal blog
at: http://canadaufo.blogspot.com/2010/12/4-orange-red-balls-of-light-over.html
and
http://canadaufo.blogspot.com/2010/12/ufo-interferes-with-railway-trains.html
Vike reports multiple unexplained
sightings from across the country monthly from readers who send in their
sightings to the blog.
The very first documented sighting of an
Unidentified Flying Object (UFO) in this area came from the journals of 18th
century explorers David Thompson and Andrew Davies.
Thompson's journal states that in the
autumn of 1792 they were camped at Landing Lake, near Thicket Portage, when
they saw a brilliant "meteor of globular form larger than the moon."
The object seemed to come directly towards them, lowering as it travelled, and
"when within 300 yards of us, it struck the river ice, with a sound like a
mass of jelly, was dashed in innumerable luminous pieces and instantly
expired."
The next morning when they went to see the
hole it should have made in the ice, they were surprised to find no markings
whatsoever. UFO researcher Chris Rutkowski, research co-ordinator for UFOlogy
Research of Manitoba (URM) told the Thompson Citizen in an April 2008 interview
that in some ways the object sounded like a bolide - a brilliant meteor - that
through a trick of the eye might appear to be nearby, although in reality it
could have been miles away. He also adds that it is interesting that the two
heard a sound, something rare for meteors, and furthermore described the object
as "globular" and that "it had no tail and no luminous sparks
came from it until it dashed to pieces."
The Winnipeg-based UFOlogy Research of
Manitoba investigates and researches Canadian UFO sightings, and Rutkowski says
the night skies over Manitoba average about three or four sightings a month.
UFOlogy Research is concerned that most of
the sightings were not reported to investigators in Manitoba but were instead
submitted to websites around the globe.
That makes it difficult for researchers
here to speak to witnesses, collect further information and potentially rule
out objects as planets or stars instead of UFOs.
"Every year, it's whittled down to
about three per cent to five percent that don't have an easy explanation,"
said Rutkowski.
Among the UFOs sightings reported in
September 2007, one came from a witness parked near Headingley about 2 a.m. on
Sept. 10.
The man claims he heard a humming sound
and then saw a light in the northern sky. He turned and saw a "floating
disc" land in a field. Scared, he jumped in his car and drove away. In his
rearview mirror, the witness said he saw the object rise from the ground and
race across the sky before vanishing.
In an attempt to explain the rise in UFO
sightings over time, Rutkowski said it's possible there's something out there
or that "people are paying more attention to their surroundings."
You can follow Rutkowski on Twitter at:
http://twitter.com/ufologyresearch or his blog at: http://uforum.blogspot.com/
David Thompson goes on in his journals to
describe a second such meteor, and this one again "passed close by me
striking the trees with the sound of a mass of jelly." He thought the
height was no more than eight feet above the ground, although dimensions can be
quite deceiving at night, and this estimate could be incorrect. Nevertheless,
we are left with an interesting historical account of a strange event in the woods
just 30 to 50 kilometres from what is now Thompson.
A more disturbing UFO account comes from
1967. A woman (the family name has been deleted from the case files) was
walking through her house around 6 p.m. in Thompson, when she heard an odd
beeping sound. It was repeated at regular intervals of about one second, and
she wondered what was causing it. She looked out her kitchen window, and saw
dirt and loose pieces of paper flying in a large circle around her house.
Outside, she found her husband, who had just come home, and five children
staring up into the sky. A young boy was holding her eight-year old daughter
down on the ground. Up in the sky a rectangular object hung in the air, slowly
rotating counter-clockwise and showing alternating silver and black sides. It
was black on its lower surface, and made no noise.
The object began moving off on an angle,
stopped and hovered, then continued towards the southwest. Until this time the
circle of dirt and dust and papers had persisted, but it now died down. The
whirlwind was confined to the area immediately around their house and did not
affect any other house on the street. When the object moved away, the dirt feel
to the ground. Going to the children, the woman found they were calming down
except her daughter, who seemed dazed. The boy explained that the five of them
had been playing in the yard when the object first appeared overhead.
As they watched, her daughter had been
levitated into the air, apparently caused by the UFO in the sky. By the time
the other children came to her aid she was about one metre off the ground and
her clothes had edged up her body. Her daughter said she did not remember
anything from the time she felt the wind until the time she recovered after
being dragged back to the ground.
The most famous UFO sighting in Manitoba
history also took place in 1967. Known as the Falcon Lake Incident, it occurred
on May 20, 1967, when Stephen Michalak claimed that he encountered a
unidentified flying object (UFO) near Falcon Lake, while taking a short
vacation in Whiteshell Provincial Park, not far west of the Ontario border.
Michalak claimed to have been burned by
the craft's exhaust vent, which was covered by an ovular grid, he said.
Michalak, an industrial mechanic born in
Poland was a resident of Winnipeg, but had taken a short vacation in the Falcon
Lake area, where he had prospected as an amateur geologist before, to search
for veins of quartz he had been told could be near the lake.
Shortly after noon, Michalak said he was
disturbed by a noise similar to geese's grunts. When he looked up, he spotted
two cigar-shaped objects, which were red and brilliant as fire. They were
descending at 45 degrees, he said, adding the more they approached the more
oval they became.
One of the objects stopped in the air, he
said, while the other landed on a big rock 160 feet away from him.
After some moments, the object floating
above Michalak changed its color to grey, and then flew directly west,
disappearing through the clouds. The landed object also changed to grey, and
then to a color similar to incandescent stainless steel.
From the interior opening of the object,
some violet light rays were emitted, he said, but as Michalak was already using
special glasses to examine the quartz, the rays didn't affect him, he claimed.
The object was said to have a sulfurous smell and made a humming noise.
Half an hour passed, and Michalak still
was observing the spaceship. Suddenly, a door opened, he said, and he could see
that the interior of the UFO was very illuminated. He approached closer and
heard some voices coming from inside the ship.
Believing that the object was an
experimental American flying object, he tried to make a contact in English. As
no answers were given, he tried other languages in vain. Nervous, he walked to
the open door, and saw a panel and some lights inside the ship.
He did not see anybody, he said, so he
waited. Suddenly, the door closed. Despite the surprise, he discovered a
colourful glass around the UFO. It was very well conserved, with no cracks. He
attempted to touch it, but his glove simply melted, the heat hurting his hand
through the glove's protection.
A metallic box full of holes came off the
UFO in what seemed to be a grid-like exhaust vent. A steamy explosion occurred,
he said, and some kind of gas was expelled in his direction. Immediately, his
clothes started to burn, Michalak said. As the object flew after the other one,
Michalak was left behind desperately trying to extinguish the fire.
Once the fire was extinguished, Michalak
said he felt pain and sickness and noticed a metallic odour from the inside of
his body, like the smell of something electric that is burning. He initially
claimed the burns were caused by airplane exhaust. The RCMP later confirmed
that Michalak had been drinking beer the night before the sighting he reported.
The Department of National Defence still
identifies the Falcon Lake case as unsolved. Michalak died in 1999 at the age
of 83.
A Feb. 23, 1971 UFO sighting at 232
Deerwood Dr. by Gisella and Louis Kovacs is on file in the National Archives of
Canada and National Research Council of Canada. From about 8:30 to 9:30 p.m.
the Kovacs reported to Thompson RCMP that they saw a "plate shaped object
about the size of a full moon. This object was flashing from red to green to
yellow to blue also a red flash from the north side of the object was
sighted."
RCMP officers G.H. Donovan and E.C. Wesley
who investigated noted in their official report "the Kovacs were sober and
did not appear to have been drinking when the statements were obtained."
There was also a well-known UFO sighting
and possible attempted alien abduction, some witnesses believed, locally years
ago on Cypress Crescent, behind the Thompson Professional Building on Selkirk
Avenue, in the Juniper area.
And finally in 1992 a group of children
were playing in a field when they saw some bright lights floating near some
snow banks. When they approached the lights they encountered a tall hairy
humanoid with red glowing eyes. They fled in terror and the parents and medical
personnel who treated the children said that they were truly terror stricken
and believed what they saw.
There were nine reported UFO sightings in
the Flin Flon area between 1947 to and November 2008, residents have reported
nine UFO sightings, according to the official record-keeper of such data,
UFOlogy Research of Manitoba.
While some are quick to equate UFOs to
otherworldly crafts piloted by extraterrestrials, Rutkowski stresses a
fact-based interpretation.
"UFOs are simply objects that an
observer cannot identify," he says. "There is no proof that some are
from other planets."
Rutkowski says most of Flin Flon's
sightings have been recounted by witnesses as odd lights or fireballs, both of
which are common descriptions.
The most unusual, he says, was reported
back in 1947 when a platter-shaped object was seen silhouetted against a stormy
sky.
"It moved east to west at a high
speed, and was towards the north," says Rutkowski.
Until November 2008, the most recent Flin
Flon sighting had come in 1979 from a Mountie who claimed to have gazed upon a
"fireball" in the sky.
Then on Nov. 20, 2008, at 6:30 p.m.,
another fireball was said to have illuminated the sky.
No official sightings have ever come from
Creighton or Denare Beach, though it is possible some occurred and were
reported as being from Flin Flon.
About 60 kilometres northeast, in tiny
Sherridon, a lone sighting was reported on Feb. 11, 2001.
"Someone watched an oval object with
rotating lights on its bottom and a sphere attached underneath," says
Rutkowski.
Other Northern Manitoba sightings include
three in Cranberry Portage and nine in The Pas.
Rutkowski concludes that when population
is factored in, the number of sightings in Northern Manitoba is on par with
other parts of the province.
"It's a matter of trees falling in
the forest," he says. "You need people around to see them and report
them, so there are more reported in larger communities."
Rutkowski speculates some sightings go
unreported, in part because witnesses fear being labelled oddballs who believe
in little green men.
"It could be for many reasons. That's
one of them," he says. "It could be simply because people are
hesitant to come forward with information, as they are about coming forward if
they see a drunk driver, or know someone is lying on a tax return."
URM is a private, not-for-profit
organization involved in "rational discourse, investigation and
research" of UFOs and related phenomena.
Despite its name, the organization,
established in Winnipeg in 1975, is actually a national group that studies
cases from coast to coast.
"At this time, we are the only
(Canadian) group that is doing so," says Rutkowski, who holds science and
education degrees.
Rutkowski encourages anyone who sees a UFO
to report it to a research group such as URM.
With files from Len Podbisky and Jonathon
Naylor at The Reminder in Flin Flon.
Thompson Citizen Newspaper -
https://www.thompsoncitizen.net/
The Newspaper Article -
https://www.thompsoncitizen.net/news/thompson/ufo-sighting-over-thompson-1.1375372
