- The sun's first rays were creeping into the morning sky
September 22nd, when Beverly Evans saw a strange object in the sky heading
towards her. Little more than a hundred meters from her car it changed
direction, flying up and out of sight.
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- Beverly is not alone in seeing mysterious objects in
the sky. So many have been seen in the Houston-Smithers-Terrace region
in the last few years, that Houston Ufologist Brian Vike has called the
area the UFO capital of Canada.
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- 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 8 behind
Vancouver, the leading city for UFO sightings.
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- The following are eye witness accounts of some of the
events that have some calling this area .... the UFO Triangle....
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- Mellow Yellow - Wednesday September 22nd 2004 6.40 a.m.
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- 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.
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- It crossed Highway 16 about 100 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.
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- Just as she thought it was going to crash, the object
rose up and disappeared into the clouds. The object 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.
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- Bright Light of Houston - August 11th, 2004 2.45 a.m.
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- 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 kind of startling" said Eddie.
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- "It was standing in behind the trees but it came
through the trees so you couldn't see any of the trees because of the light.
But there was heavy trees there and there shouldn't be light coming through
there".
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- 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 just seemed like an awful strange thing that
the light can shine through the trees".
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- The Pink Thing - April 8th 2004 11.20 p.m.
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- This bizarre phenomenon was seen by two different Smithers
residents. One reported sighting came from 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" Anne said. "It was a large
pink spherical object, very bright pink, a colour all the girls like."
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- "It was not above the mountain, it was hovering
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 was no sound
coming from the object nor did it have a tail", she said. "But
it did have a dark blue aura around it". Anne believes it was at
least the size of a big truck tire and "it wasn't moving like a plane
or anything like that."
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- Anne, 62, laughs saying "I haven't lost my marbles
yet so I wasn't imagining things!"
- "I was fascinated. I'm like, what am I seeing here?"
You know its really strange".
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- The Pink Thing II - April 16th, 2004 10.45 p.m.
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- 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.
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- "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,".
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- 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 the full moon".
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- 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.
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- "I just couldn't understand what it was", said
Ruby. " Then I went to work and told one of my friends that I'd just
seen a UFO and she was jealous".
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- The Bulkley Valley Speed Ball - July 29th 2002 10.20
p.m.
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- The object grew a tail as it gained speed towards Tweedsmuir
Park and shot out of sight, ending the 20 second display.
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- "In my mind it looked like a meteorite, but it was
like no meteorite I had ever seen. I'd seen meteor showers before, but
they never looked anything like this. I really don't know what it was,"
Mike concludes.
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- 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.
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- 10.45 pm. Gordon Stewart settled down to watch a movie
after spending the day on his Telkwa farm. The bay windows facing his chair
overlooked the valley. A bright light flashed by his field of vision
and he was astonished by its peculiarity and speed. He walked onto the
porch, where he was greeted by only silence and a sky with light cloud
cover.
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- Gordon, who used to drive 200-mph dragsters, estimated
the speed of the object at 650-miles per hour. "If you had blinked
you would have missed it", he said. From where he was sitting, the
light appeared the size of a pick up truck.
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- 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.
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- "I didn't want to tell him because he'd think I
was crazy", Joanna recalled.
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- The flat trajectory and lack of sound would rule out
a meteorite. A comet was spotted the same night, but its glowing green
light, arc-shaped flight and Hudson Bay Mountain location do not tally
with Gordon's sighting.
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- 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 - 11.04 p.m. However a Central Mountain Air spokesman
saw no connection between the occurrences.
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- She speculated that the tiny Cessna 185 would not emit
a bright light of that magnitude and its engines would be heard at a close
proximity.
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- Dina's observation in Quick shared many 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 light are similar
too.
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- "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.
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- Hoaxes aren't common either, said Vike.
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- "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."
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- Chris Rutkowski is the Research Co-ordinator for the
Canadian UFO Survey. He collects data on sightings across Canada and is
the repository for UFO reports received by the Government.
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- He said the activity in Smithers-Houston-Terrace area
is "very significant for the population."
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- While noting that sightings are down this year, Rutkowski
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".
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- "In fact, for the past five years or so, it appears
that British Columbia has had far more than its share of UFO reports than
we would expect, based simply on population".
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- If, as the saying goes, the truth is out there, it may
be right here in B.C.'s Central Interior towns of Houston, Smithers and
Terrace.
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- The names Beverly Evans and Mike Hill are pseudonyms.
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