textfiles/ufo/SIGHTINGS/saskufo.ufo

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SASKUFO.TXT -  Text file that was scanned and processed via OCR by
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            SASKATCHEWAN, 1933: UFO STOPS FOR "REPAIRS"

             BY   JOHN BRENT MUSGRAVE    (FSR Vol 22 # 6 1976)

         Even as late as the mid 1930's, much of the prairie
        provinces of Canada was still on the frontier of
        immigrant  settlement.  Particularly  in  the northern
        areas homesteaders were just beginning to open up
        the  land  to  commerce  and  agriculture,  and  such
        Luxuries  as  telephones, paved roads and electricity
        were  things  of  the  future. The town  of Nipawin,
        Saskatchewan, is situated in the northwest corner of
        the province and in the 30's was on the edge of this
        settlement.  During  the  summer  of  1933  stories
        drifted into Nipawin that some homesteaders. as well
        as a forest tower ranger, bad been observing strange
        lights in  the  sky and near the ground. Whatever it
        was, they had been seeing it for the better part of a
        week.  The  land to the northwest of Nipawin, near
        the Tobin Lake area, is made up of rolling hills and
        low lying marsh. Parts of it bad begun to be farmed
        just a few years earlier, and it was without improvement
         Because of the local marsh, most of the towns-
        folk who beard about the  strange  lights  explained
        them away as swamp gas - a convenient scapegoat
        that still gets used today.
            Fortunately, not  everyone  in Nipawin was  con-
        vinced that the stories were based on nothing more
        than  ""hot  air,,:  and  shortly  after  midnight  that
        summer night two men and a woman (names known
        to the author) jumped into a small pick-up truck and
        drove to the area where the lights were reported to
        have been seen. They were not disappointed as the
        glow on the horizon gradually grew brighter as they
        drove on.  After driving as  close  as the rough trail
        would allow them, they got out and hiked through
        the woods in the direction of the glow. They were
        blocked  a quarter of a mile  or less from reaching
        the source of the glow by a strip of muskeg that was
        too boggy to risk on to in the middle of the night.
        But  it was  close enough. From their vantage point
        they  were  able  to  make  out  that the light  came
        from  a  large  oval shaped  object  that  was  domed
        at  the  top and slightly rounded on the bottom. It
        was  supported  by  legs  and  from  a central door-
        way, or hatch, about a dozen figures could be seen
        going  up  and  down  a  ladder-like  stairway.  The
        Occupants appeared to be  slightly shorter than the
        average man, and were all dressed in what appeared
        to be silver colored suits or uniforms. All appeared
        to be wearing helmets or ski caps, and all were busy
        running around ""repairing,, the craft.
            All about was a strange sort of quiet, even though
        the  occupants  were  busy  scurrying  about.  Not  a
        sound could be heard. The three witnesses stared in
        silent amazement at what was going on, no one even
        thought to speak out. The bright orange glow that
        emanated from the craft lit up the surroundings area,
        and the three of them bad no difficulty spying on
  the activities. The light from the craft was not only
  bright, but bad an ""unearthly,, quality never seen by
  any of them before and added to the mystery of the
  scene.  After about a half hour the three  of them
  returned  to  the  truck  and  started  back  to  town
  hoping to  find a way around the muskeg to get a
  closer  look  at  the  strange machine parked in  the
  middle of a marsh miles away from the nearest farm-
  house  or  forest  tower.  But when they finally did
  come  across  a  cut-off  trail  that  might  take  them
  closer  they  realized  that they didn't have  enough
  gasoline to  take them in and  out. So they had to
  return home that night.
      It was not until a couple of nights later that they
  were able to make a return trip out. It was a clear
  night with almost a full moon, and they hoped to get
  an even better view.  But this night the object was
  gone.  No  trace  of the glowing craft could be seen
  from the vantage point of two nights previous, and
  they returned to the truck to await dawn. They then
  walked  back  in  across  the  muskeg  to  see  if nay
  evidence of what they had seen was Left. And there
  was.  six large square imprints that must have been
  the bases of the legs that supported the craft proved
  that  there  indeed  had  been  something  there  that
 night.  Each imprint was the same  size  - 2 to  2 1/2
 feet  square,  and approximately S to  10 feet apart.
 The imprints were 2 to 3 inches deep, and reminded
 the three of them of a kind of mark that would be
 made by boiler plate stomped into the ground. They
 could also see markings where the base of the stair-
 way met ground. As if this wasn't remarkable enough,
 a great burn mark in the center of the area covered a
 circle  approximately   I 2  feet  in  diameter.  They
 looked for footprints but found none though there
 was some scuffling of the vegetation surrounding the
 spot where the craft had been.
        They came better prepared this time. One of the
    witnesses  had  brought  along a small brownie box
    camera  and  took  photographs  of  the burn marks
    and of the imprints. Later two of them wrote up an
    article about the whole affair and submitted it, along
    with copies of the photos, to a number of magazines
    and newspapers in Canada. But no publication was
    interested,   and   those   publishers   that   replied
    wondered what kind of party they had been to those
    nights. Like many other UFO witnesses the three of
   selves. In the course of the 40 plus years since the
   incident, the original photographs have been lost by
   the witness who took them, and who bad learned the
   hard way that they were apparently of no interest to
   anyone  else.  Perhaps  copies  of  them  are  still  in
   existence  stored in an attic or sandwiched between
   vacation  shots  in  some  photo  album.  If they are
   ever  uncovered  they may prove to be the  earliest
   photographs of a physical trace case where there were
   witnesses, and which even had occupants to boot.