Page 28 - The 'X' Chronicles Newspaper - September 2021

28 Alien Fever or Pandemic Boredom?

Canadian UFO sightings

are up — but are aliens or

COVID-19 to blame?

By Leslie Young

On a Friday evening in 2007, Lee and his wife
had just returned home for the weekend. After
bringing their bags inside, Lee went out to his
deck in rural southern New Brunswick for a
smoke.

Then he noticed some out-of-place lights at the
edge of the woods.

He initially dismissed the lights as “kids on four-
wheelers,” he told Global News. But then he
wondered if he should check it out, in case
someone had suffered an accident in the dark.

“I was going to go back in and grab my keys,
and I go to turn around and I see this thing
coming out of the wood line, straight up,” he Canada has a long history of UFO sightings, “They took it seriously right away, only because
said. with approximately three new reports every day, they thought that it might be advanced Soviet
according to research compiled in the Canadian technology that they had no knowledge of. And
“It had orange lights — bright, bright orange UFO Report by author and ufologist Chris of course, this is the beginning of the Cold War,”
lights — and it comes up vertical just like a Rutkowski. he said.
helicopter would, and hovers there for a minute
or two. There were 1,243 sightings reported across Officials worried that the Soviets might attack
Canada in 2020, a big jump from the previous the United States through Canada, so the
“I can’t see the shape of it… and then all of a year, according to Rutkowski’s research. But in Canadian Department of Transport hired Wilbert
sudden it just went vertical, almost vertical, just general, his reports indicate that sightings have Smith to launch a UFO research project, Hayes
an unbelievable speed. It was out of sight within increased over the last 30 years. said. That program, dubbed Project MAGNET,
two or three seconds. It was just phenomenal.” studied disturbances in Earth’s magnetic field,
Northern lights from another world? which might help explain the phenomenon.
Lee says the object didn’t resemble any kind of
airplane or helicopter, and it didn’t make any People report everything from just simply lights “It amounted to basically nothing. He wasn’t
noise. He estimates it was about the size of a in the sky to things that have a little more able to come up with any real conclusions or
small car, though he had a hard time seeing “concrete evidence,” Rutkowski said. anything, but there was a lot of press, a lot of
details. bad press, according to the government,” Hayes

“But the average sighting is simply a light said.
Lee ran inside to tell his wife. She laughed at his moving in the night sky, and those often have
story, teased him about seeing “little green men” some simple explanations,” he said, saying Canada terminated the project in 1954. Other
and then told him to keep the sighting to himself, satellites, drones or aircraft could account for government projects looked into UFOs
because others wouldn’t believe it. these phenomena. throughout the decade, too, but they had mostly
wrapped up by the end of the 1960s, he said.
He took her advice. Lee is a pseudonym, and he “Every year, out of the many hundreds of UFO
didn’t want his real name printed in case sightings that are recorded, there’s a few “After that, the government spends the next 40
neighbours in his small town thought he was handfuls that don’t seem to have an obvious years or whatever trying to ignore the thing as
delusional. explanation. They don’t seem to be aeroplanes much as possible,” Hayes said.

or stars or planets or fireballs, pieces of comets.
It’s been 14 years since Lee saw that And we’re not sure what these things are. But But reports just kept coming in. Hayes suspects
“unidentified aerial phenomenon” in the woods. it’s a long way from that to say that the aliens are people turned to conspiracy theories for
And while the former pilot was reluctant to talk visiting.” explanations around this time, because they felt
about it at the time, he’s not as alone as he once their concerns weren’t being taken seriously and
thought. Canadians are reporting UFO sightings Back in the 1950s, the government took UFO that the government was hiding information.
more today than ever before, and the United reports quite seriously, according to writer and
States government has even started to take them filmmaker Matthew Hayes. And UFO reports did not go away. UFOs had a
seriously as a potential security threat. big year in 1967, with two well-publicized
Hayes, who is now an instructor at Northern incidents on opposite sides of the country.
Lee says he still has “no clue” what he saw — Lakes College in Alberta, wrote his PhD thesis
but what if it was something extraterrestrial? on Canadian UFO sightings and is now turning In Falcon Lake, Man., a man reported being
his research into a book. burned by a UFO he encountered while
“I do believe that it’s possible,” he said. “I do prospecting in the wilderness.
believe that there’s a lot of things that we don’t Everything started with the now-famous reports
know exist or possibly exist.” of a possible alien UFO crash in Roswell, New (Continued on Page 29)
Mexico, in 1947, Hayes said. The incident
We still don’t know if we’re alone in the spurred public interest in UFOs and the U.S. and The ‘X’ Zone TV Channel
universe, or if we’ve been visited by aliens from Canadian governments were interested in the is on
other planets. But Lee certainly is not alone in reports too. SIMULTV
seeing UFOs — not by a long shot. www.SimulTV.com