Page 13 - 20120708 - The 'X' Chronicles Newspaper - July / August 2012

Alberta Town Still Waiting For UFO Ready and waiting: develop around that all you want.’ We draw the Alberta town built world’s line at fire hydrants that look like Martians and stuff because we want them to be taken first UFO landing pad 45 seriously as fire hydrants, right?” Then the marketing committee came up years ago with the cut-outs — wooden stand ups that tourists can stick their heads in to take pictures with little green men. The tourist shop also sells Financial Post headbands with alien heads on them, inflatable aliens and novelty T-shirts. ST. PAUL, Alta. — Everyone wants to see “All smaller communities have an something unique. identity crisis and they need something to draw “They travel to Glendon for perogy,” people,” the mayor says. “A lot of people from says Glenn Andersen, mayor of St. Paul, Alta. cities don’t understand rural Alberta. They need Glendon has a 27-foot statue of the Ukrainian something to bring them here…. [We have] dumpling pierced by a fork. people in ministerial positions and in the Ellen Cartier chimes in: “Mundare has Alberta government who don’t think roads are the kielbasa.” It’s home to the world’s largest paved to your community. That’s how bad it is.” garlic sausage. So the town took its landmark and ran “Then they have the duck in Andrew and with it. In the ’80s, Ron Belzil, a former present the Goose in Hanna. You go in there and it’s an of the St. Paul and District Chamber of identity for the community,” Mr. Andersen says. Commerce, purchased a UFO display to be “And Vilna has mushrooms,” Ms. erected near the pad. Cartier adds. Still set up under the spaceship tourist “Vilna has mushrooms, yes,” the mayor centre, it shows fuzzy photographs of real and agrees. fake saucers, strange lights and early literature Everyone in Alberta loves giant statues about alien abduction. While they were at it, the of food, it’s true. But St. Paul — a town of about second-highest number of flying saucers and chamber also set up a 1-888 number to report strange lights of any major city — it was beaten 5,000 resting between Edmonton and the only by Toronto. unusual activity and saucer sightings. Saskatchewan border — well, it has something In St. Paul, the landing pad is about Mr. Belzil himself was too busy to really special. more than just attracting a light show. The town follow up on tips. And that’s how Mr. Belzil’s The pale green paint is a little cracked father became the resident expert in cattle and ne’er-do-wells seem to have chipped away donated the land and local business owners mutilations. provided the labour and cement. It cost $11,000 some of the stones that once depicted a map of to build, none of it from the public purse. “I’d say he’s been involved in over 100 Canada. The Star Trek-like curves that would It was dedicated on June 3, 1967. Then cases,” the younger Mr. Belzil says. have marked the apogee of futuristic style look minister of national defence, Paul Hellyer, cut His father, a former cattleman now in ill anything but, now. However, the 130-tonne the ribbon — no small coincidence considering health, doesn’t speak of his work much landmark of concrete and steel can still draw a Mr. Hellyer would later admit to believing the anymore. “Sometimes the organs have been crowd like nothing else for 200 km in any U.S. government was covering up the existence removed, the eyes, the ears have usually been direction — and maybe much, much further. of alien beings. nicely cut off, but there’s no blood on the That’s because St. Paul is home to the A fake saucer landed in a puff of smoke, scene.” first-ever UFO landing pad, a monument that followed by a parade of officials dressed in The elder Mr. Belzil posted photos of turned 45 years old this year. Martian costumes. Then came the Indian smoke some of his findings on a website. He was even When it opened in 1967, it was a Big signals and dances. The affair wrapped up with featured in a CBC fifth estate documentary. Deal. a display of teenage Martian go-go dancers. “Nobody has ever been caught doing a Ellen Cartier was there: Her husband The current mayor says thousands of cattle mutilation,” Ron Belzil says. “The helped to build the pad, which is perched atop people have since come to St. Paul just to see evidence is almost non-existent.” an upside-down column, like a cement pancake the landing pad. In 1978, Queen Elizabeth II His father, however, was never able to sitting on an ice-cream cone. The tourist shop, visited. Mother Teresa followed in 1982. Lately, rule out the possibility of an alien presence, notable for its roof decorated as an angular the pad’s attracted a kitschier crowd: St. Paul cutting up cattle across northern Alberta and spaceship with a green glass dome and blinking hosted UFO conferences in 1998 and 2000. Saskatchewan. lights, was a later addition. Just the other day he said he overheard a “He couldn’t eliminate that as a Ms. Cartier still has the program from possibility because there was no other logical the day the monument was dedicated, printed in crew discussing “how it was a six-hour trip explanation,” he says. from Calgary to see if anyone happened to be a faded blue. landing on this pad because there’s extra- The elder Mr. Belzil stopped “It was the [Canadian] centennial year, investigating the mutilations when his health and they wanted to do something extra special terrestrial stuff happening in Alberta.” failed. There was no money in it — although the A plaque at the gates to the landing pad for the centennial year,” she says. reads: “The area under the world’s first UFO town did pay for some of his mileage. The landing pad was built two years landing pad was designated international by the The mystery may always remain. before man walked on the Moon and decades town of St. Paul as a symbol of our faith that In the meantime, St. Paul’s mayor says before a rover named Curiosity would beam mankind will maintain the outer universe free he’d consider sprucing up the space pad. Maybe home photos of Mars. It was at a point in time from national wars and strife.” it’s time for a retro-fit, or a new coat of paint. when North Americans everywhere were It all sounds idealistic, but Mr. Andersen It’s rare for such a small town on the prairie to optimistic about the possibility of space travel, says the intentions behind the icon were a bit have such reputation, after all. exploration and, maybe, meeting alien species. more practical. “You have to be able to identify it and The monument became emblematic of a town The tiny town wanted tourists. Its plan promote yourself because hiring an economic striving for a multicultural ideal: Everyone is worked. St. Paul is now known across much of development officer is not feasible,” he says. welcome, even extraterrestrials. And according Alberta as the place with the landing pad. “This is economic development. That to Ufology Research, a Manitoba group that “Like it or not, these people in the ’60s landing pad does bring people here and they monitors sightings, it may be helping to do just made that decision and that’s what we’re known camp here and they stay and they buy things that. as: the UFO landing pad,” he said. “We have to from the business community here. Does it The researchers said Canada had play that and that’s why we’ve given our embarrass me? Not at all. I think it’s great. reported 986 UFOs so far this year, an increase marketing people, ‘You go ahead and you “I think the decision they made brought from the year before. Calgary reported the some notoriety to St. Paul.” []