Ufology Research

Monday, June 29, 2020

Weird Canada: A Guide to Off-Beat Destinations

Weird Canada: A Guide to Off-Beat Destinations You Could Visit, Even During a Pandemic!

To recognize Canada Day, even during a pandemic, here’s a sampling of weird and unusual places you can visit on an all-Canadian vacation this year! From scary creatures to haunted locations, UFO landing spots and natural wonders, Canada has much to offer for an off-beat travelogue from coast to coast. Most of these sites are accessible even during regional restrictions, and many can be visited anytime! (NB: But check with locals first; hotels, for example, may not be fully open.)

Sasquatch Provincial Park, near Harrison Hot Springs, BC

Will you spot a Sasquatch if you hike the trails?

Sasquatch Trail, east of Osoyoos, BC

There’s a Sasquatch statue lurking beside the road at the entrance to this housing subdivision!

Ogopogo (Okanagan Lake), Kelowna, BC

British Columbia’s lake monster is said to ne Nessie’s cousin.

Surrey Corridor, BC

Running down from the mountains west to Vancouver, this swath of land is said to be a favourite path for UFOs.

St. Paul Landing Pad, AB

In 1967, the town built a UFO landing pad for alien visitors. Since them a UFO museum has been added.

Banff Springs Hotel, Banff, AB

One of Canada’s most haunted buildings, according to paranormal fans.

Tabor Lights, Tabor, SK

A ghostly light seen at the Tabor Cemetery, 17 miles northeast of Esterhazy, is said to dance over the headstones.

Crooked Bush, Hafford, SK

For some reason, all the aspen in this park are bent and twisted, which some have attributed to aliens.

Little Manitou Lake, near Watrous, SK

Canada’s own version of the Red Sea, this lake is high in salt content, and you can float on it!

Falcon Lake, MB

In 1967, a UFO landed near a amateur prospector, and burned him and the surrounding vegetation. Today, you can visit the site on horseback.

Hotel Fort Garry, Winnipeg, MB

Another of Canada’s great haunted hotels.

Magnetic Hill, Swan River, MB

You’ve heard of the more popular one in New Brunswick (see below), but there’s one in Manitoba too, where your car seems to coast uphill!

West Hawk Lake Crater, MB

Just like its American cousin in Oregon, this deep blue lake was formed by a giant meteor 350 million years ago.

Manipogo (Lake Manitoba), MB

Manitoba’s version of Nessie has its own Provincial Park, northeast of Dauphin.

Igopogo (Lake Simcoe), ON

Of course, Ontario has one too!

Boblo Island, Amherstburg, ON

An abandoned amusement park is said to be haunted!

Scugog Island Ghost Light, Port Perry, ON

There’s a spook light that can be seen on a road south of Port Perry, said to be the headlight of a ghostly motorcyclist.

Screaming Tunnel, Niagara, ON

This drainage tunnel is said to be haunted by the ghost of a young girl who as set ablaze as she tried to escape from her captor.

Hotel Bonaventure, Montreal, PQ

In 1990, a strange UFO was seen and photographed as it hung over the rooftop patio of this hotel on downtown Montreal.

Champ (Lake Champlain), PQ

Quebec lays claim to its share of a lake monster said to inhabit Lake Champlain, of which a small chunk is in Canada.

St-Georges-de-Windsor Cow, PQ

Sometimes, you just have to include a strange roadside attraction in a list like this. This one is a lookout tower in the shape of a cow laying in a field.

Magnetic Hill, Moncton, NB

The “original” Magnetic Hill in Canada, where your car rolls uphill!

Reversing Falls, St. John, NB

Because of the huge tides in the Bay of Fundy, this set of rapids flows both towards and away from the sea!

Bay of Fundy, Alma, NB

The tide here is more than 13 metres, with a turnaround of a little more than 6 hours.

Shag Harbour, NS

In 1967, a UFO was said to fall into the ocean, where a fleet of ships sped to the scene to try and recover whatever it was. Only a patch of luminous foam was discovered.

Sable Island, NS

The home of the famous Sable Island breed of horses, under government protection.

Teazer Light, Mahone Bay, NS

A phantom ship ran aground in 1813 and its light has been seen off shore ever since.

Kensington Haunted Mansion, PEI

One of Canada’s classic haunted locations.

Ghost Ship of Northumberland Strait, PEI

In the strait between Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick, a bright light like a ship on fire has been reported often.

Lomond Sinkhole, Bonne Bay, NF

Not easy to get to, this limestone formation has a waterfall that disappears into the ground.

Kelly’s Island, Conception Bay, NL

Strange lights that are said to be the ghosts of pirates are said to guard this small island offshore.

Bell Island, Conception Bay, NL

This larger island near Kelly’s Island is said to be even more haunted!

Smoker, the Phantom Trapper of Labrador, NL

A wily trapper evaded RCMP by painting his sled and himself white to avoid detection. His ghost is said to still mush across southern Labrador.

Point Amour Lighthouse, NL

The tallest lighthouse in Atlantic Canada!

Fox Lake UFO, YK

In 1996, more than 30 people witnessed a huge UFO, said to be a mile wide, float ponderously north above Fox Lake.

Bessie Gideon, Carcross, YK

The hideous ghost of this former owner of the Caribou Hotel is said to haunt the halls!

Waheela, Nahanni Valley, NT

A creature that is half wolf and half supernatural spirit is claimed to reside in the beautiful Nahanni Valley.

Smoking Hills, Paulatuk, NT

The oil shale content of this area of the Northwest Territories is so high, they spontaneously ignite and burn continuously!

Ibyuk Pingo, Tuktoyaktuk, NT

Canada’s own version of Australia’s Uluru, this small mountain of permafrost is always growing in size!

Arctic Winter Games Arena, Iqaluit, NU

A ghost is said to frighten visitors to the former site of the winter games!

Rankin Inlet Fire Hall Ghost, NU

As does a ghost in this building in Rankin Inlet!

Haughton Crater, NU

NASA uses this ancient impact site as a stand-in for Mars!

Victoria Island, NU

This is the second largest island in Canada, but is largely uninhabited. However, it possesses something very unique: an island in a lake on an island in a lake on an island in the Arctic Ocean. Really: 69.7924, -108.2395

Labels: Fortean ghosts UFOs monsters Sasquatch haunted vacation travel tourism Canada

# posted by rutkows @ 7:06 AM 1 comments

Thursday, May 14, 2020

Pilot sightings of UASs, UAPs, or UFOs over the Eastern Seaboard

Reports documenting American military pilots' recent encounters with UFOs have been released, showing that some curious things have been seen over the Eastern Seaboard.

Media picked up on the story, and ran with it fairly big, bumping down some COVID-19 information for almost a day. This is an indication that there's a small amount of "pandemic fatigue" working its way into our societal awareness, although it's still far too early to tell to what degree this will be influencing media.

CNN on Wednesday obtained the Navy Safety Center documents, which were previously labeled "For Official Use Only." They follow the Pentagon's official release late last month of three short videos showing "unidentified aerial phenomena" that had previously been made public by a private company. The newly released reports appear to share this assessment, describing many of the unidentified aircraft as "Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS)," the Pentagon's official name for drone aircraft.

Actually, when you look through the newly obtained reports, you get a rather underwhelming perspective. Although they are reports from military pilots, which is indeed interesting, the sightings are anything but sensational.

But the reports say that even when the unidentified flying objects are assessed to be drones the military was unable to identify who was operating the drone, presenting a major safety and security challenge to the Navy jets training in the area which are restricted military training airspace ranges off the east coast of Virginia.

"I feel it may only be a matter of time before one of our F/A-18 aircraft has a mid-air collision with an unidentified UAS," one of the authors of a report warned.

And there lies the crux of the matter.

Reports of UASs or UAPs or UFOs (because that's what they are often labeled in documents like these) show that there is a lot of air traffic that could potentially pose a threat or danger to authorized air traffic, whether they be military flights or commercial airlines.

I'm often asked during interviews why we should bother with UFOs at all. Simply put, UFO reports should be studied in greater detail, especially pilot sightings, because they potentially put people at risk.

Media interest in the documents about activity off the Atlantic played up the story, but the most significant point was largely missed.

These are the first actual post-Blue-Book military UFO reports in the USA that have been made public. Up until now, we really haven't had such a release of official American UFO information.

(I'm not counting the "Tic Tac" and TTSA videos, because they weren't released or officially acknowledged by the Pentagon until recently. SCU has had to piece together the actual reports that go along with the cases, based on things like Ship's Logs, an "Executive Summary" that was released confidentially, and a Pilot Report that was similarly obtained unofficially.)

Following the demise of Blue Book, after 1970 there was very little official information on American UFO cases, It's been a kind of "black hole," with lots of speculation and arm-waving, but nothing definite.

Curt Collins, whose work on the Cash-Landrum UFO case is exemplary, notes that apart from the Tehran UFO and the Loring and Malmstrom UFO incursions, these newly released documents are: "more important than the videos, since these are entirely new cases."

In addition, some UFO buffs are already shouting "Disclosure!" And that these docs prove their case.

However, two things are important to note:

First, these are relatively low-level incidents, with low classifications. Second, in Canada, we get these all the time. No Disclosure (capital D or lower case "soft disclosure") needed.

Collins says:

"These 'dull' reports need to be studied closely for at least a couple of reasons. Chiefly, these are the same means by which we should expect more exciting cases to be reported, so researchers should be familiar with the terminology, reporting processes, equipment etc. Secondly, this could offer clues to other cases, and help prevent drones from being logged in UFO records as true UFOs (defying conventional aircraft performance)."

For perspective, here are just a few similar cases that were included in the yet-to-be-released 2019 Canadian UFO Survey (which has been delayed due to the pandemic):

Recent pilot sightings of UFOs over Canada noted by the Canadian UFO Survey

January 2, 2019
A Beech 200 flying from South Indian Lake, MB (CZSN) to Thompson, MB (CYTH) reported that an inexplicable bright light followed them from CZSN to CYTH at the same altitude and speed. No aircraft were reported in their vicinity.

January 8, 2019
While enroute (over Nunavut), a Turkish Airlines Inc. Boeing 777-300 from Los Angeles International, CA (KLAX) to Istanbul Atatürk, Turkey (LTBA) reported seeing a red rotary beacon light near the aircraft, at the same altitude of FL330. The only known aircraft in the region was more than 80NM ahead. The North American Aerospace Defence Command (NORAD) was advised.

January 17, 2019
Flashing and oscillating lights were reported moving up and down by the pilot of an aircraft flying between Quebec City and Sept-Iles at an altitude of 23,000 ft. ATC reported closest aircraft was 50 nautical miles ahead. Report labeled as “Unknown.”

April 11, 2019

A Boeing 737-800 aircraft operated by Sunwing Airlines, from Montego Bay/Sangster Intl (MKJS), Jamaica to Toronto/Lester B. Pearson Intl (CYYZ), ON with 6 crew members and 193 passengers on board. While being vectored for an approach to Runway 06L at CYYZ, the flight crew received a traffic alert and collision avoidance system (TCAS) alert at 3000 ft, indicating they should climb. Prime target appeared momentarily below, then disappeared. The flight crew complied with the command, and advised ATC. ATC replied that the conflicting traffic was unidentified, and not in communication with ATC. Sunwing a/c was vectored for a second approach, and landed without further incident.

See? Nothing new.

And here's a radar report from Ottawa in April 1978

Official documents show us that UFO reports can indeed be interesting.

Labels: UFO UAP UAS UAD report military USA Canada pilot Survey media radar

# posted by rutkows @ 8:43 AM 2 comments

Monday, December 16, 2019

Still more media interest in the UFO Archive

The calls keep coming in about my donation of the UFO archive.

And the media interest keeps ramping up.

Unfortunately, it's like the kids' game "Whisper." Every time the story is retold, errors creep in!

It's not "a massive trove of government UFO reports," as the Sun notes: https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/10549405/government-ufo-reports-available-at-university/

Nor is it "Disclosure of 30,000 government UFO reports" as Express claims: https://www.express.co.uk/news/weird/1217358/UFO-sighting-disclosure-aliens-government-UFO-reports-University-of-Manitoba-Falcon-Lake/

But the Russians have it more correct: https://sputniknews.com/science/201912111077544731-canadian-university-receives-giant-trove-of-ufo-files-that-can-shed-light-on-falcon-lake-incident/

And then on Friday, I had a call from a blogger who wanted to interview me because he had seen the story on Mental Floss, one of my favourite Fortean zines that is now only online. Their source was the LiveScience article.

Then I was alerted that the story had even made Fox News, so it was going literally everywhere.

The Winnipeg Free Press carried it as well. It's behind a paywall, so here's an excerpt:

It's not just an uplifting exhibit you can see — you could say it's out of this world.

After more than 40 years of research into unidentified flying objects, Chris Rutkowski has donated to the University of Manitoba his entire collection of files, documents and other materials dealing with the Falcon Lake UFO case.

And, if you go to the university's Archives and Special Collections, you will not only see a display of the material, but for the first time ever you can see some of the artifacts connected to the case, including the shirt Stefan Michalak was wearing when he was chipping away at a quartz formation when he says he suddenly encountered two oval-shaped objects in the air over the provincial park — one which landed.

"I always thought 'what am I going to do with my stuff?'" Rutkowski said recently.

Finally, I started getting notifications that the story about the archived UFO docs even made it into academic circles. The post-secondary news service Academica noted:

The University of Manitoba has announced its receipt of more than 20,000 UFO reports and more than 10,000 UFO-related Canadian Government documents from Canadian Ufologist Chris Rutkowski. “This unique and intriguing historical collection will greatly add to our understanding of the study of UFOs, and will attract students and researchers to study these phenomena for a whole range of reasons,” says UManitoba Head of Archives and Special Collections Shelley Sweeney. “It complements our extensive collection of psychical research and spiritualist archives and puts Winnipeg on the map as the preeminent destination for the study of the paranormal.” UManitoba has also launched a crowdfunding campaign to help digitize the collection.

I guess I really do have to give them all the files and books now. The best news: the university's crowdfunding campaign to digitize the UFO files is already almost at 10% of its goal! Oh, and I've already seen some claims that this is proof that Disclosure is happening (even the watered-down "gradual acclimatization process to the alien presence"). But if I am the one releasing the government UFO docs, then that must mean I am part of the secret cabal in charge. Boy, are the Bilderbergs going to be mad at me. You're welcome.

Labels: UFO archive documents files library university Manitoba Canada Winnipeg

# posted by rutkows @ 10:24 AM 0 comments

Thursday, December 12, 2019

Top Ten UFO News of 2019

Top Ten UFO News in 2019

Following the Tic Tac incident on the USS Nimitz in 2004, radar tapes and other documentation were quickly confiscated by mysterious military personnel.

https://canoe.com/technology/2-unknown-naval-officers-ordered-ufo-radar-recordings-to-be-deleted-report

“UFO Tourism” is a thing.

https://www.nationalgeographic.co.uk/travel/2019/11/alien-territory-rise-ufo-tourism

Elon Musk’s SpaceX satellites are giving rise to numerous UFO reports.

https://www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/new-zealand/theyre-not-ufos-spacex-broadband-satellite-cluster-visible-over-new-zealand

The US Navy admits the Tic Tac videos are ‘real,” but they’re not actually interested in UFOs.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2019/09/18/those-ufo-videos-are-real-navy-says-please-stop-saying-ufo/

Tom DeLonge’s TTSA bought Linda Howe’s “metamaterial” UFO artefact and have contracted with the US Army to test it.

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/8xwp9z/ufo-researcher-explains-why-she-sold-exotic-metal-to-tom-delonge

https://www.space.com/ufo-hunting-contract-us-army.html

“Storm Area 51” was majorly hyped, and fizzled.

https://www.wired.com/story/the-area-51-raid-was-the-worst-way-to-spot-an-alien-or-ufo/