Chris Rutkowski - When They Appeared: Falcon Lake 1967: The Inside Story of a Close Encounter

WHEN THEY APPEARED

Falcon Lake 1967:
The inside story of a close encounter

Stan Michalak & Chris Rutkowski

Plus the original story
My Encounter With The UFO
by
Stephen Michalak

www.augustnightbooks.com

When They Appeared.

Original Coyright 2017 by Stan Michalak & Chris Rutkowski.

This Copyright 2018 by Stan Michalak & Chris Rutkowski. All rights reserved.

Published and printed in the United States of America and the United Kingdom by August Night Books; an imprint of White Crow Productions Ltd.

The right of Stan Michalak & Chris Rutkowski to be identified as the authors of this work have been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Design and Patents act 1988.

No part of this book may be reproduced, copied or used in any form or manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations in reviews and critical articles.

For information, contact White Crow Productions Ltd.
at 150 Broadacres, Guildford, GU3 3BS United Kingdom,
or e-mail .

All photographs are from the estate of Stefan Michalak.

Cover and Book design by Stan Michalak

Paperback ISBN 978-1-78677-085-1

eBook ISBN 978-1-78677-086-8

Body, Mind & Spirit / UFOs & Extraterrestrials

www.augustnightbooks.com

Disclaimer: White Crow Productions Ltd. and its directors, employees, distributors, retailers, wholesalers and assignees disclaim any liability or responsibility for the authors statements, words, ideas, criticisms or observations. White Crow Productions Ltd. assumes no responsibility for errors, inaccuracies, or omissions.

For Maria and Stefan Michalak

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PART 1
Introduction By Chris Rutkowski

PART 2
My Encounter With The UFO By Stephen Michalak

PART 3
When They Appeared By Stan Michalak

PART 4
The Falcon Lake Case: A Review By Chris Rutkowski

PART 5
Further Reflections on the Falcon Lake Incident By Chris Rutkowski

PART 6
Epilogue or Interlude? By Chris Rutkowski with Stan Michalak

APPENDIX A
The report filed by Constable G.A. Solotki of the RCMP Falcon Beach Detachment to RCMP D Division on June 16, 1967

APPENDIX B
Transcript of the recorded interview conducted by RCMP Corporal J. Davis with Stefan Michalak on May 24, 1967

By Chris Rutkowski

INTRODUCTION

I n June, 1947, a businessman named Kenneth Arnold was piloting a small plane near Mt. Rainer in the state of Washington in the USA. He was at about 9,000 feet over the mountains when he saw nine flying objects that he could not identify.

This was the first official report of flying saucers and is considered the beginning of the modern UFO phenomenon. Since then, literally hundreds of thousands of people around the world have reported seeing strange unidentified flying objects.

Arnolds sighting made international news headlines, and in the weeks following his experience, many sightings of saucer-like craft were reported across North America. Manitoba, like any location on the continent, was not spared the onslaught of UFOs in its skies.

The oldest account of an odd object over Manitoba took place in the fall of 1792. Explorers David Thompson and Andrew Davy were camped on the shore of Landing Lake, near what is now Thicket Portage. In Thompsons diary, he recorded that one night he and his companion were surprised by the appearance of a brilliant meteor of globular form larger than the Moon. This object seemed to move directly towards them, descended slightly, and when within three hundred yards of us, it struck the River ice with a sound like a mass of jelly, was dashed in innumerable luminous pieces and instantly expired. Thompson noted that the next morning, when they went to see the hole it should have made in the ice, they could not find any sign of the objects apparent impact on the Earth.

I have collected more than 2,000 sightings of unidentified flying objects over Manitoba reported since that time. These reports include observations by people from all walks of life: from farmers, pilots, campers and police. There are reports noted in newspapers, mailed to civilian investigators and posted to Facebook groups. Cases have been obtained from private records, RCMP files, Canadian Forces documents and the National Archives in Ottawa.

For example, on July 15, 1947, at about 3:15 a.m., Winnipeg telegraph operator Homer Clinton had just returned home from his shift when he heard a noisy disturbance in his back yard. He and his wife and son ran out to watch a whatzit in the northwest sky near the Big Dipper. The object was starlike in appearance, but it moved on a zig-zag course and would periodically flop over as it flew. The three witnesses observed the noisy object for about 15 minutes before it gained altitude and was lost to sight.

In Canada, official interest in reports of such unusual flying craft led to government-sponsored studies of UFOs: Project Second Storey and Project Magnet. Both were relatively short-lived and were associated with a controversial electronics specialist named Wilbert B. Smith. During the course of his work in the Department of National Defence, Smith became convinced that UFOs represented alien contact, though his view was not shared by his superiors. However, Smith claimed he had been privy to top level meetings with both Canadian and American military personnel, and he was told at these meetings that flying saucers were considered to be of major concern to the American military. Later in his career, Smith claimed to actually have been in contact with the aliens, who had begun preliminary negotiations for an official landing at a Canadian military base.

According to the files of Project Second Storey, on July 29, 1952, at about 11:00 p.m., a witness at MacDonald Airport north of Winnipeg watched an orange, oblong, stationary object in the south-southwest sky for about two minutes. The aerial craft was about 15 degrees above the horizon and was calculated to be about six miles away from the airfield. As the witness watched, the craft seemed to change into a group of smaller, round lights, then they disappeared altogether.

The American presence in Manitoba during the Cold War was quite significant. The 916th Base near Beausejour at Milner Ridge was a major radar facility for monitoring objects flying south towards the United States. A former duty officer in the radar operations building there claimed that in the fall of 1956, he detected a strange object moving south over Eastern Manitoba. It was a strong return, indicative of a solid object such as an aircraft, and about 175 miles north-east of Milner Ridge. He was surprised when the second trace on the radarscope showed it had moved a great distance from the first plot.

In order to confirm the return, he checked the height and range indicator and calculated the objects altitude to be 75,000 feet. When he spotted the object again, the equipment suggested that its speed was between 6,000 and 7,500 knots faster than any known aircraft at the time. He explained: If I had not confirmed its location on the two independent systems, I would have just passed it off as a malfunction.

He tracked the object for about ten minutes as it flew a straight course with slight changes in direction, but always at the same altitude. The nearest it came to the base was around MacArthur Falls. He reported it to the chief controller, who labelled it a malfunction. However, the radar officer was called into the controllers office the next day and instructed never to tell anyone what he had seen.