Grant Cameron - Charlie Red Star: True Reports of One of North America’s Biggest UFO Sightings

I would like to thank all who have helped on this project over the past several decades. Their input and suggestions helped a reluctant author make sure this book finally got published.

My very special thanks to Rob Diemert and his wife, Elaine, who helped me for the two years I was in and out of Carman investigating and talking to witnesses. Rob set up interviews for me, and because he was at the centre of the entire rash of sightings, there was almost nothing he didnt know.

Elaine helped me edit and typed up the very first manuscript that was done shortly after all the sightings stopped. If it hadnt been for her, there would have been no manuscript.

Thanks to all the people in southwestern Manitoba who talked to me knowing they would get ridiculed if their stories ever got out. Thanks also to others who were ridiculed after they talked but continued to talk. Many of the witnesses in this book are now dead, and because the names have been changed, their children and grandchildren will never know the historic role their parents and grandparents played. I, sadly, am one of the few people who got to hear their experiences. I am eternally grateful; their stories changed my life greatly.

The biggest thank-you probably goes to my oldest sister, Pat. She is the historian of the family. Long ago, when the manuscript didnt get published, I gave it to her, and she kept it for a quarter century, years after Id forgotten Id ever written it. When she gave it back, I realized she had saved the story, since I had long since discarded most of the notes used to write it.

Finally, a big thank-you to those who pushed to have the manuscript published. It was my younger sister, Sandra, who encouraged me to publish it when I had no interest in doing so. Then it was Teza Lawrence, a TV producer in Toronto, who really pushed for Charlie Red Star to be published. She actually took her valuable time to find Dundurn and negotiate with them when I still didnt believe.

Thanks, too, to Brian Westbrook and Laurie Rosenfield for early editing, and for their enthusiasm, which prevented me from scrapping the project. If not for this chain of people pushing the book to the finish line, it wouldnt have happened, since I fought against publishing it the whole time. In many ways, I consider myself the person who worked the least to get Charlie Red Star published.