Sudbury,
Ontario and Eastern Townships
July 12-15, 1974
Another
recent close-range inspection, this time over Sudbury,
Ontario, almost ended in a mid-air collision between a
Canadian Pacific Airlines jet and an enormous cigar-shaped
UFO. The sudden appearance of the silvery craft forced
the pilot of CP Air Flight 52 to dive evasively to avoid
a crash. The event occurred around 9 AM on July 15, 1974,
while the jet was en route from Montreal to Vancouver.
One of the passengers, Mr. R.F. (identity known to investigators
of UFO-Quebec), later disclosed that immediately following
the near-accident, the captain told the passengers:
"Sorry
about that. We had to take action because there was an
unidentified flying object ahead. You can see it if you
look out to the right side of the aircraft, to the north."1
The
passengers watched in amazement as the large object appearing
slightly transparent, continued to pace the jet for another
five minutes before disappearing. "It wasn't there
anymore", said passenger R.F. He continued:
"The
Captain said he had been in contact with Ground Control
but they knew nothing about it. It had not been on their
radar screen at all. He said it might have been a balloon
but he did not know. There was just no record of anything
like this very big object on our course."2
In
the ensuing investigation, Wido Hoville of UFO-Quebec
discovered that numerous Sudbury area residents had called
the Sudbury Airport Weather Office to report seeing the
craft. Asked what he thought the object was, the weatherman
suggested it might have been a Defence Department altitude
balloon launched in Manitoba. But a check with the Defence
Department and with meteorological records for that date
eliminated the possibility that the balloon could have
been in the Sudbury area at the time. The balloon theory
was also dismissed by a flight debriefing officer at Montreal's
Dorval Airport, on the grounds that the pilot would have
been notified by either the Defence Department or the
Transport Department weather office. Also, according to
Hoville, the balloon would have registered on the aircraft
radar screens. The mysterious craft did not.3
This
incident coincided with a rash of other sightings. in
both Ontario and Quebec. Sixteen hours earlier, campers
near Daveluyvile, Quebec, south of Quebec City, saw a
large triangular craft, described as "brilliant"
and "silvery", hovering over their campsite.4
The object appeared to be rotating on its own axis, while
maintaining a fixed position at an altitude of about four
thousand feet. After about three hours of noiseless maneuvers,
the craft finally drifted away to the southeast. Asked
about its size, campsite owner Roger Côté,
a medical technician, compared it with a fifty-cent piece
held at arm's length.5 At roughly four thousand
feet, this would indicate that the object was well over
two hundred feet in diameter. When police officials later
'identified' it as a weather balloon, Mr. Côté
flatly rejected this explanation.
About
an hour later, the pilot of a Scandinavian jet, Captain
K., was flying over Charlevoix, on the eastern outskirts
of Quebec City, when he spotted what was presumably the
same craft moving in a southwesterly direction.6
It appeared to be travelling toward Montreal, along the
St. Lawrence River. This sighting, which occurred near
Valcartier Mobile Command Base, was relayed to military
authorities at the NORAD Air Command Centre at North Bay
Air Force Base. A report of this and several subsequent
sightings were in turn filed with the National Research
Council.
In
the same report we learn that Commander W.C.B., flying
a military jet to Burlington, Vermont, from Quebec City,
also spotted the same craft. He described it as "triangular
in shape, stationary and estimated to be at forty thousand
feet."7
His
aircraft, was flying at thirty-five thousand feet, thirty
to forty miles southeast of Quebec City. During both sightings,
the radio transmission and reception sites at Canadian
Forces Base Bagotville and Canadian Forces Station Mont
Apica experienced strong interference. CFB Bagotville
is one hundred miles north of the capitol. There is no
direct evidence linking the presence of the UFO to the
radio interference, but it is significant that the difficulties
occurred while the military jet was in close proximity
to the mysterious triangle. Equally significant is the
fact that the interference registered on a frequency of
121.5 megacycles-the universal distress frequency.
The
most controversial piece of evidence came from Drummondville
photographer Jean Roy who had shot six photos of the giant
craft.8 They clearly show the movements
of a luminous bell-shaped object. However, it is not known
what type of camera was used or whether the negatives
were subjected to authentication procedures.
Equally
nebulous is the source of a rumour that the object had
been a high altitude weather balloon. Radio stations reporting
this explanation attributed these statements to officials
of La Sûreté du Quebec (SQ), the Quebec provincial
police force,9 which vehemently denied the
charges.
To
round out this UFO marathon, a disk-shaped UFO had also
been observed by military and airport officials over Sudbury.
Two days earlier, Private W.V. and Corporal A.L., of Canadian
Forces Falconbridge Radar Station, saw a multicoloured
oval disk moving southeast of the station.10
This same craft was also tracked by Ministry of Transport
radar screens at the Sudbury Airport weather office.11
At the same time, 'Mrs. K.K. of Sudbury also confirmed
sighting the oval disk, which she described as "orange
under, blue on top, and a white stripe with a blue cross
on it."12 She claims to have filmed
the UFO with her movie camera!
1 Canadian UFO Report, Vol. 3, No. 4 (1975) p.
7.
2 Ibid.
3 Ibid.
4 UFO-Quebec, Vol 1, No. 2 (May-June-July 1975)
p. 12.
5 Ibid.
6 Herzberg Institute of Astrophysics, Planetary
Sciences Section, National Research Council, Non-Meteoritic
Sightings File N74-052, (Ottawa).
7 Ibid.
8 La Parole de Drummondville, Vol. 49, No. 31 (July
31, 1974) p. 1.
9 Ibid., p. 1.
10
Non-Meteoritic Sightings File, op. cit., N74-050.
11
Ibid., N74-051.
12
Ibid., N74-049.