Date:
August 16, 1974
Location: Port Coquitlam, British Columbia, Canada
On
August 16, 1974, at about 8:00 p.m., three small boys
were returning to their homes on the outskirts of Port
Coquitlam, a community about 20 miles east of Vancouver,
BC. The boys saw an object approach over the trees...
The UFO began to settle down for a landing.
Source:
Graham Conway/UFO*BC
On
August 16, 1974, at about 8:00 p.m., three small boys
were returning to their homes on the outskirts of Port
Coquitlam, a community about 20 miles east of Vancouver
lying on the shore of the Port Coquitlam river. They were
David Bates, 8, and Steven and Henry Stillie, aged 10
and 7, whose two families live almost opposite each other
in a trailer court.
Following
their fairly common practice, the boys took a short cut
through a small wooded area bordering the river. This
route brought them to a small sandpit, no longer in commercial
use. Passing it by, they joined up with the road leading
to the street on which they lived. Halfway along the road,
they became aware of a high pitched whine that resulted
in a number of things happening in short sequence.
David
Bates, who was carrying a pet cat in his arms, found he
could not control the animal as it arched its back and
attempted to escape frantically. Releasing it, he watched
it run several yards and then drop in its tracks, as if
it "fell asleep," he said. The Stillie
boys described it as "playing dead."
The boys then turned towards the source of the noise and
saw an object approach over the trees, traveling south
or north over the railway bridge spanning the river. The
object had a red light on top and green and white lights
at either end of its length. These lights flashed on and
off. Traveling slowly, the object reversed its course
and with an undulating motion, headed for the small cleared
area amongst the trees where the sandpit was situated.
The intensity of the noise disturbed David so much that
his friends said he placed his hands over his ears and
called out for it to stop. However, David does not recall
doing this.
The
UFO began to settle down for a landing and the noise became
a buzz, the children claimed. All this took place within
a few brief minutes. At that point, the terrified cat
recovered and returned to its owner, clawing David when
he picked it up. The long scratch on his arm was still
visible when I interviewed him in September.
In
a state of petrified amazement, the boys remained at their
point of observation about 150 feet from the touchdown
site. As the object settled down to land, it gave off
a blast of hot air that disturbed the ground so violently,
the boys were covered in a film of dust. Immediately prior
to making contact, the object extended short legs, then
some action on the part of the machine caused sand and
stones to be sucked upwards towards it in a violent swirling
manner. A few seconds later, the boys said, "blue
sparks came up from the ground as the machine made contact."
I
gather at this point, although confusion and contradiction
exist, the Stillie boys had seen enough, and established
an Olympic record for the 100 metres required to find
the safety of home.
David
Bates, either more courageous or foolhardy, remained long
enough to establish that it looked like, "two
plates joined together, and had an outline in the side
like a door." This fact was confirmed by the
Stillie boys when interviewed. All agree that it had apparently
no windows, "was square on the top, and had "something
like a chain" in the centre of the machine.
David
told me that his curiosity only kept him long enough to
see if anyone came out of the door, but courage failed
him and he too, fled down the dirt road after his companions.
Mr.
and Mrs. Bates confirmed their son was "hysterical
and bug eyed," when he arrived home, white-faced,
and it took him some time to calm down. His story, they
brushed off. Steven and Henry Stillie's parents were out,
but they have a teenage sister who was in the trailer
washing up. The window from the sink faces the sandpit
and although a few trees serve as screen between them
and the sandpit, she didn't notice anything unusual. Describing
the boys' entrance, she related that their first actions
were to lock all the doors and windows, then draw the
drapes. Very frightened herself, she had trouble calming
them down, and extracting an accurate picture from them
of what took place. She drew a sketch from the description
they provided but tended at that point not to totally
believe the story.
On
this particular evening, nothing further transpired. No
one was informed, nobody investigated the scene.
Possibly
due to parental indifference and/or disbelief, the boys
related the story the following morning to a close neighbor,
Mrs. Lola Rogers, who lived on the same street. Being
interested in this sort of thing, she accompanied the
boys to the sandpit and found not only indentations in
the alleged landing area, but also circular patches where
the "aircraft" had left carbonized deposits
either on take-off or landing. Bending down to pick up
this material and rub it between her fingers, she felt
her hand go numb, and it remained so for over a week before
gradually wearing off. The depressions formed a triangle
and seemed to indicate that some heavy object with a tripod
landing gear had indeed rested on the ground.
Returning
home, she phoned the RCMP who graciously hung up on her,
after hearing the account. The local newspaper was not
so skeptical, at least preferring to withhold any comment
until having seen the witnesses and visited the scene.
The reporter from the Port Coquitlam Herald was sufficiently
impressed with what he found to suggest that a call to
the military authorities at Chilliwack, asking them to
do a geiger-count survey of the area, might be productive.
The call was made and a voice at the other end stated
that "they" would arrive the next day
and conduct such an investigation. They never did. Although
The Herald gave the story front page coverage in its once-weekly
publication, and two weeks later, again provided the same
treatment to an independent study. None of the Vancouver's
papers attempted to pick the story up.
At
the beginning of September, Brian Fewster, Mark Bauer
and I began an investigation that continued for several
months as we pursued different paths, securing assistance
from a variety of surprisingly helpful people.
Our
source of information was the newspaper article. From
this, we obtained our leads and knew what to ask the witnesses.
By this time, it was apparent that outside and TV influence
was intruding into the children's' accounts. However,
it was equally clear that the story possessed grains of
unusualness that youngsters of that age would not dream
of including in a fabricated story.
Despite
the fact that several showers had occurred since the landing,
the depressions and carbonized material were still clearly
evident when we arrived at the site. A more ideal landing
spot for seclusion could hardly be found. Surrounded on
three sides by a 15-foot bank and with a large number
of trees on the fourth side, it could conceal any reasonable
large vehicle from outside eyes for a long period of time.
Only by walking or driving into the sandpit area would
an object be detectable and even then possibly only at
the last minute or so, particularly if its lights were
off. So perfect were the conditions, so accessible to
the major highway nearby, we allowed ourselves to speculate
that maybe the UFO wasn't attracted to the boys by curiosity,
but originally intended to land to pick someone up or
drop him off.
By
placing a centre stake within the triangle, then measuring
with an extended string to only two feet beyond the tripod
indentations, we discovered that the object's diameter
was 20 feet. From the boys' on-the-spot description, we
found it must have stood 10 feet high when resting on
the ground.
The
dust was chalk-like and smooth to the touch when rubbed
between the fingers. Two universities completed analysis
of the material. Dr. Posnar reported that it showed no
evidence of the residual material to indicate what, if
anything, had been burnt on that particular spot. Evidence
of radiation was also absent. The site did not appear
to create magnetic distortions. Surrounding trees and
leaves on the site perimeter did not indicate burning
or damage, although checked over a period of several weeks.
Tom
Bennett, who conducted a more thorough examination of
the carbonized substance, stated that a high degree of
heat would be required to produce such results, but even
simulated conditions would not extend so far into the
sandy soil. He made educated guesses as to how the substance
could be duplicated by using a variety of common available
materials. But the big snag was that not all the elements
would be left that were present in the site samples. On
completion of an x-ray spectrometry test, the print-outs
showed what Bennett described as an abnormally high amount
of zinc present in the deposits.
These
findings were surprisingly similar to those of the Delphos,
Kansas landing incident on November 2, 1971. In that case,
deposits with a high zinc content were also left by the
object involved, and tests showed the presence of hydrocarbon
of a type that might be an insecticide solvent or might
show up in a diesel fuel. This, too, was found in the
Port Coquitlam tests. Stranger yet, Mrs. Erma Johnson,
housewife on the farm where the object landed, felt a
numbness in the fingers (as did her husband to a lesser
degree) after touching the residue, just as in the case
of Mrs. Rogers. The numbness lasted "about two
weeks" while Mrs. Rogers' lasted "over
a week."
On
August 16, it was clear warm night. No one we spoke to
had TV interference during the time of the landing. But
it is possibly worthy of mention that Mrs. Bates' electric
clock ran one hour fast that evening, something it has
never done before. We feel this event is not a hoax. The
boys told the truth as they recalled it.
Source:
http://www.ufoevidence.org/cases/case56.htm