Massive, grey, saucer-shaped.
Unusual air traffic is reported to have entered the skies of Salmon Arm in April of this year. And a New Westminster man would like to hear more about it.
Rod Drown is writing a book on Unidentified Flying Objects – or UFOs – in B.C. dating back to 1890s. He noticed what he describes as “one of the most dramatic sightings I have ever heard of” when he was looking over the National UFO Reporting Centre website.
There he found the description of a UFO sighting which occurred April 2, 2015 at 5:30 p.m. It was reported on May 3 and posted to the site on May 8.
Its location was Salmon Arm, its shape was listed as ‘disk,’ and the duration of the sighting was 20 minutes.
The posting reads as follows: “Massive grey saucer shape, low altitude, moved towards me.
“I was inspecting a new lake lot we bought and were building on when I saw what looked like snow on the mountain. It soon became clear it was not snow and the saucer object with a large deep belly was moving towards my position. It was still sunny but there was no reflection.
“The craft was massive and grey like concrete. Made no sound and left no visible trails. Hovering at 600-1000 feet. About the width of two football fields. No details like doors or markings could be seen. I chose to leave before it got closer.
“People near Glen Eden, or across the tracks downtown must have saw something.”
Drown would like to hear from the author of the post or anyone else who might have witnessed the spectacle. He is writing his book because “UFOs to me are the greatest mystery of modern times” and he thinks a book dedicated exclusively to sightings in B.C. would be a valuable addition to existing literature on the topic.
Drown estimates there are dozens of good sightings in B.C. in an average year and offers a number of websites which list them. For sightings in B.C., he suggests: http://ufobc.ca/, or, in Canada: http://www.canadianuforeport.com/survey/UFOsOverCanada.pdf.
The April sighting from Salmon Arm is not the only one in the Shuswap reported by a newspaper. In January 2004, the Eagle Valley News in Sicamous reported sightings by Mara Lake residents, Darryl and Lisa Schwartz.
They had been seeing unidentified objects in the skies from their home throughout November of 2003, but one night during a snowmobile trip in a nearby mountain, Darryl reported seeing a multi-coloured disk hovering above the trees about a mile away. He watched the object for about 15 minutes. At that time he described it this way: “It didn’t look like anything I’ve ever seen. It was diamond-shaped with a cluster of lights and was the size of a three-storey house. It hovered like a helicopter...”
He became frightened and left.
On Dec. 26, the couple saw another strange object from outside their house. It was zipping back and forth, at tree line, with many multi-coloured lights visible. Lisa recorded the disk-shaped object on video, and also called the police. A constable who was quoted in the newspaper confirmed that he saw “a bunch of lights” unlike anything he had seen before.
Also interviewed for the article was a man from Houston, B.C., who investigated UFO sightings.
He said sightings of unidentified objects in the Shuswap skies, particularly in the Mara Lake and Gardom Lake areas, had skyrocketed in 2003.
If you happened to have witnessed the April 2 unexplained sighting in Salmon Arm this year, you can contact Drown via email at: rpdrown@hotmail.com.