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UFO sightings rise in Alberta

Do you believe in UFOs? The mystery of unidentified flying objects has history in the Bow Valley including an alleged abduction case.

BOW VALLEY – You’re not alone in the universe if you've seen a UFO. 

Ranging from blinking lights and formations to flying saucers hovering across the landscape, humans have been fascinated and curious of the unidentified flying object mystery that has been linked to human and military activity, natural phenomenon, and of course, everyone’s favourite intergalactic riddle: aliens from outer space.

Hundreds of UFO sightings are reported in the Great White North every year and the otherworldly encounters, and even alleged UFO abduction activity, have all been documented in the Bow Valley.

“We do get cases in the Rockies quite often and historically the area of Banff, Jasper and into B.C. a little bit have had some very interesting cases,” said Chris Rutkowski, a science writer specializing in ufology.

Rutkowski has been studying and investigating UFOs since the 1970s. He established the Canadian UFO Survey 31 years ago, which is a database that documents UFO sighting reports and encounters in each province, the types of sightings/encounters, strangeness and reliability, and a summary of results for a yearly circulation.

Rutkowski said the conversation around UFO sightings has become more acceptable in society with polls showing about 10 per cent of Canadians saying they’ve seen a UFO, including reports from pilots, air traffic controllers, the RCMP and military officers.

But the ufology expert isn’t quick to connect the dots between UFOs and its most common attribute in pop culture: extra terrestrial visitation.

“One can certainly turn on movies or TV and see aliens have visited Earth," said Rutkowski. 

"Having said that, most of the UFO reports that we get do have explanations and there really is no concrete proof or evidence that aliens are visiting Earth. 

“What we do have is a lot of evidence that the UFO phenomena is real and it’s certainly deserving of scientific study because it’s something people are quite puzzled about and affects certainly a good portion of the population.”

In the 2019 Canadian UFO Survey, published in July, there were 849 UFO sightings reported in Canada and 98 in Alberta.

The top three cities with the most reported sightings were Montreal (46), Vancouver (39), and Winnipeg (31).

About 40 per cent of all UFO sightings were from “simple lights in the sky,” but point sources of light, spheres, and boomerangs were also reported.

Overall, 2019 had a 10 per cent decline in sightings across the nation than in 2018, and was the lowest on record in a decade. However, Alberta had nearly double the sightings than in 2018, and its most since 2015.

It’s theorized that a downturn in the economy could be one reason that’s factored into more UFO sightings.

“There have been some suggestions that with socio-economic concerns and issues and instability in various ways often to trend upwards [in UFO sightings],” said Rutkowski.

“We’d need a lot more data to look at that to figure this out because there are many other factors at play including media influence and so forth. So it’s a complicated thing to try to narrow down, but it is one theory that has been proposed.”

Locally, statistics show reported UFO sightings are happening in the Bow Valley and Kananaskis regions, including an alleged case of an individual being taken aboard a UFO craft.

Over a 10-year span, Canmore has had 10 reported UFO sightings; there have been seven sightings in Banff, including four in 2016; one at Lake Louise; three in the MD of Bighorn; two in Kananaskis Country; and one in Stoney Nakoda.

About 25 per cent of local sightings occurred in November and nearly 42 per cent occurred between September and November.

The reported sightings are taken from photographs, film and/or from an eye-witness accounts and are evaluated on strangeness and reliability scale rankings in the Canadian UFO Survey from one (not very unusual) to nine (highly unusual). Most tend to be in the “medium strangeness” and “medium reliability” range.

The highest strangeness markers in the Bow Valley were three separate cases of six in Banff, Canmore and the MD of Bighorn over the past decade.

According to the Survey, a close encounter of the fourth kind (C4) was reported in Canmore in 2015. A C4 is an alleged abduction or contact experience.

In August of that year, a “huge disc” with a glowing orange hue and omitting a fuzzy static, allegedly took an individual on the craft around midnight. The individual reported “visions of being in a ship” and was dizzy and vomited after the experience.

"I was walking with a co-worker toward a tent we have set up beside our ball field," wrote the individual on the Mutual UFO Network. "We were just chatting when we saw this blueish light in the the sky across the ball field, but it looked like it was a few kilometres away. So we stood there trying to figure out what it was, then all of a sudden it started to get bigger and closer.

"It took about three seconds to get right in front of us about 10 feet away and it was huge. Had to be close to 25-30 feet across ... It only hung there for about five seconds then took off southwest over a small mountain beside my work.

"It was incredible. But soon after I started to feel ill and dizzy and started vomiting and since then I keep having visions of inside a ship, but I've never in my life been inside any kind of ship."

The C4 is deemed unexplained by Canadian UFO Survey.

Rutkowski said these types of cases present challenges because it is difficult to establish any physical evidence and the reality that these things occurred.

“It’s a personal experience that is puzzling; whether it is related to the rest of the UFO phenomena in general, we simply don’t know,” said Rutkowski. “In other words, we don’t know if an encounter with creatures that interact with people has anything to do with a simple light that’s been seen moving in the night sky.”

In October 2016, there was a report of a UFO sighting at Mount Yamnuska around 10 p.m. The witness observed three lights “blinking” and colours of white, orange, blue and red were observed zigzagging in all directions.

A month later in Banff, two cases were reported on the same day, one in daylight and the other at night, which hit a five and six on the strangeness scale. In both cases, two silver and white discs with “weird” and “pulsating” lights were reported hovering over the mountains.

Alberta's two biggest cities are the top two destinations where UFO enthusiasts are most likely to see one. Since 2015, there have been 93 reported sightings in Calgary and 124 in Edmonton.

Elsewhere in the province, over a 10-year span, Sherwood Park ranks as one of the best places to have a UFO sighting with 43 reported. Lethbridge had 35; Red Deer had 31; Medicine Hat had 26; Edson had 25; Airdrie had 22; Grande Prairie had 21; Fort McMurray had 16; Cochrane had 14; St. Albert had 13; and Jasper had eight.

As for 2020, the strange year of a worldwide pandemic dominanting headlines and lives, Rutkowski said preliminary results have shown a spike in UFO sightings across Canada.

"In a comparison between the first six months of 2019 and the first six months of 2020, the numbers are significantly up. In fact, I think 2020 in Canada is up somewhere in the neighbourhood of 25-50 per cent," Rutkowski said. "It's very possible COVID had an affect on the number of UFO sightings, but we won’t know until spring of next year."


Jordan Small

About the Author: Jordan Small

An award-winning reporter, Jordan Small has covered sports, the arts, and news in the Bow Valley since 2014. Originally from Barrie, Ont., Jordan has lived in Alberta since 2013.
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