Some Truly Bizarre Alien Encounter Cases From Canada

One very weird corner of the UFO phenomenon is those cases that involve people having actual encounters with the beings behind it all. Besides merely seeing strange things in the sky, there have long been those witnesses who have allegedly come face to face with the perpetrators of it all, in a sense pulling back the curtain to see the wizard beyond. Such accounts have come in from all over the world, and here we will look at a selection of such stories from the wilds of Canada. 

A very early report comes to us from the year 1918, in Fontainebleau, Quebec. In November of that year, a Mrs. Maria Dion was just 18, and on this evening she was walking back home after a party with some friends. It was a very rural, lightly forested area, and as she walked along from the trees stepped several humanoid entities with green skin, who stood no more than two feet tall and were dressed in “astronauts” outfits, with helmets and uniforms. These entities seemed to have wasted no time in suddenly dashing towards her to chase her down the road, and were described as being very fast. At the time, she believed that they were devils that wanted to punish her because she had gone to the party secretly without telling her parents. The case was first brought forward by the Canadian ufologist Donald Cyr, whose father had apparently known the woman in question, and he would say of it:

To me the observations that were, prior to 1947 belonged to the world of folklore elves and fairies. But now, I am inclined to take it more seriously. A few months after writing the story of Mrs. Dion. A grown up woman contacted me to tell me that Maria Dion was her grandmother. She asked me how my father had known that woman. In the 50s my father had been playing the accordion at a wedding. And this is where he met this lady who seemed to be aged late fifties or early sixties. Who told that young people were lucky to dance without problem! In his time the village priest and their parents frowned upon the pleasures of dancing. 

And that is where she told hers (sic) bad adventure with this (sic) small cosmonauts. The woman who claimed to be the granddaughter of Maria Dion also gave me some information on the small town of Fontainebleau the actual place of the event because I had written Fontainebleau in my first website. The lady told me that she too had been witnessing the UFO phenomenon on several occasions and had foreseen well before the events of the UFO sightings. The members of hers (sic) family and especially her husbands are witnesses of the events. She told that her hands were full of statics before each ufo encounter. The woman was happy to see that she was not the only one to have experienced it in her family and it is thanks to your website that I know the strange story of my grandmother.

What was going on here? Moving ahead to the year of 1939, we have a bizarre case from Abitibi Lake, Ontario. On a sunny and frigid winter day of that year two lumberjacks by the names of Hormidas L. and Damase Landry were trudging through the snow in snow shoes when they decided to stop and take a breather. As they put out some branches to sit down on, they suddenly noticed a large wolf coming out of the forest that seemed to be mulling about sniffing around looking for something. The animal searched for a while and then sat down in the snow, and when it did a group of six “very small men in dark-green puffy suits” emerged from the trees. These odd beings measured only around 80 centimeters in height, with slanted eyes, yellowish skin, and “ears like small falling triangles, very small chins, and almost flat heads.” Their arms and legs were described as thin, frail, and weak looking, and one thing the two witnesses took notice of was that, despite the relentless biting cold, no condensation vapor was coming out of their mouths, as if they weren’t breathing at all. Jean Ferguson, author of Enigmas of the present times, would write of what happened next:

They all were identical, as if they had been manufactured in series. At their sight, the wolf became aggressive, hair raised, showing his teeth. The small group stopped, their glances went towards the two lumberjacks, but as if they did not really see them. They then looked to the wolf and pointed fingers at it, while speaking between them, very fast, in a language which resembled Algonquin. One of the characters went in front of the group towards the wolf, without being blocked by the snow although he had no snow rackets and only small feet. He arrived at a few feet of the wolf and raised a hand while saying some words. The wolf reacted by jumping at him, and it started to tear the little being apart, the arms, the legs and the gust; which fell in the snow, without giving off any condensation vapor.

Upon seeing this rather gruesome and violent sight, Landry apparently snapped a branch to catch the wolf’s attention, after which he threw it at the animal, causing it to run off. The humanoid creatures then went about cleaning up the gory remains of their fallen friend and walked off towards the trees. The lumberjacks tried to follow them but found that they were too fast to keep up with, yet they nevertheless continued on following their tracks in the snow. Eventually they came to a clearing with an enormous clearly delineanated round area where the snow had been ejected around. With no sign of the creatures and no further tracks to follow, the two witnesses went back to where the other humanoid had been killed, but there was nothing remaining except a smattering of brown blood on the snow and a piece of strange fabric. They tried to cut it in half with a knife and even an exe in order to share it between them, but the material proved impossible to tear or cut in any way. It is unknown what became of this fabric, or whether any of this really happened at all. And we are left to wonder. 

Another strange case occurred on July 2, 1950, when a local man named Gordon Edwards and his wife were allegedly out at Steep Rock Lake at a place called Sawbill Bay for a bit of fishing. It was at about dusk when they headed into a small cove and put their boat up on a secluded sandy beach to rest, chat, and have snacks and tea. As the sun gradually dipped down in the sky and the day grew dim, they decided to start getting ready to head home, and at that moment the air shook and the ground vibrated with what seemed to be a loud explosion somewhere nearby. The startled couple at first thought that it had to be a mining blast from the Steep Rock Iron Mines, but then realized that the mines were too far away to have caused such a strong shockwave. Gordon told his wife to wait at their spot, which was concealed by trees and bushes, and he then went to investigate the source of the mysterious boom.

When he went to go peek through a cleft in the rock, he was amazed by what he saw. There out on the lake was “a large shining object, resting on the water” about a quarter of a mile away. He could easily see that this was no boat or any other sort of watercraft that he was familiar with, and it was such an eerie and bizarre sight that he excitedly ran back to get his wife and show her. When the two got there to take a look, the mysterious object was still there, and Gordon would describe it and what happened next:

The shining thing was still resting on the water. It looked like two saucers, one upside down on the top of the other. Round the edge were holes like black ports, spaced about 4 feet apart. We could not see the underside, because the bottom of the thing was resting on the water, or close to it. On top were what looked like open hatches, and moving around over its surface were ten little figures. They looked queer, very queer. Rotating slowly from a central position, and about 8 feet up in the air, was a hoop-shaped object. As it rotated, to a point directly opposite to where my wife and I were peering through the rock-cleft. It stopped, and the little figures also stopped moving. Everything now seemed concentrated on the little opening through which we were peering. We were about to duck down, as we thought these midget figures might see us and take alarm, when, on the opposite side of the cove, a deer appeared, came to the edge of the water, and stood motionless.

We again peered through the cleft in the rock. The little figures and the previously rotating circle were aligned on the deer. But now the circle moved to the left. We ducked down, counted twenty, and took another peep. The thing was gyrating and the figures moving; but the deer didn’t seem to trouble them. We ducked down, supposing that a ray had been projected towards the rock from the thing on the water. Maybe, the rock was a barrier and kept it off us. It looked as if the whole machine were worked from a central point below the circling ray. The operator was a midget figure on a small raised stand. He wore what seemed to be a red skull cap, or perhaps it was red paint, the caps worn by others were blue. I should say the figures were from 3 feet 6 inches to 4 feet tall, and all were the same size. We could not see their faces. In fact, the faces seemed just blank surfaces! It was odd that.”

They noted that the tiny figures “moved like automata, rather than living beings,” and had chests covered with a “gleaming metallic substance.” As they walked about they seemed to not turn around, but rather merely change the direction of their feet, and one of the creatures seemed to be busy with nozzle of a vivid green hose. As the couple looked on at this otherworldly sight, the air began to hum and vibrate, and the witnesses had the impression that water was being drawn into the craft, or that something was being ejected from it. It was startling enough that, not knowing what the vibration meant, they ducked down low behind the boulder. However, their curiosity got the better of them and they took a peek again. Gordon would describe what happened next:

Next time we peered through the rock cleft, we found that all the figures had vanished, and the machine was about 8 feet up in the air. I noticed that the water of the lake, near where the thing had rested, was tinged with color combined of red-blue-gold. The disk I reckoned was about 15 feet thick at the center, and some 12 feet at the edges. It tilted at an angle near 45 degrees. …Now, there came a rush of wind …a flash of red-blue-gold and it was gone, heading northwards, and so fast that my eye could not follow it. It was now quite dark. We decided to call it a day, and got into our boat and went out into the bay where the saucer had rested on the water. I had aligned two trees to estimate its size, which, I think, was 48 feet. I went back there again, on another day, and as we came through the narrows, I heard a rush or wind, and again something flashed above and beyond the trees. What it was, I could not see. My wife was scared. She said she would never go there again.

She apparently begged her husband not to go back there either, and at first he promised he wouldn’t, but he was too intrigued by what they had seen to honor it. Two days later, Gordon went back to the scene, this time with a friend from the mine on the pretext of going out for a day of fishing. They took cameras with them, but saw nothing on this particular excursion. For the next few weeks, they went back to the cove often, patrolling about in an outboard motorboat and hoping to see the object that had scared Gordon and his wife so much, then one evening they found what they had been looking for. There, at the same spot it had originally appeared at, was the bright disk, once again enigmatically hovering low over the water. They turned their boat around and tried to take pictures, but the biting wind was too cold, the waves to choppy, and Gordon would claim that they were unable to operate the cameras or focus with their numb fingers and the swaying motion. Gordon says of what happened next:

Before we got close up to the saucer, I saw the little figures vanish into the hatches. They had seen us. The rotating mechanism vanished, and the hose reeled in like a Hash of green lightning-so fast did they work! There came a regular blast of air and the saucer whizzed off like greased lightning. But my eye was quick enough to see that a little figure, close to the water’s edge, was only half-way back to the hatch. He must have operated the end of the green hose, or suction pipe. …Our own engine stalled and then ran hot; so we got borne late, and our wives were terrified. We had to promise never to go saucer-spotting again.

The account was originally published in September of 1950 in The Steep Rock Echo, with the account released by a B.J. Eyton, apparently Gordon’s friend and a Chief Chemist at Steep Rock Iron Mines, but after the story hit, it made its way into other news outlets such as the Port Arthur News Chronical, as well as all sorts of UFO publications. It was notably featured in popular broadcast journalist and ufologist Frank Edward's 1956 book Strangest of all and again in his 1966 book, Flying Saucers - Serious Business, as well as Harold T. Wilkins’ 1954 book Flying Saucers On The Attack and Jacques Vallee’s seminal 1969 work, Passport to Magonia, and the account also did the rounds in magazines such as Fate Magazine and in the October 1957 issue of Ray Palmer's Amazing Stories, among others. The editor of the piece, Eyton, further fanned the fires when he also claimed that others in the region had seen the object as well, saying:

I have been unable either to verify or disprove this story, but about the time it was told and published in our magazine, men working in the mines here at Steep Rock, saw a flying saucer at night, and people in the nearby township of Atitokan told the local press that they had seen them in a region between Fort William and Port Arthur, a range of some 140 miles. In fact, one night the telegraphers of the Canadian National Railroads wired to each other to look out for a strange object in the skies, until it reached here. Then it turned back. Everybody is sure he saw a flying saucer that night.

The report was for many years taken at face value and treated as a solid true account from a reliable witness, published in some of the most revered and cherished classic books on UFOs there are, but in the 1970s it would come out that Gordon and Eyton had conspired to make the whole thing up as a hoax to amuse their secluded community and to see what the media and the field of ufology would do with it. Rather amusingly, it seems that Gordon even specifically targeted Frank Edwards and his popular UFO stories in his books, saying they he wanted to “ridicule newspaper accounts that described 'little green men'- accounts popularized by Frank Edwards.” The story had then been published by his friend Eyton and taken on a life of its own. Even so, right up to the present the story has been often presented as an authentic, actual account, and some in the UFO field still defend it as such, with peiople even saying that the admission of a hoax was part of a cover-up, and that they had been coerced into saying that. What was going on here? Is there anything to this at all, or is it just another elaborate hoax in a field full of them? Whatever the case may be, it is all a very strange tale, indeed.

Jumping forward to the 1970s we have several alleged strange encounters. On January 1, 1970, a Miss Doreen Kendall, a practical nurse at the Cowichan District Hospital on Vancouver Island, was on duty at the hospital and went over to the window to pull the drapes and let in some air. As she did, she noticed something very strange. Of which she would say:

Just as I pulled the drapes a brilliant light hit me in the eyes,” she said. “It was still dark outside, but about 60 feet away right above the children’s ward to my left there was this object so big and bright I could see everything clearly. The object was circular and had what I guess you would call a top and bottom. The bottom was silvery, like metal, and was shaped like a bowl. There was a string of bright lights around it like a necklace. The top was a dome made of something like glass. It was lit up from inside and I could see right into it.

She also saw within this craft two muscular male humanoid figures with heads encased in some sort of dark material and dressed in tight-fitting suits of the same material. As she looked at these entities she claims that she felt a wave of peace and calm come over her. After some time of hovering there, the craft started to tilt somewhat, and she could see that the beings were transfixed on some sort of large control panel within their craft. She would explain of what happened next:

The man in front was staring at the panel as if something very important was going on, and I wondered if they might have had mechanical trouble. I even thought they might have landed on the roof of the hospital and then had trouble taking off. The panel as a very large one, taking up almost half the interior of the object and reaching nearly to the top of the dome. The instruments, if that is what they were, seemed to be inset in the chrome-like metal of the panel and there was a variety of sizes. I felt I mustn’t make a noise or do anything that would break the trend of what was happening.

The figure in the rear then turned slowly and faced squarely in my direction. He seemed to look right at me but I couldn’t see his face. It was covered by a darkish material that looked softer than the rest of his suit. I’m sure he saw me because then he touched the other man on the back. When he did this, the man in front reached down and took hold of something like a lever beside him. I’ll never forget how deliberately he did it. He pushed it back and forth and the saucer, or whatever you’d call it, started to circle slowly, still close to the building, in an anticlockwise direction.

This was all apparently seen by another nurse, a Mrs. Wilson, who happened to be in the same room at the time of the encounter, and would corroborate the tale, telling Canadian ufologist John Magor:

I noticed Miss Kendall standing at the window and wondered what she was looking at. In fact, I was just going to see when she beckoned to me, and then I saw this great big light over the patio outside the children’s ward. I’d say it was quite a bit larger than a car. It looked circular in shape and the far side seemed to be higher than the side near us. It was moving around slowly and then it started to move away. I didn’t really see any top or bottom to it. It was all just tremendously bright.

Was there anything to this? Finally, we have a case from July 22, 1974, when that evening a couple only known as Mr. and Mrs. L. had come home to their house near St. Cyrille, Quebec from a holiday in Florida and the wife went to bed while the husband stayed up to watch television. As he did, his attention was drawn by a strange humming sound coming from outside, as well as the sound of something falling heavily on the grass. When he looked outside he saw a reddish-orange round object hovering over a nearby field, and when he turned to go tell his wife he heard an intense buzzing noise that caused him to whirl around and be confronted by the sight of a “a robot like creature, about 6 feet tall,” standing within 15 feet of his home. A report on the case from the Aerial Phenomena Research Organization (APRO) Bulletin would describe what happened next:

Needless to say, Mr. L. was shocked by what he saw and he and his wife then went into the living room where they looked out and observed three more “Robots” (they described them as such because of their stiff manner of moving about, as well as their appearance) close to an adjoining trailer and apparently examining the shaft and wheel assembly. From then on, Mr. and Mrs. L. only looked out occasionally to see if the “robots” were still there and because they were very frightened. During the observation, which lasted until 4:20 a.m., they both saw approximately 15 of the robots together in one line close to the creek. The robots stood there for over 5 minutes and when they moved they moved as if one unit, giving the L.s the impression that they were remote-controlled

The following day they were able to find landing marks left by the flying object in the form of a circle of swirled, flattened grass, and it would later be noticed that the grass grew faster and higher there than in the surrounding area. Rather oddly, they also found a strange substance of whitish color where the robots were seen moving about, and it was apparently collected for examination by APRO. The APRO Bulletin report says of it:

A sample is with Dr. Walker, APRO’s Consultant in metallurgy and if analysis yields anything pertinent to the report, it will be included in our Follow-Up column in a future issue. Members must keep in mind that such analysis is done on a volunteer basis and that all of our consultants have positions in industry or education which have to take priority over APRO work; therefore, results may not be immediately forthcoming. Also, since the beginning of the fall, 1973 “flap,” many samples of various kinds have been forwarded to Headquarters and lab work is always slow in yielding results.

Was there anything to this and where did the alleged sample go? There doesn't seem to be any more word on it, so what is going on here? Indeed, what is going on in any of these cases? Are these real accounts of possible brushes with the unexplained or are they just tall tales and the product of ober-active imaginations? Whatever the case may be, they certainly add to the lore on one of the stranger aspects of the UFO phenomenon there is, and time will perhaps tell if there is anything to this all.