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SASKATCHEWAN, 1933: UFO STOPS FOR "REPAIRS"

BY JOHN BRENT MUSGRAVE (FSR Vol 22 # 6 1976)

Even as late as the mid 1930's, much of the prairie
provinces of Canada was still on the frontier of
immigrant settlement. Particularly in the northern
areas homesteaders were just beginning to open up
the land to commerce and agriculture, and such
Luxuries as telephones, paved roads and electricity
were things of the future. The town of Nipawin,
Saskatchewan, is situated in the northwest corner of
the province and in the 30's was on the edge of this
settlement. During the summer of 1933 stories
drifted into Nipawin that some homesteaders. as well
as a forest tower ranger, bad been observing strange
lights in the sky and near the ground. Whatever it
was, they had been seeing it for the better part of a
week. The land to the northwest of Nipawin, near
the Tobin Lake area, is made up of rolling hills and
low lying marsh. Parts of it bad begun to be farmed
just a few years earlier, and it was without improvement
Because of the local marsh, most of the towns-
folk who beard about the strange lights explained
them away as swamp gas - a convenient scapegoat
that still gets used today.
Fortunately, not everyone in Nipawin was con-
vinced that the stories were based on nothing more
than ""hot air,,: and shortly after midnight that
summer night two men and a woman (names known
to the author) jumped into a small pick-up truck and
drove to the area where the lights were reported to
have been seen. They were not disappointed as the
glow on the horizon gradually grew brighter as they
drove on. After driving as close as the rough trail
would allow them, they got out and hiked through
the woods in the direction of the glow. They were
blocked a quarter of a mile or less from reaching
the source of the glow by a strip of muskeg that was
too boggy to risk on to in the middle of the night.
But it was close enough. From their vantage point
they were able to make out that the light came
from a large oval shaped object that was domed
at the top and slightly rounded on the bottom. It
was supported by legs and from a central door-
way, or hatch, about a dozen figures could be seen
going up and down a ladder-like stairway. The
Occupants appeared to be slightly shorter than the
average man, and were all dressed in what appeared
to be silver colored suits or uniforms. All appeared
to be wearing helmets or ski caps, and all were busy
running around ""repairing,, the craft.
All about was a strange sort of quiet, even though
the occupants were busy scurrying about. Not a
sound could be heard. The three witnesses stared in
silent amazement at what was going on, no one even
thought to speak out. The bright orange glow that
emanated from the craft lit up the surroundings area,
and the three of them bad no difficulty spying on
the activities. The light from the craft was not only
bright, but bad an ""unearthly,, quality never seen by
any of them before and added to the mystery of the
scene. After about a half hour the three of them
returned to the truck and started back to town
hoping to find a way around the muskeg to get a
closer look at the strange machine parked in the
middle of a marsh miles away from the nearest farm-
house or forest tower. But when they finally did
come across a cut-off trail that might take them
closer they realized that they didn't have enough
gasoline to take them in and out. So they had to
return home that night.
It was not until a couple of nights later that they
were able to make a return trip out. It was a clear
night with almost a full moon, and they hoped to get
an even better view. But this night the object was
gone. No trace of the glowing craft could be seen
from the vantage point of two nights previous, and
they returned to the truck to await dawn. They then
walked back in across the muskeg to see if nay
evidence of what they had seen was Left. And there
was. six large square imprints that must have been
the bases of the legs that supported the craft proved
that there indeed had been something there that
night. Each imprint was the same size - 2 to 2 1/2
feet square, and approximately S to 10 feet apart.
The imprints were 2 to 3 inches deep, and reminded
the three of them of a kind of mark that would be
made by boiler plate stomped into the ground. They
could also see markings where the base of the stair-
way met ground. As if this wasn't remarkable enough,
a great burn mark in the center of the area covered a
circle approximately I 2 feet in diameter. They
looked for footprints but found none though there
was some scuffling of the vegetation surrounding the
spot where the craft had been.
They came better prepared this time. One of the
witnesses had brought along a small brownie box
camera and took photographs of the burn marks
and of the imprints. Later two of them wrote up an
article about the whole affair and submitted it, along
with copies of the photos, to a number of magazines
and newspapers in Canada. But no publication was
interested, and those publishers that replied
wondered what kind of party they had been to those
nights. Like many other UFO witnesses the three of
selves. In the course of the 40 plus years since the
incident, the original photographs have been lost by
the witness who took them, and who bad learned the
hard way that they were apparently of no interest to
anyone else. Perhaps copies of them are still in
existence stored in an attic or sandwiched between
vacation shots in some photo album. If they are
ever uncovered they may prove to be the earliest
photographs of a physical trace case where there were
witnesses, and which even had occupants to boot.


Jim Singleton
telnet://ricksbbs.synchro.net:23
http://ricksbbs.synchro.net:8080
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