10-??-1073
At the end
of its journey from the lake where the Meusers had their view [See: 05-01-1974-CF-] of a flaming object and
down the wooded slopes where Kershaw had his encounter, the Cowichan River
pours into sheltered waters in the Strait of Georgia. For sports fishermen
the river and its bay provide memorable vacations, while for natives on the
bordering reserve they provide a livelihood. Long after fishing enthusiasts
have packed it up at night, members of the Quamichan band will continue to
probe with spear and net for the salmon which to them is virtually a staple
of life.
So it was late one night in October, 1973,
when a group at the Quamichan fishing camp decided to send back to the
village for more coffee. The run was good and there could be hours of work
ahead.
One of the
five who went on that errand told us what happened and, in support of what he
said, it should be explained he was showing courage in speaking to us at all.
We did not pry but it may have been true that not all fishing regulations
were observed that night, and it was only with the help of a trusted mutual
friend that an interview was arranged. Also the witness seemed more receptive
after he and his wife looked through a copy of our magazine. Obviously we
were not there to discuss his fishing problems.
"It
was about 11 o'clock that
night when five of us started off for coffee," he said. "It
was very dark but the clouds were up high enough for us to see everything
that happened.
"We
had been walking for just a couple of minutes when we noticed a round black
thing over the trees behind us. They were cottonwood trees and this thing was
just over the tops, so it must have been about two hundred feet up and it was
three or four hundred feet away.
"Then, from the bottom, a white
light shone out like a spotlight. It moved its beam up the river as if it was
looking for something. By this time we were all pretty scared. We
thought, 'Sure the others at camp have seen it, too', but afterwards they
said they hadn't seen a thing. There was a bend in the river between us so I
couldn't say for sure whether they did or not."
But the
witness looked as if he could not understand it and, since he himself wished
to have his name withheld, it occurred to us that the denial of those back at
camp may have been to ensure secrecy for themselves.
The witness
said the object was illuminated in some way so that even in the darkness its
outline was quite clear. He estimated it was about 80 feet in diameter and it
remained fully visible to his party for about '15 minutes.
For, a moment it looked as if that was
all the witness had to say. He and his wife glanced at each other and we had
the impression they wanted to end the interview at that point. So taking the
cue we prepared to leave, but asked, as we did, how the object had
disappeared.
It was a routine sort of question, the
usual answer being that the light flashed out or the object moved out of
sight. But here the reply was not usual. Instead it touched on a peculiarity
of UFOs so little known there was no chance the witness could have made it
up.
In his book UFOs: Operation Trojan
Horse, John Keel suggests our visitors sometimes conspire to make witnesses
look foolish as if to hide what they are really doing. According to this
idea, one of their tricks is to masquerade as normal-looking aircraft with
some odd unexplainable detail or in conditions where no normal aircraft would
fly. This sort of behaviour was brought to our attention when a woman wrote
in that she and two friends had heard a craft sounding exactly like an
airplane fly low overhead but when they saw the craft it appeared to be a
shapeless object circled by red flashing lights. Then the engine seemed to
cut out and the object stopped in mid-air. Obviously it was a type of craft
they had never seen before.
So the halting reply of the witness in
the Cowichan River case had impact.
"Well, if we told people about
this, they'd think we were crazy," he said. "But all of a sudden it
looked as if the thing we saw had turned into an airplane. It made a noise
like a plane and it looked like a plane, only all the lights went out except
for a little red one. It went right past us and disappeared over the
trees."
This reference: Our
UFO Visitors by John Magor, pp. 25-27, © 1977
UFOCAT PRN - 96007
UFOCAT
URN – 096007 Our UFO
Visitors by John Magor, pp. 31-34, © 1977
UFOCAT
URN – 135925 A Geo-Bibliography of
Anomalies by George Eberhart, #0033, © 1980
North
America – Canada, British Columbia, Vancouver Island
Cowichan River Latitude 48-46-00 N, Longitude 123-38-00 W (D-M-S)
Strait of Georgia Latitude
49-30-00 N, Longitude 124-00-00 W
Quamichan Latitude 48-45-30 N, Longitude 123-44-00 W
Reference: http://geonames.nrcan.gc.ca/index_e.php
UFO Location (UFOCAT) Latitude 49.5 N, Longitude 125.0 W (D.%)
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