14 October 1976
(North Island Gazette, Port Hardy, Canada)
The whole article:
“Four Malcolm Island (British Columbia, Canada) residents saw
what they think may have been an Unidentified Flying Object in the night sky
here last Friday (8 October 1976).
A solitary light, varying in intensity and color and
moving erratically between sky and sea level at different rates of speed, was
watched by several of the people between 9:30 p.m. and midnight.
The most vivid description of the sighting was given
by 21 year old Kati Brauer who said that she was walking the beach near the
ball park when she first noticed the phenomenon.
‘It first appeared in the sky toward Port Hardy (Vancouver
Island),’ Brauer said, ‘and then it went out. I thought it was just a light but
then it again reappeared near Pulteney Point. It seemed to hover there and then
zoomed off and I heard a whirring sound sort of like a computer.’
A friend of Brauer’s, Brian Brigden was also on the
beach and told her that he too had seen the strange light earlier on. While
they were walking, the light appeared again but this time it was back in the
direction of Port Hardy.
This time it looked like a ‘red and yellow flame with
a concave triangle inside it.’ Brauer said that at one point she felt that
there were also green streaks inside the ball of light.
‘I didn’t know what it could be but it was moving very
fast when it did change direction,’ she said. ‘It vanished again after getting
real dim and then appeared again almost directly across the strait at Port
McNeill.’
Brauer said that the object was quite big, about ‘half
the size of the moon’ and went from up near the clouds to down close to the
water. While close to Port McNeill the light seemed to break into smaller
segments of red and green and then changed into a more perpendicular form.
The column of light then moved away from McNeill and
toward Malcolm Island. As it started moving toward the island, Brauer said that
she watched it intently. She estimated that it took about 20 minutes to move
from Soldier Point to Malcolm Island and then moved down the beach away from
the watching pair.
‘All of a sudden the whole thing went out and this
indigo blue dome shimmered on the water where the light had been,’ Brauer said.
‘It was about half way between Pulteney Point and the Sointula breakwater
before it again disappeared.’
The Port McNeill ferry that they also could see
approaching the island pulled into the dock and unloaded its passengers. As the
ferry left, the light became visible once more and burned from blue to white
and then a bright red before it again went out.
Mr. and Mrs. Hermanson who had been on the ferry also
saw the light on their way home.
Stopping on the beach where Brauer and Brigden were,
they saw what Valerie Hermanson described to the Gazette as a bright flickering
light.
‘I don’t think that it moved while I was watching it,’
she said, ‘but it would disappear and then reappear elsewhere.’ She described
the location of the glowing ball as being on the Port Hardy side of Port
McNeill and fairly close to the water.
‘It was about the size of a grapefruit and was really
strange,’ said Hermanson. ‘I’ve never seen anyting like it before. Although it
was really bright, it would fade out like the wind fluttering the flame of a
candle.’
Hermanson said that she was a skeptic about UFOs or
flying saucers but she didn’t have any idea what it could have been. At 2 a.m. the next morning she was
awakened by her baby and again noticed the light but this time it was much
higher in the sky.
Mrs. Hermanson’s husband was not available for comment
as he was out fishing and the Gazette was unable to contact the other
eyewitness, Brian Brigden.
Brauer was much more certain of what had been seen and
said that in her mind it clearly was a UFO.
‘I’ve seen UFO before,’ she said, ‘and I know that I
heard it (Friday’s sighting) when it was on the water.’
Port Hardy airport Ministry of Transport personnel
said that the only aircraft that were in the area at the time were a coast
guard patrol plane and Pacific Western’s late Friday night flight. Both these
planes would have passed out of sight though by 10:30 p.m.
Although it was a full moon that night, overcast
conditions at 4,800 feet
obscured it from view.
Brauer said that she hadn’t seen the moon at all that
night and the lights moved faster than any aircraft she’d ever watched. A
number of teens also said that they had witnessed the strange lights when
Brauer mentioned the sighting several days later.”
Satellite photo of Malcolm Island, Canada (tageo.com)
(tageo.com photo)
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