Case Directory
  Category 2, Close Encounters 
 
  Preliminary
Rating: 5  
           
                      
     

A Hynek Classification of Close Encounter is usually an incident involving an object less than 500 feet from the witness.  The size of the object,  viewing conditions, or stereoscopic vision (depth perception)  may render the object in greater detail and still qualify the sighting as a Close Encounter even though the object may have been beyond 500'.  The incident depicted in the logo was encountered during an intense storm near Princeton, IN,  Aug. 1973.

Train Crews Says UFO Pursued Them
October 17, 1967
Edmonton, CANADA


Fran Ridge:
October 17, 1967; Edmonton, Canada
1:50 AM. The object was sighted one mile N of Elnora by several of the train's crew. Elnora is about 35 miles SE of Red Deer. Engineer William (Ben) Benwick): "If I'd had a sling-shot, I could have knocked it down". It was an unidentified flying object that Benwick and other crew members of the CNR 443-North speed freight say followed them early that Friday morning. Mr. Benwick, of Calgary, said the object flew alongside the train at a distance of about 100 yards. On one occasion, he said it dived toward the train and came much closer. At first he had been reluctant to report the incident to a newspaper. "I thought everybody would take me for a nut," he said. He told The Journal that the train was going at about 50 mph at the time and that the UFO followed along. When they stopped at Alix to drop off a car, it stopped also and "Just hung there." It then followed the train all the way into Mirror. Benwick described the UFO as being a little more than the length of a boxcar in diameter, about 40 feet. It had colored lights around the rim which flashed red, green, orange, and yellow. Its top cone was black, and underneath there was a circle of glowing light, about 10 feet in diameter. "When we got to Mirror, I told the operator there about it, and he asked what I had been drinking. I told him: 'There it is, right in front of you,' and he just said: 'My God'." The CNR operator at Mirror, Larry Mazure, later told Mr. Benwick that the UFO hovered about 15 miles east of Mirror for two hours more before it left. The same night, Mrs. David Soppit, who lives about five miles west of Mirror, reported to The Journal that she had heard a humming or whirring noise, and when she looked out the window she saw an extremely fast moving light in the sky. The following night, the engineer of another freight train, Hubert Schmidt, also reported the sighting of a UFO.

Detailed reports and documents
articles/671017canada_edmonton_journal.pdf (Edonton Journal)


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