Case Directory Category 2, Close Encounters Preliminary Rating: 5 |
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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. |
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
documentsarticles/671017canada_edmonton_journal.pdf (Edonton Journal) |