Sudbury, Ontario and Eastern Townships
July 12-15, 1974

Another recent close-range inspection, this time over Sudbury, Ontario, almost ended in a mid-air collision between a Canadian Pacific Airlines jet and an enormous cigar-shaped UFO. The sudden appearance of the silvery craft forced the pilot of CP Air Flight 52 to dive evasively to avoid a crash. The event occurred around 9 AM on July 15, 1974, while the jet was en route from Montreal to Vancouver. One of the passengers, Mr. R.F. (identity known to investigators of UFO-Quebec), later disclosed that immediately following the near-accident, the captain told the passengers:

"Sorry about that. We had to take action because there was an unidentified flying object ahead. You can see it if you look out to the right side of the aircraft, to the north."1

The passengers watched in amazement as the large object appearing slightly transparent, continued to pace the jet for another five minutes before disappearing. "It wasn't there anymore", said passenger R.F. He continued:

"The Captain said he had been in contact with Ground Control but they knew nothing about it. It had not been on their radar screen at all. He said it might have been a balloon but he did not know. There was just no record of anything like this very big object on our course."2

In the ensuing investigation, Wido Hoville of UFO-Quebec discovered that numerous Sudbury area residents had called the Sudbury Airport Weather Office to report seeing the craft. Asked what he thought the object was, the weatherman suggested it might have been a Defence Department altitude balloon launched in Manitoba. But a check with the Defence Department and with meteorological records for that date eliminated the possibility that the balloon could have been in the Sudbury area at the time. The balloon theory was also dismissed by a flight debriefing officer at Montreal's Dorval Airport, on the grounds that the pilot would have been notified by either the Defence Department or the Transport Department weather office. Also, according to Hoville, the balloon would have registered on the aircraft radar screens. The mysterious craft did not.3

This incident coincided with a rash of other sightings. in both Ontario and Quebec. Sixteen hours earlier, campers near Daveluyvile, Quebec, south of Quebec City, saw a large triangular craft, described as "brilliant" and "silvery", hovering over their campsite.4 The object appeared to be rotating on its own axis, while maintaining a fixed position at an altitude of about four thousand feet. After about three hours of noiseless maneuvers, the craft finally drifted away to the southeast. Asked about its size, campsite owner Roger Côté, a medical technician, compared it with a fifty-cent piece held at arm's length.5 At roughly four thousand feet, this would indicate that the object was well over two hundred feet in diameter. When police officials later 'identified' it as a weather balloon, Mr. Côté flatly rejected this explanation.

About an hour later, the pilot of a Scandinavian jet, Captain K., was flying over Charlevoix, on the eastern outskirts of Quebec City, when he spotted what was presumably the same craft moving in a southwesterly direction.6 It appeared to be travelling toward Montreal, along the St. Lawrence River. This sighting, which occurred near Valcartier Mobile Command Base, was relayed to military authorities at the NORAD Air Command Centre at North Bay Air Force Base. A report of this and several subsequent sightings were in turn filed with the National Research Council.

In the same report we learn that Commander W.C.B., flying a military jet to Burlington, Vermont, from Quebec City, also spotted the same craft. He described it as "triangular in shape, stationary and estimated to be at forty thousand feet."7

His aircraft, was flying at thirty-five thousand feet, thirty to forty miles southeast of Quebec City. During both sightings, the radio transmission and reception sites at Canadian Forces Base Bagotville and Canadian Forces Station Mont Apica experienced strong interference. CFB Bagotville is one hundred miles north of the capitol. There is no direct evidence linking the presence of the UFO to the radio interference, but it is significant that the difficulties occurred while the military jet was in close proximity to the mysterious triangle. Equally significant is the fact that the interference registered on a frequency of 121.5 megacycles-the universal distress frequency.

The most controversial piece of evidence came from Drummondville photographer Jean Roy who had shot six photos of the giant craft.8 They clearly show the movements of a luminous bell-shaped object. However, it is not known what type of camera was used or whether the negatives were subjected to authentication procedures.

Equally nebulous is the source of a rumour that the object had been a high altitude weather balloon. Radio stations reporting this explanation attributed these statements to officials of La Sûreté du Quebec (SQ), the Quebec provincial police force,9 which vehemently denied the charges.

To round out this UFO marathon, a disk-shaped UFO had also been observed by military and airport officials over Sudbury. Two days earlier, Private W.V. and Corporal A.L., of Canadian Forces Falconbridge Radar Station, saw a multicoloured oval disk moving southeast of the station.10 This same craft was also tracked by Ministry of Transport radar screens at the Sudbury Airport weather office.11 At the same time, 'Mrs. K.K. of Sudbury also confirmed sighting the oval disk, which she described as "orange under, blue on top, and a white stripe with a blue cross on it."12 She claims to have filmed the UFO with her movie camera!

1 Canadian UFO Report, Vol. 3, No. 4 (1975) p. 7.

2 Ibid.

3 Ibid.

4 UFO-Quebec, Vol 1, No. 2 (May-June-July 1975) p. 12.

5 Ibid.

6 Herzberg Institute of Astrophysics, Planetary Sciences Section, National Research Council, Non-Meteoritic Sightings File N74-052, (Ottawa).

7 Ibid.

8 La Parole de Drummondville, Vol. 49, No. 31 (July 31, 1974) p. 1.

9 Ibid., p. 1.

10 Non-Meteoritic Sightings File, op. cit., N74-050.

11 Ibid., N74-051.