Website tracks UFO encounters in Thunder Bay region

Researcher Dee McCullay has logged more than 200 sightings, dating back to 1914

  A Nipigon filmmaker and researcher says he's surprised at the number of UFO encounters he's uncovered in the Thunder Bay area.
Dee McCullay first published his chronological list of regional UFO sightings earlier this month, and so far, the list includes more than 200 encounters dating back more than a century.

"It goes back to 1914, that's the earliest one that I could find," said McCullay, whose films include documentaries on Sasquatch and UFO encounters in Northern Ontario.
"It is quite surprising when you start digging into it," he said. "Two hundred, that's a massive amount of people that have witnessed this type of phenomenon."
Most of the sightings collected by McCullay are, essentially, strange things spotted in the sky. That could include fast-moving lights, or craft shaped like cigars, pinwheels, or saucers.
But that's not all.

Lake Nipigon

Figures, for example, show up in a few of the encounters. Campers in the Black Sturgeon area reported a "small man with the features of a cat" and wearing a gold suit in the mid-1990s; it was seen hanging from one of the jackpines there.
In the 1960s, a couple out berry picking at Duckbill Lake saw four small figures beside a landed craft. The figures were apparently siphoning water from the lake through hoses attached to their suits; one of the witnesses screamed, and the figures entered the craft and flew off.
Some other interesting — and, in some cases, scary — encounters include:

• A trapper coming across a landed craft near Beardmore in 1946; when he touched it, it burned his hands
• A Red Rock man who was reportedly "dragged toward the window of his house" by a green beam of light emitted by a strange craft (he saved himself by clinging to his couch)
• A large silver disc seen hovering over Thunder Bay's Kam Power Company building at Syndicate Avenue South and Mary Street East during a power outage in the early 1950s; the craft remained in place for several minutes, then headed south. Power was restored instantly.
• Something described as a "fireball" flying alongside a train as it passed through the Raith flats in the mid-1970s. The fireball would eventually speed up and fly off.
• And finally, the pilot of a Canadian Airlines International 737, while flying just north of Thunder Bay in 1987, reported the plane's radar picked up an object six times larger than a 747, travelling at 8,200 km/h. Unfortunately, the object was some 80 km away, too far for a visual sighting.

McCullay's entire list can be found at his website.
Many of the stories, he said, have been told to him first-hand by the witnesses themselves. Others are coming from newspaper archives, or online sources, including social media.
In one case, however, the encounters were experienced by McCullay himself.

"When I was younger, I was working on a house in Nipigon," he said. "Working in an attic, cleaning that out, and I happened to go down the ladder because I needed some fresh air."
Outside, McCullay looked up, and saw a "circular object, up in the sky. And I could even see the detail, that it actually had venting underneath as well," he said. "It travels across into a cloud, and I'm like 'oh my god, that's a UFO.'"
"Then about five minutes later, because I'm still looking around — I'd never seen anything like this before — sure enough, it comes in the same flight pattern," he said. "It goes into the cloud again, the exact same craft, and the followed by a jet minutes later, so there had to be something to that."
Another sighting occurred one cold February night, when McCullay witnessed red-and-green lights, hovering above some trees, with a bright white light just below them.
Then, the lights split up, with the white light heading south, and the red and green lights travelling southwest.
McCullay, driving along the highway, followed the latter.
"I caught it under the light of the moon," he said. "This was a small plane."
"Now, what was that white light? And no small plane that I've seen can hover in the air like that."
Whatever the source of the stories, compiling and sharing them is a worthwhile exercise, McCullay said.
"It's an area of interest for me, and I'm sure it would be an interest for others, as well," he said. "When they read over this stuff, they realize they're not alone. There's a lot more people out there who have seen this type [of] thing."

Kris Ketonen 

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