It was May of our last year of High School and four of us decided to camp out for the weekend at Kananaskis Lakes, west of Calgary Alberta – an area familiar to me. At that time, conditions were happily primitive. My friend and I arrived in the early afternoon, two of our party had already set up their tent on the exposed beach next to the lower lake. We camped above them, nearer to the upper lake and next to the connecting sluiceway, about 50 feet east of the upper dam and somewhat lower than the dam in altitude, a position that would give us early-morning warming sun coming in over the lower lake. As we set up our tent that afternoon and also later as we hiked the north shore of the upper lake, we noticed a forestry helicopter flying up and down the Kananaskis Valley, passing within two miles of us, the sound of its motor and rotors echoing off of the surrounding mountains. Around 6 to 7 oclock we lit a fire, cooked an evening meal and, following that, got out our guitars to play and sing for a while. The scene, at this point, is vivid in my memory: I am sitting on a stump, looking beyond Roger at an exquisitely picturesque mountain valley, the lower elevations of which are in shade, as am I. The other two members of my group are, like us, sitting beside their fire, 150 yards away from us, next to the absolutely still Lower Kananaskis lake. The West side of the valley, still in brilliant sunshine, is reflected perfectly in the lakewater. The silence is so profound that it seems almost wrong to mar it with our music but we do so anyway. My friend has a guitar that is much more expensive that mine, so it shocks me when he drops it. It bounces off of something, probably his feet, and into the fire. I grab it quickly before it begins to burn, then look at him for an explanation. I see terror on his face,looking over my shoulder at something behind me. I step towards him, across the fire and turn, a guitar dangling from each hand (held by the neck), expecting to see a bear. I see nothing. I ask him “What did you see?” and “Where is it?” but get no answer. To my left, I see him going into the tent. Im not frightened but I still dont see anything, so I stand still and look carefully into the shadows of the trees nearest us in the direction that my campanion had been looking, which is to the west, uphill, in the direction of the North shore of the Upper Kananaskis Lake (which is over the dam and out of sight). Movement is what Im looking for and that is exactly what gets my attention, but it isnt in the shadows, it is above the trees and visible against the clear sky, on the other side of the tree-tops. Coming towards me but coming slowly. At this point, Im beginning to comprehend that something is wrong but I cant get my mind to formulate a thought. My senses are acute and record details but my thought processes are very slow. It is as if there are two of me: one observing and another thinking. The me that is observing sees a silver-grey shape approaching and descending from beyond the trees at a speed that, in retrospect, appeared to be 15 to 20 miles/hour. It just clears the nearest tree-tops, which would put it at well under 50 vertical feet above the ground at that point but still 80 or more feet above me and 200 yards away (the trees are upslope from me). It continues to descent as it approaches me, but not at the same rate as the slope of the ground, so the object is 50 feet or so above me as it passes over me – not directly over me, but about 20 degrees or so off the vertical, so Im viewing this object from below, at about a 70 degree angle and at a distance of from 50 to 60 feet (20 yards). It is still moving slowly. There are what appears to be windows around the circumference of the object both on the main body and on the upper turret. There are also colored lights pulsing around the perimeter of the main body. Movement is steady, silent and has a quality of lightness or fragility. The object continues on its path, passing over my companions on the beach and coming to rest less than 6 feet above the surface of the lake where it remains for 5 to 10 seconds in full view of at least one of them but neither of them seems aware of it. Under the object, the glassy surface of the water is undisturbed. Simultaneously, two things happen: my thoughts return to normal with: “Its a UFO!” and the object shoots off at roughly a 45 degree angle into the clear blue sky and DISAPPEARS INTO THE DISTANCE in roughly one second, with NO APPARENT ACCELERATION. While all of that was going on, the other me (remember?)was struggling to think with a mind that was functioning like a swimmer in molasses: “Trying to identify this thing. Helicopter? Somethings wrong. Wheres the noise? Is it landing? Whats wrong with it? Not a helicopter? Why dont the guys look up at it? Whats wrong with them? Whats wrong with the water? …………ITS A UFO!” Only the last three words were word-thoughts. All the rest were conceptual, non-verbal thoughts which Ive put into words after the event. There was no emotion felt during the experience and no confusion, just what can best be described as a temporal duality: my thoughts and my physical experience just didnt match up. I remembering staring at the point of blue sky into which the UFO had disappeared and calling to my friend in the tent who left me with his guitar. When he didnt answer, I went into the tent feeling excited and wanting to talk about what had just happened. He was in his sleeping bag in mild shock and refused to talk. He just wanted to go home, which we did next morning, still without any discussion. I dropped him off at his home, and we haven’t seen each other since that time. The other two guys down on the beach neither saw nor heard the UFO though it passed only about 30 feet above them. Their dog kept them up all night growling at something though. NOTE: The above image is a rendering.
