"Stan Michalak can still vividly remember when his dad came home sick and injured after something happened in the Falcon Lake woods in Manitoba on the May long weekend of 1967.
It was something that put his family life into upheaval and remains one of the world's best-known UFO encounters.
"I recalled seeing him in bed. He didn't look good at all. He looked pale, haggard," said Michalak, who was nine years old at the time and was allowed to see his dad for a couple of minutes on the day after what soon become known as the Falcon Lake incident.
Then there was the smell.
"When I walked into the bedroom there was a huge stink in the room, like a real horrible aroma of sulphur and burnt motor. It was all around and it was coming out of his pores. It was bad," said Michalak, who co-authored the book When They Appeared with Winnipeg UFO researcher Chris Rutkowski.
"I was very afraid. My dad had been injured and I didn't know anything about it," Michalak told CBC News in recalling that Saturday 50 years earlier.
Within a couple of days, however, not only did he know more — so did much of the public.
The story about his dad being burned by a UFO ran in the Winnipeg Tribune newspaper "and that's when everything pretty much hit the fan," Michalak said.
The encounter
Stefan Michalak was an industrial mechanic by trade and an amateur geologist who liked to venture into the wilderness around Falcon Lake — about 150 kilometres east of Winnipeg — to prospect for quartz and silver.
He had staked some claims the prior year and set out on the May long weekend in 1967 to explore some more.
On May 20, 1967, Stefan was near a vein of quartz along the Precambrian Shield in the area when the 51-year-old was startled by a gaggle of nearby geese that erupted into a clattering of honks.
According to his accounts, as reported in newspapers at the time and since repeated in books, magazines and on TV shows like Unsolved Mysteries, Stefan looked up and saw two cigar-shaped objects with a reddish glow hovering about 45 metres away.
One descended, according to Stefan's account, landing on a flat section of rock and taking on more of a disc shape. The other remained in the air for a few minutes before flying off.
Believing it to be a secret U.S.military experimental craft, Stefan sat back and sketched it over the next half hour. Then he decided to approach, later recalling the warm air and smell of sulphur as he got closer, as well as a whirring sound of motors and a hissing of air.
He also noted a door open on the side with bright lights inside, and said he heard voices muffled by the sounds from the craft.
He said he called out, offering mechanical help to the "Yankee boys" if they needed it. The voices went quiet but did not answer, so Stefan tried in his native Polish, then in Russian and finally in German.
Only the whirr and hiss of the craft responded.
He claims he went closer and noted the smooth metal of the ship, with no seams. He then looked into the bright doorway, pulling on the welding goggles he used to protect his eyes while chipping at rocks during prospecting.
Inside, Stefan said he saw light beams and panels of various-coloured flashing lights, but could not see anyone or any living thing. When he stepped away, three panels slid across the door opening and sealed it.
He reached to touch the craft, which he said melted the fingertips of the glove he was wearing.
The craft then began to turn counter-clockwise and Stefan says he noticed a panel that contained a grid of holes. Shortly afterward, he was struck in the chest by a blast of air or gas that pushed him backward and set his shirt and cap ablaze.
He ripped away the burning garments as the craft lifted off and flew away.
Disoriented and nauseous, Stefan stumbled through the forest and vomited. He eventually made his way back to his motel room in Falcon Lake then caught a bus back to Winnipeg.
He was treated at a hospital for burns to his chest and stomach that later turned into raised sores on a grid-like pattern. And for weeks afterwards, he suffered from diarrhea, headaches, blackouts and weight loss.
'It just flipped our lives over'
Once the story was out, the RCMP, the air force, the media, various government agencies, and hordes of gawking members of the public descended on the Michalaks's small River Heights bungalow in Winnipeg.
That's who Michalak refers to in the title of the book — those endless visitors and phone calls, the media and people camping on the lawn, the people who would follow Michalak to school one day peppering him with questions.
"It just flipped our lives over," he said. "It took several years before it finally died down."
After that, and until the day he died in 1999 at the age of 83, Stefan believed he never should have said a thing, Michalak said.
But at the time, he felt it was a duty. He wanted others, if they were to see the same thing, to avoid it and not get hurt, Michalak said.
In Poland, before Stefan moved his family to Canada, he was a military policeman with a set of moral guidelines that he lived by — that is, if something happened, it should be reported, Michalak said.
In addition to constant probing from authorities, the family endured condemnation and criticism in the public, Stefan's sanity was questioned and Michalak was bullied in school.
Though he wished he hadn't said anything, Stefan never backed away from the story, either. He also never claimed to have seen aliens and still considered it a secret military craft.
"If you asked him what it was he saw, he could describe it in intimate detail but he would never say, 'Oh, it was definitely extraterrestrials,' because there was no evidence to prove that," said Michalak.
"He might ask, 'What do you think I saw?' but right up until he died, his story never changed one iota — nothing about it or how he told it."
In all those years since and with some 300 pages of documentation on the encounter, "there's nothing so far that has flawed his story," Michalak said.
So what does he think?
"I'm not so close-minded that I can't entertain the possibility that it's otherworldly. I can't discount that. But without specific evidence to show me that it is, I don't know," Michalak said.
"What I can tell you is that I'm an aviation fanatic, a huge aviation buff, and I am very familiar with how aviation technology has advanced in the past 50 years. And there was nothing even close to that in the works anywhere at that time."
Intensely investigated
The case was investigated intensely by a number of levels of government and the official conclusion, even from the United States Air Force, was that the case was unexplained, Rutkowski noted.
"The Falcon Lake incident is possibly Canada's best-documented UFO case," he said.
"It even beats Roswell [the alleged flying disc that landed in New Mexico in 1947] because the United States still doesn't recognize that anything happened in Roswell out of the ordinary."
Items were later retrieved from the encounter site, including Stefan's glove and shirt and some tools, which were subjected to extensive analysis at an RCMP crime lab. No one could determine what caused the burns.
At the landing site was a circle about 15 feet in diameter, devoid of the moss and vegetation growing in other areas of the same rock outcropping. Soil samples, along with samples of clothing, were tested and deemed to be highly radioactive.
So were pieces of metal that were chipped out of cracks in the rock about a year after the incident. The metal had somehow been melted into the cracks.
Many of the items have long since been lost as they were transferred through various authorities and agencies. However, Rutkowski and Michalak still have one of the pieces of metal, which remains radioactive.
Still sick in 1968 with recurrences of the burns showing up on his chest and suffering from blackouts, Stefan went to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn.
Doctors did a thorough investigation and even sent him to a psychiatrist "who came back with the report that this is a fellow who's very pragmatic, very down to earth — pardon the pun — and does not make up stories," Rutkowski said.
"If Dad hoaxed this — remember we're talking about a blue-collar, industrial mechanic — if he hoaxed it then he was a freakin' genius," said Michalak."
C CJun 25, 2022 10:51 PM (This post was last modified: Jun 25, 2022 10:51 PM by C C.)
[...] he could hear the voices of individuals which were muffled by the sounds produced. Michalak claimed that the speakers sounded human, with two discernible voices, one higher than the other. Michalak says he initially attempted to communicate with the "Yankee boys" in English and offered mechanical support, assuming the pilots were experiencing mechanical difficulties. His exclamation silenced the talking he had heard. When he did not hear a response, Michalak says he attempted to communicate with the individuals in Polish, Russian, and finally German.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falcon_Lak...k's_claims
Maybe the occupant was just tapping into the local television or radio broadcasts (thus the "human-ness"). If the vessel was autonomous, wouldn't make much sense for it to be playing the dialogue aloud, as opposed to electronically analyzing it.
Michalak had previously staked a claim in the Falcon Lake area to prospect for precious metals [...] The anomalous readings were subsequently uncovered to be due to a radium vein which was near the site. [...] Skeptics of the Falcon Lake UFO Incident state that Michalak's burns were as a result of an accident stemming from alcohol use, and that his claim was in order to hide their cause.
In reporting the incident, Michalak would potentially dissuade any competitors from prospecting in his site. The subsequent frenzy by the public and media caused the reverse effect however, with numerous individuals descending upon the site. The pieces of melted radioactive metal were purported by skeptics of the case to have been planted following the incident to solidify the hoax.
John B. Alexander writing in the Journal for Scientific Exploration states that some of Michalak's long-lasting effects, including the skin lesions which he claimed to be due to his exposure to the exhaust blast, were as a result of an allergic reaction. Alexander highlighted the inconsistencies within Michalak's testimony with regards to the event.
Aaron Sakulich writing for the Iron Skeptic agrees with the alcohol-use explanation. Michalak's inconsistencies in his testimony when discussing his interactions with highway patrol officer G.S. Solotki as well as the nature of the drinks Michalak had prior to the incident were of note. Michalak's claim that he was sober was disputed by the staff at the Falcon Hotel, who stated Michalak had drunk several Presbyterians (a type of cocktail drink consisting of rye whiskey, ginger ale, and water).
Michalak's claim of his interactions with G.A. Solotki are directly disputed by Solotki's own report for the RCMP the night of the incident, which stated Michalak was reluctant to answer Solotki's questions despite his visible burns and possibly inebriated state. In claiming that he was victim to a UFO related attack, Michalak could deflect attention away from prospecting competition on a site in which Michalak had already staked a claim. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falcon_Lak...l_reaction
I keep forgetting there is a whole class of people out there who make a living slandering and discrediting anyone claiming to have experienced something extraordinary. Greedy drunk defending his precious metals turf. Yeah, that sounds about right. lol
(Jun 25, 2022 11:20 PM)Magical Realist Wrote: I keep forgetting there is a whole class of people out there who make a living slandering and discrediting anyone claiming to have experienced something extraordinary. Greedy drunk defending his precious metals turf. Yeah, that sounds about right. lol
It's has nothing to do with having "experienced something extraordinary" and everything to do with expecting people to just take your word for the extraordinary. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
Having read all of the link-to-a-link article https://www.donkeyjunk.com/post/falcon-l...o-incident that CC's post indirectly pointed to, the final verdict imo strongly supports authenticity of Michalak's unfortunate UFO encounter of the ongoing bizarre multi-maladies kind. Despite certain contested aspects that those with a hardened skeptic proclivity will focus on. But it's the bizarre aspects like 'multi-colored flashing light beams observed within the opened hatch' that provide clues this is not consistent with expected behavior of standard interplanetary visiting ETs scenario. Why the hell would interplanetary ET's be using such strange antics?
My consistent position has and remains that the UFO phenomenon is 'merely' one facet of a wider one incorporating poltergeist activity and other supernatural/paranormal activity. Carried out by at least often mischievous, sometime malevolent (as in Michalek's case), sometimes even benevolent (as in Dr X's case) entities inhabiting some realm of existence beyond human experience or comprehension.
And yes that includes 'manufacturing' bug-eyed close encounters of the 3rd kind ET beings etc. Deception is a recurring theme.
In a recent episode of 'The Orville', an immortal 'transcendent AI successor to humanity' makes the comment (paraphrased) "Once we had learned everything there is to know, all that's left is playfulness." And that is a fair hint as to the likely mindset of beings that may well in actuality 'inhabit eternity'. IMO.
The skeptic responses are so funny. The man as prospector had evidently struck it rich with a silver laden quartz vein. So - to cover his tracks and prevent the secret location from being discovered - he goes out of his way to actually lead a contingent of police right to it!? Justifying that discovery tour via elaborately concocting a phony UFO encounter replete with mysterious burn patterns and faint but distinct ring pattern radiation residues. And beefs the 'hoax' up by making sure to come down with recurring long standing debilitating recurring illnesses including family attested to pungent body odor. No retraction, no change of story, right to the end.
Yeah, the skeptics have nailed it good and proper! Only 'UFO nuts' would see things differently - like - it really happened just as Michalek recounted it.
It so reminds of the 1966 Portage County UFO encounters involving multiple police officers: https://spacetime.forumotion.com/t1320-p...chase-1966
They also were all idiots and/or liars, going by the SF skeptics brigade. Never a single retraction from any of them mind you. All stuck to the same consistent story lifelong.
Despite the negative impact on careers and family relations etc. Must have been quite some devilish pact they made with each other one dark night! Ha ha ha ha.
James R and I had a lengthy debate about the Portage County ufo. He was trying to convince me that it was just a coincidental confluence of a meteor, the planet Venus, and a weather balloon all on the same night happening to the same policemen. It was one of the most moronic explanations I have ever heard.
I think that the tic tac video is probably the most convincing in that what the pilots saw, can’t currently be explained. Could be mundane, but we don’t know.
But this Falcon Lake story …hmm. It has some story holes and inconsistencies (that we’re discussing as well over at SF) that makes me wonder if the claimant had other motives for telling such a story.
Think of it this way though, the Pentagon is taking UAP’s seriously now and that’s progress, at least. I want some of them to be investigated because it could be a matter of public safety, and dismissing them too easily can be dangerous in the long run.
Quote:Think of it this way though, the Pentagon is taking UAP’s seriously now and that’s progress, at least. I want some of them to be investigated because it could be a matter of public safety, and dismissing them too easily can be dangerous in the long run.
I want them to be investigated to understand what they are. They have been eluding us for a long time and present a mystery before us that we have yet to understand. Something amazing and world-changing lies behind ufos. I truly believe that. I may be wrong and there isn't anything behind them at all. But I do think we need to take them seriously as a phenomenon and possibly make contact with them because our destiny as a planetary species just may depend on it.
Jun 25, 2022 08:24 PM
(This post was last modified: Jun 25, 2022 09:24 PM by Magical Realist.)
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