This article was published in the daily newspaper The Edmonton Journal, of Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, on April 4, 1966.
By OLIVE ELLIOTT
Of The Journal
"No one believed me," said a young man as he told of seeing an unidentified flying object about eight years ago.
"Don't use my name," he told the Journal. "I'm having a hard enough time from the guys at work because I'm coming to these meetings."
He was at the meeting of Edmonton UFO Society Sunday because of what he saw eight years ago and because he wanted to learn if other people had had similar experiences.
He told the about 50 at the meeting about coming to an open field on his father's farm near Fort Saskatchewan when he was about 12 or 13.
SIZE OF CAR
It was late at night. In the middle of the field he saw an elliptical object that, from 100 yards away, looked "about the size of a car."
The object had red, blue and green flashing lights at its base - in fact, he said, it was just like the UFOs reported in Michigan.
"I was so scared I was just trying to hide - I was afraid to run away so I hid on the ground and watched it."
There was no noise as the object "took off straight up in the air." But when the frightened boy ran home, no one would believe him.
SIMILAR EXPERIENCE
Other members of the newly-formed society have had similar experiences although not as detailed as this one.
One man reported seeing hovering and moving lights near Cold Lake where he was working building the air base in 1954.
It wasn't a plane, he insisted.
Another man reported seeing a moving light to the west about sunset a few evenings ago as he was driving over the overpass near Sherwood Park.
He conceded that it could have been "a falling star."
Other members at the society's two previous meetings have reported similar sightings.
These people appear to have come to the meeting at the Highlands Masons Temple because they want to be among people who have had similar experiences and who are willing to take them seriously.
Others are there because of curiosity - an urge to find some satisfactory explanation for the UFOs.
But one thing they don't want seems to be personal publicity. They are afraid of being branded "a way out group of nuts."
"One of the men reporting a sighting at the last meeting is a high school principal - you can imagine what it would do to him," the president told the Journal.
Members of the society are approaching the question from all angles.
BACK TO BIBLE
One member at the Sunday meeting discussed the metaphysical aspect. His material, based on several books, traces the appearances of UFOs in the Bible. He also tied this into the movements from one phase to the next of the zodiac.
A sceptic wouldn't be convinced by some of the UFO information.
A book, Flying Saucers From Mars, reviewed at the meeting, is the description of a meeting by the author Cedric Allingham with a Martian in 1954 in Scotland.
According to Mr. Allingham, he saw a saucer land and talked, in signs, with its occupant for about half-an-hour.
The book includes a signed statement by a witness and a blurred photograph taken by Mr. Allingham of an extremely humanoid "Martian."
But each member of the Edmonton UFO Society is told to make up his own mind and to decide for himself what he will believe.
The group meets every two weeks at the Masonic Hall.
HAMILTON, Ont. (CP) - A 13-year-old Hamilton boy has a curved burn on his hand he claims came from touching the "antenna" of a soft-glowing "flying ship."
Charles Cozens claims two strange ships landed in a field behind the Hamilton police station on Upper Wellington Street Tuesday night.
Constable Arnold Read, summoned to the home after the parents repeatedly questioned their son before reporting the incident, verified the three inch, yellowish burn mark on the boy's hand.
Charles said he ran behind a fence after seeing one "ship" land, closely followed by another.
He described the objects as "eight feet long, four feet wide and three feet high with red, blue and green lights set into the rim and flickering like a computer."
The boy said the objects made a buzzing sound and "lit up the grass around."
ONE HAD ANTENNA
Only one had an antenna, he said. "It was thicker at the base and narrowed to the size of a nickel at the top."
When he touched the antenna, a flash "of electricity" occurred, and he received a shock.
His father, James Cozens, a draughtsman, said he explained the seriousness of calling the police "but Charles was emphatic and could not be shaken."
Last Wednesday, Laverne Emery, 18, and his brother Owen, 14, reported seeing two objects flying low over the city.
Mr. Emery, an engineer, said his sons were "extremely shaken up by what they had seen."
They said the objects made "a whirring noise, not at alllike an aircraft."
