1908 UFO Sighting

Win Dovey, Victoria, BC.
From Canadian UFO Report, Fall, 1970

After reading your Canadian UFO Report I am unable to resist writing about a little incident that happened to me in Duncan, BC away back in 1908 when I was 12 years old. It is one thing in my life I shall never forget.

As we had never heard of UFOs or flying saucers in those days, I have never claimed to have seen one until I heard just recently that an old neighbor of ours, Mrs. Campbell, claimed to have seen a UFO away back in the early days and I think it would have been about the same year that I saw mine. She described it almost exactly the same as mine but like me she didn't tell anyone - that is, I did tell my young friends and was considered a little bit - well, you know - ever since.

We lived the good life in those days, close to the river on three acres, with a cow, chickens etc. but no electric light, no running water, no phone nor cars, and nothing ever flew without wings - except maybe the thistle seeds.

It was a beautiful evening in later summer and after supper we had all gone for a walk down to the river and, as it was quite dark coming home, I ran on ahead of the others to shut the chicken-yard door (lots of mink and 'coons around so it had to be tight) which was well out of sight of the others.

As I was about to shut the door the whole opening was filled with a flash of very bright light. I jumped back stunned, my eyes on the light. It rose on an angle to about 30 feet, judging by trees in the background, and then it changed to a dark mass with a cluster of red, blue and green lights on it, not bright enough to cast a glow. And then in a changed direction it moved quite slowly for maybe 200 or 300 feet and just disappeared. There was no sound or heat that I remember.

I was absolutely in a panic. I ran into the dark house and lay down on the floor under a window so the thing couldn't see me, I suppose - but that's panic!

When the rest of them came into the house I got up off the floor but was quite unable to speak, and I couldn't tell anyone about it for weeks afterward and then only to my young friends and was ridiculed and considered a bit queer after that - and surely felt queer, too!

My neighbor's sighting was different from mine only in that hers was on the ground, but it moved away horizontally and disappeared as mine did. Both seemed to need urgently to avoid us. But what on earth could that thing have been doing in our chicken-yard?

I wonder if any other old-timers around there have seen any such thing and I wonder also about Angel Hair!

We were coming home from school between Duncan's Hill and Mr. Robertson's Indian Office when we noticed that the air was filled with the long strings of something white drifting down from the sky. It was after the thistle seeds had finished their flight, so the time would be late summer, too. We tried to catch them but there was nothing there, and there were none on the ground either. I was too young to wonder about it much, and I never remember hearing any explanation.

I wonder if anyone around there remembers that. I don't know why it stays in my memory.

So that is the story of My Funny Foo and the greatest mystery of my life.