SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - A Winnipeg-based researcher is hoping Yellowknifers can shed some light on a 50 year-old UFO case that remains a mystery despite an intense police and military investigation of an apparent crash site 40 km north of Yellowknife.

A prospector based in Yellowknife came back to town seeing something strange crash into Clan Lake in 1960, which prompted an investigation by the RCMP and the Department of National Defence. Pictured here is sketch of an UFO allegedly seen by another prospector in 1967 near Falcon Lake, Manitoba. - image courtesy of Chris Rutkowski

Chris Rutkowski has published six books on UFOs, and holds degrees in education and astronomy.

He recently stumbled across RCMP reports and letter correspondences about a 1960 UFO crash near the Yellowknife River on Clan Lake while "poking around" at the library and the Archives Canada website.

"The thing that struck me is that - people are always talking about the crashes in Roswell (in 1947) and Shag Harbour, N.S. (in 1967) - here's one in the NWT that nobody's heard of and it seems to be well-investigated and we have the reports," said Rutkowski.

He said he found it odd the RCMP and the Department of National Defence didn't pursue the matter any further.

It was June 18, 1960 when a man walked into the Yellowknife RCMP detachment with a story about something coming out of the sky and crashing into Clan Lake.

The investigation that followed involved the RCMP and the military, but no one was able to find an object despite indications that something had crashed into the small body of water.

"It was an old prospector who came in," said Fred Thomas Wright, 74, a retired RCMP officer who was working in Yellowknife at the time of the incident.

Yellowknifer managed to track Wright down to Swift Current, Sask., where he now lives, and he still remembers that day 50 years ago. He couldn't recall the prospector's name, and the name was blacked out in all of the publicly released documents concerning the Clan Lake incident.

"He reported seeing and hearing something come in over the bush and splash down in the lake and it had big prongs on it and it whirled around in the lake and stirred up the reeds," said Wright.

In his statement to the RCMP, the prospector wrote that he was dropped off at Clan Lake by a Wardair Otter at about 6 p.m. with a partner. The two men piled all their gear on the shore and the plane took off. About 20 minutes after the plane left the prospector heard a noise, "like a big plane in the distance" that he didn't pay much attention to at first - "until it got loud."

"I looked in the sky but couldn't see anything," the prospector's statement reads.

"The noise appeared to come from very high up."

The prospector kept his eyes to the sky, but saw nothing. His statement gives the impression that the prospector's partner was not with him at the time of the incident.

"I then heard something strike the water and when I turned around I saw a splash and what appeared to be some object with arms or spokes rotating in the water," the prospector told the RCMP.

The four-to-six foot wide object, according to the prospector, sat spinning on top of the water until it gradually slowed to a halt and sunk. The prospector said a backwash rushed over to where he was standing, about 1,700 feet away from where the thing hit the water.

"I could not see any colour because of the flying water. I did not see any steam when the object hit the water," read the statement.

The prospector's partner came back and the pair went out in their canoe to investigate where the object had crashed. The prospector said they found an area which he guessed was about 20 feet by 60 feet where the grass was cut up into small pieces, and some reeds on the east and northeast sides of the area were burnt.

They reportedly poked about the lake bed with their paddles but found nothing.

The statement does not say how long the two men were out at Clan Lake, but about a month later the prospector walked into the Yellowknife RCMP detachment and told Wright his story.

Wright had written in the police report at the time that the man owned and operated a successful prospecting business, was a woodcutter by trade, and was "well known in this county" and "considered very reliable."

"This old prospector was not in the drink, and he was very sincere about (the incident)," said Wright last week.

"I believed him that he had seen something that came in over the trees and splashed down in the water."

The RCMP ordered an air patrol of the area, but Acting Corporal D.J. Matheson wrote in a report that the only unusual thing he saw was an area about 12 feet wide and 40 feet long where all the lake reeds were completely gone and the water was slightly deeper.

Matheson stated "it would appear an object did land on the east side of Clan Lake, however, nothing could be found."

Another patrol was sent to Clan Lake a few weeks later. The lake bottom was probed with metal rods, though a police report filed by Matheson said it was "impossible to probe to any great depth" due to the thick clay below the sediment.

Wright said he was on that patrol and the RCMP used a Geiger counter - which detects radiation - but found nothing.

A geologist named Gordon Brown was working at Giant Mine at the time. He told Matheson he'd be "quite willing" to do a magnetometer check of the area after freeze-up.

On Aug. 16, 1960, the RCMP commissioner in Ottawa received a letter from W.H. Kelly, assistant director of security and intelligence for the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF), concerning the Clan Lake incident.

Kelly wrote "this would appear to be a matter more in keeping with the interests of the Royal Canadian Air Force (RACF) than that of the RCMP," adding, it "does not appear" the prospector's claims were "the result of any imagination," and the RCAF were "quite impressed" with the information given in the prospector's statement.

A month later, director of air intelligence L.C. Dilworth sent Kelly a letter stating the Department of National Defence (DND) had checked with "space tracking agencies in both Canada and the US" but none knew of any satellites having crashed in the area.

"We are inclined to think here that the object was a meteorite," read Dillworth's letter, but it also noted a meteorite would "undoubtedly cause steam" which contradicted the prospector's statement that insisted there was no steam.

Dillworth's letter did say, however, the military would be "most interested in being advised of the outcome" of a magnetometer sweep of the area, if one were to be conducted. Unfortunately, Brown had a job lined up in Morocco that prevented him from running the sweep. It seems without further investigation, the case was closed.

Yellowknife RCMP Const. Todd Scaplen said there is no record of this incident at the detachment, most likely due to the age of the file.

"Certain files and records are purged," said Scaplen.

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