UFO in Lethbridge

Path of UFO
Oldman River Valley, 10 miles west of Lethbridge, Alberta
This shows where I was located and the observed path of the flashing UFO I witnessed in July, 1981.

This incident occurred in July 1981. I was at the time working at a summer job at the Alberta Agriculture Research Station east of Lethbridge, Alberta. It was the second summer I worked in Lethbridge and was also the second summer when I lived on a farm west of Lethbridge in the Oldman River valley. I was at the time sleeping in a teepee that was pitched in the machine yard beside an alfalfa field. From my teepee, I had a 180 degree view of the coulees and escarpment that surrounded the river valley to the north, east and south. Earlier in the evening, a group of us from the farm had done a little tubing on the Oldman River. Although we only went about a quarter or half a mile, the river flowed very slowly so we were in river for about an hour or so. We had returned to the farmstead at twilight and everyone else had gone inside to get ready for bed. I decided to open a beer and relax outside where I could watch the stars come out and listen to the coyotes.

My Teepee, near Lethbridge, Alberta, summer 1981

I remember there was still some dark blue light in the sky, when I noticed a bright light off to the east, about 10 degrees above the horizon. The light was blinking. It would blink twice, followed by a pause, then blink twice gain. It constantly repeated the same pattern with the same timing right up to the end of the sighting.

I noticed it was moving very slowly to the south (to the right in my field of vision as I faced the east). It seemed to be following a fixed distance above the edge of the escarpment. As I watched it, I thought, “Oh, it must be an airplane.” I noted that I couldn’t hear any engine noise whatsoever, even though there was no discernable wind or breeze. I thought to myself that my eyes were fooling me. This light must be far off in the distance. Maybe it is an airplane that is flying into Lethbridge Airport, which was about fifteen miles to the east, way, way beyond the escarpment edge that was just a quarter or half a mile away.

Still, as I watched it, I had one part of me that was perceiving that this was something that was just at the edge of the valley. As I watched it, I thought “it” looked like it was performing some sort of methodical search of the edges of the escarpment. I noticed that as it moved south, it seemed to always stay the same apparent altitude over the edge of the escarpment, that slowly curved from south to southeast and then to the east. I thought, “Oh. The airplane has flown over the airport and is now making a slow turn on a new heading to the southeast towards Montana.”

Just as I was thinking this, I noticed that the light was now approaching the horizon, and I reasoned, as it approached the horizon, it should disappear behind the horizon, because I was down in the valley. At this moment, the rational side of me was waiting for confirmation that the light was just a far off airplane and it was very much expecting the light to disappear behind the horizon. The other part of me was wrapped up in the idea that what I was looking at was not an airplane and was some sort of UFO. I couldn’t see any silhouette of a larger craft at any point, but I still thought there was a possibility the light was something mysterious. I was holding my breath, waiting in great anticipation for the light to disappear behid the horizon, when suddenly a bright beam of light came on like a searchlight. It swung over towards me, getting very bright and I watched in amazement as the light swept down to the east, about half way down the gentle slope that was directly to the south of the area I was standing. And just as suddenly as the bright light had gone on, it went out.

My heart pounded and I thought to myself, “I should go and check this out!” But part of me was too afraid. I recalled the stories of cattle mutilations in the newspapers from that time, and I knew that some people had linked these stories with UFOs. I thought that the last thing I wanted to do was let my curiosity get me into a situation where I would see something I wasn’t supposed to. I knew there were cattle on the farm and I reasoned it was possible that an alien craft might be looking for some of them.

So instead of going over to the place the light had landed, I walked over to a house where a hired hand lived with his son. I knocked on the door and he answered. I breathlessly told him my story and asked if he would come with me to investigate. He didn’t believe a word I was saying and told me he would not come with me. I went back to my teepee with a feeling of dejection mixed with fear. I didn’t know if they were still out there on the hillside. I knew that at the last moment, when the light came on, I was sure that “they knew” I was watching them and they knew where to find me. Because I was to afraid to go any closer to investigate further, I went inside my teepee and laid down on my bed.

A few minutes later, I started to experience a strange feeling. I noticed that it seemed to be eerily quiet and I was feeling an intelligent presence was lurking silently outside the teepee. I was at this moment, lying on my bed with my face to the wall of the teepee. Part of me wanted to roll over and look at the door of the teepee. The other part of me was thinking “If I don’t move a muscle, maybe they won’t know I am in here.”

I can’t describe the depth of fear I felt and the certainty I had that something or someone was outside. At this moment, I felt like something was communicating with me telepathically. It was commenting on how I was just like a little rabbit, hiding in my hole. And then it was saying, its okay, just go to sleep and everything will be fine. And what is odd, was although I was at that moment experiencing an excruciating sense of terror, I suddenly felt very sleepy, and that is the last thing I remember until I woke up the next morning.

Farm in Oldman River Valley, near Lethbridge, Alberta
I initially saw the light in the sky, above the horizon in this direction.

Farm in Oldman River Valley, near Lethbridge, Alberta
This shows how UFO suddenly started to drop in front of horizon. It also “turned on” a very bright steady light that appeared to be pointed in my direction..

At breakfast the next morning, I told the farmer’s wife about the incident. She told me that there had been other UFO sightings in recent years and referred to an area in West Lethbridge where there had been one sighting. She was quite concerned about whether I was okay, and I tried to assure her that nothing seemed to have happened to me, or certainly nothing that I could remember. 

And even to this day, I don’t remember anything else, though I certainly wonder what was in the sky that night.

We did hypothesize that the UFO was maybe a “lighter than air” balloon that maybe had a propeller to direct its flight. The field at the top of the escarpment was used by model airplane enthusiasts. I definitely do not think it was a normal radio controlled airplane model, because such models fly much, much faster and are also very loud.