Although there are continual signs of UFO activity over the Trench, it would be misleading to suggest anyone can go there anytime and see something. Take the case of Bud Amy.

Amy is a well-known figure in the area. While he operates a popular amusement park for youngsters a few miles south of Radium, he is perhaps better recognized for his handicraft work, which has a wide market.

Being a man of imagination, Amy was quickly interested when UFOs began to draw public attention several years ago and made use of his time outdoors to keep watch. But though the time and place were fine, the results were not.

"I kept watching for 10 years without seeing a thing," he said. "Often I would get my sleeping-bag and sleep outside on the lawn, but still no luck.'

All that changed on an August night in 1969-and it changed so dramatically it was almost as if he and his family were singled out for a personal visit.

"I was down by the highway, about 50 yards from the house, when it happened," he told us. "Suddenly I saw this thing with three soft glowing lights underneath coming in from the west. It was about three-quarters of the way on this side of the valley when I saw it, and it kept on coming until it passed right over the house! It was so close I could have hit it with a slingshot.

It was no kind of aircraft he recognized. As it moved silently overhead, he could see the lights, positioned in triangular form, were set into the bottom of an object of circular shape. While the center of the circle was in shadow, the lights reflected outward enough to show the sharp outline of a rim. He estimated its diameter to be about 50 feet.

Knowing how excited his wife and son would be, Amy called to them as he ran toward the house and they came out in time to marvel at the strange craft as it proceeded smoothly on toward the eastern ridge of mountains.

"It headed toward that peak over there," Amy said, pointing to the ridge about a mile away. "It climbed up a little as it got closer, and just about that time the front light went out, so there were only two lights when it got to the peak, and went behind it. When it came out the other side, there was only one light, not much bigger than a star that it passed."

Remembering a friend in nearby Windermere who was skeptical of UFO stories, Amy went in to phone and tell him just where to look. When he returned outside, the light had stopped moving.

"It looked so much like the star next to it that Elizabeth and I began to wonder if we had been seeing things," he said. "We went back in the house and about 15 minutes later my son Arnold came in, too. He said the light was still there."

But Amy's friend in Windermere kept watching to settle this UFO business for once and all. When he started looking, the light was stationary. But after a few minutes, as he said later, it started to move. First it sped northward at a fast clip, then it crossed the valley and headed south, passing close to his house where he had a good look at it.

Thus another convert was won.