Falcon Lake

What the files hold

Everything here is in the UFO database of Library and Archives Canada (LAC), in two files; nothing about Falcon Lake is in the US releases.

• The RCMP file HQ-400-Q-5: the report of Cpl. G. J. Davis of the Winnipeg G.I.S. of 26 May 1967 (five pages), the transcript of his interview with Michalak on 24 May (17 pages), his report of 10 August 1967 (eight pages), and a memorandum of 13 September 1967 by S. E. Hunt of the Radiation Protection Division of the federal Department of Health and Welfare (five pages).
• The file of the National Research Council (RG 77, Vol. 311): the report of S/L P. Bissky of the RCAF, with an addendum; the UFO report Canadian Forces Headquarters (CFHQ) received, filed as Annex A; CFHQ’s letter of 29 June 1967 sending clothing and samples to the Defence Research Board; a letter of Michalak’s doctor of 19 September 1967; a telex of May 1968; a memorandum of R. J. Traill of June 1968; and an abstract of a letter of Peter M. Millman of the National Research Council of February 1969.

The only paper from the Department of National Defence is CFHQ’s letter of 29 June 1967, which says that the report “is presently being investigated by DND in co-operation with the RCMP.” The sentence that DND still lists the case as unsolved comes from LAC’s own podcast, part 2, of 29 May 2019, in the host’s narration: “To this day, the Canadian Department of National Defence identifies the Falcon Lake incident as unsolved.” It cites no document, and we found none.

What Michalak said

In the RCMP’s interview of 24 May he said he had lunch at 11 o’clock and went back to work: “it hits me that a light was coming from over there.” There were two: “It landed and the other one stays about 10 to 12 feet above the ground.” Asked where they came from: “They come from exactly, I’m positive, 255 degrees south, south, west.” (transcript, p. 5) The landed one sat there “A good 45 minutes. It was a long 45 minutes.” (p. 9) He went up to it. Asked whether the heat came out of “a grill work on the side”, he said: “Yes, it was on the side.” He had touched it “right beside the grill work”, and he was burned “that very moment” as it started to leave the ground: “it got my shirt. … So I ripped my shirt off” (pp. 12–13). Asked whether he had had anything to drink that night: “No, no, I didn’t.” (p. 3)

The report that Training Command sent to CFHQ (Annex A) gives the time as “approximately 1700 hours local time” and says the objects were observed “for approximately one half hour”:

“He went up to the remaining one, observed an open door with a violet light preventing him from seeing inside. As he approached he could hear a whirring sound and indistinguishable voices from within. Upon touching the object with his gloved left hand his glove burned, the door closed and the object started rotating counter-clockwise then departed vertically also heading south. His shirt was burned from the exhaust panels on the outer edge and he required medical treatment for burns on his stomach. He has lost twelve pounds and is unable to eat.” (Annex A)

He kept the burned undershirt. His outer shirt, he told the RCMP, “had been almost completely destroyed”; he “tore it off at the scene and left it there”. The two officers “examined the undershirt and smelled it and it smelled like burned electrical wiring or insulation to both of us.” (RCMP, 26 May, p. 4)

The burns

The first official to see him was Cst. Solotki of the Falcon Beach Highway Patrol, whom Michalak flagged down on the Trans-Canada Highway “about 3 p.m.” on 20 May. The RCMP report of 26 May gives his account:

“He said that he had touched one and got burned. He said he had burned his hat and shirt and when asked by SOLOTKI to show him the shirt he refused saying he didn’t want any publicity. SOLOTKI felt that MICHALAK appeared as though he had been on a drunk and was suffering from a hangover. His eyes were red and he acted in a very irrational manner.” (p. 1)

And: “Cst. SOLOTKI said that he did show him the marks on his chest and they looked like marks that were caused by rubbing ash onto the skin. SOLOTKI said he could see a burn on the back of the man’s hat but could not see any mark on his head.” (p. 1)

That night in Winnipeg, by Michalak’s account to the RCMP, his son took him to the Misericordia Hospital, where he “had the burns on his abdomen treated” as an out-patient; he said he told the intern the burns came from an aircraft exhaust, “because he felt that if he told them what really happened he would not be believed” (RCMP, 26 May, p. 2). The hospital’s record is not in the files. His family doctor, Dr. R. D. Oatway, wrote on 19 September 1967:

“Mr. Mickalak suffered first degree burns to the upper abdominal wall on May 21, 1967 near Falcon Lake, Manitoba. He states it was due to a blast of hot compressed air from an U.F.O. which landed near him in the scrub bushes. He was treated at Misericordia Hospital and I saw him the next day. At that time he felt weak, rather nauseated, couldn’t eat, had a band-like headache, and forehead felt moist. He appeared rather depressed, ‘dazed’, apathetic but was rational and coherent.”

The undershirt “showed burn holes with charred or singed black edges”; over the next days he “remained anorexic, nauseated and lost about 13 pounds weight”, and “his burn faded”. His blood count on 24 and 30 May was normal “except for a sed. rate of 22 mm/hr (falling to 9) and lymphocytes 16% (rising to 21%)”. On 1 June “he developed a rash on the chest wall”, which settled in about three weeks (Oatway). In May Oatway told the RCMP he “couldn’t find anything wrong with him mentally” but that Michalak “did give him the impression that he had undergone some kind of a severe ordeal” (RCMP, 26 May, p. 3).

The files describe the burns in these words, and do not agree on where they were or what shape they had:

• On the chest: Solotki, 20 May (“marks on his chest”); the rash of 1 June (“on the chest wall”, Oatway).
• On the abdomen: the hospital, as Michalak told it (“the burns on his abdomen”); Annex A (“burns on his stomach”); Bissky (“the abdominal burns”); Oatway (“first degree burns to the upper abdominal wall”); Hunt, describing photographs (“the burns on his abdomen”).
• On both: Cpl. Davis and Cst. Zacharias, who saw them on 23 May: “MICHALAK showed us the burns on his abdomen and chest and there is a large burn that covers an area approximately 1 foot in diameter. The burn when we saw it on Tuesday was blotchy and with unburned areas inside the burned perimeter area. There was no indication of blistering.” And: “It resembled an exceptionally severe sunburn in the one spot.” (RCMP, 26 May, pp. 2–3) The RCMP’s last report lists “the burns to his chest, abdomen and clothing” (10 August, p. 8).
• What kind: Dr. F. Helmuth of the Winnipeg General Hospital, who had examined them, “felt that they were thermal burns” (Hunt, p. 5).

A pattern is described only on the undershirt. Hunt saw photographs taken for Life magazine, “colour photos of the burns on his abdomen and the scorced grid pattern on his undershirt” (p. 2). Bissky examined the undershirt: “the burned areas do not readily align themselves with the abdominal burns, although by stretching the shirt the areas do align. Further, the burns on the shirt appear to be in a square pattern, or perhaps slightly oblong, not too similar to the abdominal burn.” And: “the source of the burns is a mystery except for Mr. Michalak’s explanation.” (Bissky, p. 3) A year later, in May 1968, Michalak told Training Command that he was still having “REOCCURRANCES OF HIS RED SPOTS ON HIS ABDOMIN AT APPROXIMATELY ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY ONE DAY INTRVALS ALTHOUGH DECREASING INTENSITY” (telex of 22 May 1968, p. 3).

A checkerboard on the skin is not in the files. It comes from the LAC podcast of 15 May 2019, where the researcher Chris Rutkowski says: “the checkerboard pattern of chemical burns or thermal burns was on his abdomen.”

The radioactivity

In May the answer was negative. Dr. Oatway had arranged a check on his own: “MICHALAK’s undershirt and cap as well as the burned area on his skin have now been checked for radio-activity by the people in the Cancer Research Clinic in Winnipeg and no radio-active material was found.” (RCMP, 26 May, p. 4) Oatway’s letter: the department of nuclear medicine “checked his burn, clothing and blood for radioactivity; apparently none was found.”

The searches of the RCMP and the RCAF on 25 May and 1 June did not find the site. Michalak found it himself in June, with a new partner, Gerald Hart, and brought back “his shirt remnants and his steel tape from the scene, as well as dirt and moss samples” (RCMP, 10 August, p. 1). The RCMP had told him “on more than one occasion” not to remove evidence before its investigators had examined the site (p. 1). He gave Bissky a small part of the soil and the tape, which CFHQ sent to the Defence Research Board with his clothing on 29 June. On 24 July the Commissioner of the RCMP telexed: “Laboratory Tests here indicate earth samples taken from scene highly radio-active.” (p. 3) “Tape also radioactive.” (p. 4) Hunt’s memorandum gives the measurement: “activity levels of up to approximately 0.54 µCi of Ra²²⁶ or its equivalent” in the soil, the burnt shirt and the steel tape (p. 1). Other samples went elsewhere: Barry Thompson of APRO, a private organization, obtained soil and pieces of the outer shirt from Michalak and sent them to its headquarters in Tucson, Arizona (RCMP, 10 August, p. 5).

Hunt came to Winnipeg in July. In Michalak’s basement he found “samples of rock, soils and vegetation collected from the U.F.O. site”; radiation came “from the plastic bags containing soil and the remnants of Michalak’s burnt shirt”, and the house was not contaminated (Hunt, p. 2). At the site, with the RCMP and the RCAF:

“One small area was found to be contaminated. This was located across the crown of the rock. There was a smear of contamination about 0.5 x 8.0 inches on one side of the crack. There was also some lichen and ground vegetation contaminated just beyond the smear. The whole contaminated area was no larger than 100 squaree inches.” (Hunt, p. 3)

The RCMP recorded that Hunt found “traces of radiation in a fault in the rock across the centre of the landing spot”, none around the outer perimeter of the circle, and that “The radioactive material found was radium 226 which has wide commercial use but is also discharged as waste from a nuclear reactor, Mr. HUNT said.” (10 August, pp. 6–7) Under ultraviolet light the samples from the site “gave an indication that they were contaminated with Radium luminous paint” (Hunt, p. 3). Hunt checked a radium burial ground at East Braintree, which had not been disturbed; the homes and premises of Hart and Thompson, where no radioactive material was found; Michalak’s employer, which “had never used radium sources”; and Thompson’s employer, Plaxlab, which did not use luminous paints (Hunt, pp. 3–5; RCMP, 10 August, p. 7). Mr. Corrigan of the RCMP’s laboratory doubted the paint: radium-226 “is rare and no longer used on clock and watch dials as it formerly was” (RCMP, 10 August, p. 7). Hunt concluded: “Radioactive contamination of rock and lichens was found at the alleged U.F.O. landing site. The origin of this contamination has yet to be determined.” (p. 5)

In May 1968 Michalak told Training Command he had been back to the site and had taken “SAMPLES OF QUOTE HARDWARE UNQUOTE FROM THE ROCK WITHIN ONE FOOT OF CENTRE POINT OF CIRCLE”: metallic pieces “WHICH APPEAR TO HAVE BEEN FORMED FROM MOLTEN METAL”, found by him and an assistant “APPROXIMATE 6 INCHES BELOW ROCK SURFACE IN A CREVISE” (telex of 22 May 1968, pp. 1, 3). CFHQ asked, “SUBJECT TO MICHALAK CONCURRENCE”, for a sample. On 13 June 1968 R. J. Traill examined two “radioactive metallic specimens submitted by Dr. Millman”: silver of 93 to 96 per cent, similar to “commercially available sterling silver or sheet silver”, which “does not contain radioactive elements”, “coated with mineral grains and powder”. His conclusion:

“I would interpret the specimens as pieces of thin sheet silver that have been twisted, crumpled, partly melted, and dropped into, or otherwise placed in contact with, nearly pure quartz sand, while still hot. They have subsequently been covered with loosely-adhering radioactive material which consists of crushed pitchblende ore, much altered to uranophane and containing associated hematite. These naturally-occurring radioactive minerals are found typically in the uraniferous deposits of Montreal River area and in parts of the Beaverlodge camp.” (Traill, p. 2)

The file does not say who handed the specimens to Millman. Millman, in February 1969, called them “the metallic specimens found at the site” and went further: “all the radioactivity observed could well have been produced by finely crushed uranium ore of the type common at certain uranium mines in Canada. Certainly this was what produced the radioactivity in the metallic specimens, and it is highly probable that the same source produced all the other radioactivity reported.”

What the investigators could not resolve

The files contradict each other, and Michalak, on several points. Annex A puts the sighting at “approximately 1700 hours”, but Solotki met him on the highway “about 3 p.m.” (RCMP, 26 May, p. 1). The RCMP’s report has the site found on the weekend of 24 and 25 June, after a search from “Saturday June 24th”; Bissky’s addendum puts the search on “Sunday 25 June”, and the RCMP’s message from Ottawa of 25 July, citing Bissky’s report, has “25 Jun”. Hunt writes that he flew to Winnipeg on 26 July and went to the site on 27 July; the RCMP has him arriving “during the morning of July 27th” and the visit on 28 July. In the interview Michalak said the objects came from “exactly … 255 degrees”; at the site in July he pointed to an opening “020° north northeast of the landing spot”, and “When asked about this large discrepancy he merely said he must have made a mistake, that’s all.” (RCMP, 10 August, p. 6) He denied drinking, but Bissky recorded that “a reliable witness at Falcon Lake advised that he personally had served Mr. Michalak 4 or 5 bottles of beer the night prior to the trip into the bush” (Bissky, p. 2). And, in the RCMP’s words: “the largest discrepancy as far as I am concerned is him removing all the evidence (steel tape, shirt remnants, etc.) from the scene after being explicitly asked not to do so and his denial of ever having been so asked.” (10 August, p. 8)

The RCMP closed its file in August 1967 listing what it could not explain: “his illness, headache and loss of weight”, “a fluctuation in his blood cell count”, “the burns to his chest, abdomen and clothing as well as the circle on the rock where he alleges the UFO landed”; “Our investigation has not been able to resolve any of these points mentioned” (10 August, p. 8). Bissky wrote that “the abdominal burns sustained by Mr. Michalak remain unexplainable as to the source of the burn” (p. 3). Hunt left the origin of the contamination “yet to be determined”. Millman, in 1969, thought it “highly probable” that crushed uranium ore produced all of it; no document in the files says where such ore came from.

The site the RCMP was shown on 28 July had “a semi-cirle on the rock face measuring approximately 15 ft. in diameter where the moss had been somehow removed”; the officers found “no indication that the moss had been removed by brushing or raking it off but the possibility could not be ruled out completely of course.” (RCMP, 10 August, pp. 6–7) Hunt, who saw it the same day: “the origin of the circular outline of vegetation in the writer’s opinion is debateable.” (p. 3)

Where it was

The RCMP put the site “about 2½ miles due north of the Trans-Canada Highway at Falcon Beach”, about 200 feet north of the rock Michalak said he was chipping (10 August, p. 6). Annex A gives “49 degrees 41 minutes North latitude, 95 degrees 15 minutes West longitude”; the pin is that position, converted by us to 49.68° N, 95.25° W. The files do not say how the position was fixed.

Why this scores where it does

Witnesses: 1. One untrained observer. The RCMP recorded discrepancies in his account: the beer, the bearing of 255° against 020°, and the evidence removed from the site.

Radar: 0. None.

Optics: 1. Photographs of the site, of the burns and of the undershirt were taken, some for Life magazine and 13 of the site by the RCMP; no document mentions a photograph of an object.

Physical trace: 3. Burns examined by doctors, a blood count, burned clothing, a circle on the rock and measured radioactivity. But the radioactive samples of June were collected by Michalak and his partner, and the contamination Hunt found at the site was a smear no larger than 100 square inches.

Multi-channel: 2. The doctors and the laboratories examined what was left on his body, his clothes and the rock; the event itself has one witness.

Documentation: 5. Two RCMP reports, a transcript, an RCAF report, a federal radiation memorandum, a doctor’s letter and NRC analyses, all from 1967–69 and all dated.

Anomaly: 2. Once the discrepancies are set aside, what remains unexplained is the burns and his illness; the radioactivity has a candidate source in the files, crushed uranium ore, though not an origin.

Data today: 4. Both files are public and legible. Where the samples are now, the files do not say.

The overall is 2.2: class C, material gaps.

What would settle it

• The final analysis of the Radiation Protection Division in Ottawa, which Hunt and the RCMP were waiting for, and the second analysis at the Winnipeg General Hospital, “to try and determine the isotope by its rate of decay” (Hunt, p. 4).
• The samples sent to APRO in Tucson, and the results of any analysis there.
• The Misericordia Hospital’s record of 20 May 1967, and Annex B to Bissky’s report, the “preliminary medical report from Mr. Michalak’s doctor”, which we did not find in the NRC file.
• The photographs taken for Life magazine and by the RCMP, of the burns, the undershirt and the circle.
• A record of where the metal specimens Traill examined came from, and of who handed them to Millman.