Today in UFO History

June 18, 1960 – Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, Canada:

The Clan Lake Incident

On June 18, 1960, an old prospector walked into the Yellowknife RCMP detachment with a remarkable story. What he described would spark an investigation involving both the RCMP and the Canadian military, yet despite multiple searches and official interest, no one would ever recover the object he claimed had crashed into the waters of Clan Lake.

More than fifty years later, retired RCMP officer Fred Thomas Wright still remembered the incident.

"It was an old prospector who came in," recalled Wright, who was stationed in Yellowknife at the time. Now living in Swift Current, Saskatchewan, the 74-year-old former Mountie said the man appeared sincere and trustworthy. Although Wright could no longer remember the prospector's name, the individual's identity was blacked out in all publicly released documents.

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

According to the prospector's statement, he and a partner had been dropped off at Clan Lake by a Wardair Otter aircraft at approximately 6:00 p.m. After unloading their gear onto the shore, they watched the plane depart. Roughly twenty minutes later, the prospector heard a distant sound.

At first, it seemed like a large aircraft somewhere far away.

"I didn't pay much attention to it until it got loud," he later told investigators.

Looking skyward, he searched for the source of the noise but could see nothing.

"The noise appeared to come from very high up," his statement read.

The sound continued to grow louder. Then, without warning, something struck the water.

"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 object was estimated to be between four and six feet across. According to the prospector, it remained floating on the surface while spinning rapidly. Gradually, the rotation slowed until it came to a complete stop. Moments later, it sank beneath the water.

What happened next made the sight even stranger.

The prospector reported that a backwash surged across the lake toward him, despite the impact occurring approximately 1,700 feet away.

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

When his partner returned, the two men paddled out in a canoe to investigate the area where the object had disappeared. There they discovered a patch roughly twenty feet wide and sixty feet long where the grass appeared shredded into small pieces. Reeds along the eastern and northeastern edges of the area were reportedly burned.

The men probed the lakebed with their paddles but found no trace of the object.

About a month later, the prospector traveled to Yellowknife and reported the incident to the RCMP.

Wright took the report seriously. In his notes, he described the witness as the owner of a successful prospecting business, a woodcutter by trade, and a man who was well known throughout the region. Most importantly, he noted that the witness was considered highly reliable.

"This old prospector was not in the drink, and he was very sincere about the incident," Wright later said.

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

The RCMP launched an aerial survey of Clan Lake. Acting Corporal D.J. Matheson reported that the only unusual feature he observed was a strip of water approximately twelve feet wide and forty feet long where the reeds had been completely removed and the water appeared slightly deeper.

His conclusion was intriguing:

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

A second patrol was dispatched several weeks later. Investigators used metal rods to probe the lake bottom, but thick clay beneath the sediment made it impossible to search very deeply.

Wright participated in that expedition and recalled another piece of equipment being used: a Geiger counter.

The investigators searched for signs of radiation. They found none.

Interest in the case soon spread beyond the RCMP.

A geologist named Gordon Brown, then employed at Giant Mine, offered to conduct a magnetometer survey of the area after freeze-up. Before that could happen, however, the matter caught the attention of Canadian military intelligence.

On August 16, 1960, RCMP Commissioner C.W. Harvison received a letter from W.H. Kelly, Assistant Director of Security and Intelligence for the Royal Canadian Air Force.

Kelly wrote that the incident appeared to be more within the RCAF's area of responsibility than that of the RCMP. Significantly, he noted that the prospector's report did not seem to be the product of imagination and stated that military officials were impressed by the details provided in the witness statement.

A month later, Director of Air Intelligence L.C. Dilworth reported that the Department of National Defence had consulted space-tracking agencies in both Canada and the United States. None had any record of a satellite crashing in the area.

Military officials considered another possibility.

"We are inclined to think here that the object was a meteorite," Dilworth wrote.

Yet there was a problem with that explanation.

A meteorite striking a lake would almost certainly generate steam, particularly if it had recently passed through Earth's atmosphere at high speed. The prospector had been adamant that he observed no steam whatsoever.

Dilworth noted that the military remained very interested in the results of any future magnetometer survey.

Unfortunately, that survey never happened.

Brown accepted a position in Morocco before he could conduct the examination, and without additional investigation the case gradually faded away. The file was eventually closed.

Today, little remains of the official record.

Yellowknife RCMP Constable Todd Scaplen later confirmed that no records of the Clan Lake incident remain at the detachment.

"Certain files and records are purged," he explained.

More than six decades later, the mystery remains unsolved.

Something appears to have struck the waters of Clan Lake on that June evening in 1960. A respected witness reported it. Physical disturbances were observed at the site. The RCMP investigated. The military took notice.

Yet whatever plunged into the lake was never recovered, and the true nature of the object remains unknown.