Josée Arnold (JA): Welcome to Discover Library and Archives Canada: Your History, Your Documentary Heritage. I'm your host, Josée Arnold. Join us as we showcase treasures from our vaults; guide you through our many services; and introduce you to the people who acquire, safeguard and make known Canada's documentary heritage.
Transcript of podcast episode 54 Josée Arnold (JA): Welcome to Discover Library and Archives Canada: Your History, Your Documentary Heritage. I'm your host, Josée Arnold. Join us as we showcase treasures from our vaults; guide you through our many services; and introduce you to the people who acquire, safeguard and make known Canada's documentary heritage. In the second part of this two-part episode, we discuss the evidence and investigation into the Falcon Lake Incident. Stefan Michalak's son Stan and researchers Chris Rutkowski and Palmiro Campagna once again join us to discuss Canada's most infamous UFO case. If you haven't heard part one yet, go back and take a listen. [CBC clip from 1983] Harry Brown (HB): Has anybody ever come back with the marks of having been on one of these ships? Edward Barker (EB): Very definitely. Right here in Manitoba, we have one of the finest cases on record. It's a very interesting case. It took place at Falcon Lake. This is back in '67. The gentleman involved, Michalak, was prospecting. As he was prospecting, he stopped for lunch, and he saw these bright lights. He looked up. As he was looking, a thing came down. One of them came down. One flew off, came about 160 feet away from him, made all kinds of light changes like a light show. "It was the most magnificent thing," he said. Turned into a silver shaped object of 35 feet in diameter. As he watched it, it went through further colour changes. He decided to go up closer to it. He walked up almost within touching distance, started calling it. As he looked at this thing, a hatch opened up according to his story. He was hypnotically regressed. This is all… HB: Have you talked to him, personally? EB: Personally, yes. This is about, as I said, in '67. HB: Is he still alive and in Manitoba? EB: Yes, he is. The upshot of this whole thing is that as he stepped back from viewing this thing, it was very hot and very bright. The thing tilted, started swinging around in a counter-clockwise direction, bringing some vent holes or what appeared to be vent holes in front of him. These hit him in the chest, knocked him down, and this thing took off. To shorten the story somewhat, he eventually became very ill. He started nauseating, he started seeing spots, he lost everything in his stomach. Eventually, over the next few weeks, he lost a great deal of weight. His lymphocyte count went down drastically, almost lethal. All of the signs were either of a cancerous kind of thing or of radiation burning. He was taken to Pinawa, it's a local establishment. No radiation whatsoever. Eventually, this thing calmed down and he went back to work. About nine months later, he collapsed at work. When they rushed him into the hospital, there was a series of dots on his chest. These proceeded to come back every three months for about 14 months, about a year and a half, there about, let's say. HB: Five times or so? EB: Yes. Now, in trying to explain this, none of the doctors here in Winnipeg could do so. [Narration] JA: That 1983 clip was the CBC show, "Take 30," featuring Edward Barker of Ufology Research of Manitoba, and host, Harry Brown. Here's Stan Michalak. [Interview] Stan Michalak (SM): Dad was a very complex and interesting character. I think there is another book here. The book tells the story of him in Europe before the Second World War, during and immediately after. That really describes who he was, that really casts him and sets him for his later years. I don't suppose that many people today can really appreciate the kind of turmoil that the war caused in the lives of people who lived it. My mother spent time in a concentration camp with her sister and mother. My dad was sent to a concentration camp when he was finally caught. When you look at their background, and I think I've tried to make that point as clear as I could in the book, when you look at their backgrounds and you look at the fire that forged them and what made them who they are, it's easier to look at the incident in '67, to look at his actions, reactions, his state of mind, the way he went about dealing with this. It's easier to understand that if you know the man first and know what he went through in his earlier years. Understanding him and understanding the man and realizing what he went through. And that's one of the reasons why I wanted to make sure that some of the things that he went through were in the book so that you could get a better handle on what kind of a guy he was. That makes it a little more understandable. I grew up believing and understanding that here was a man who went through war experiences and traumatic events and horrible loss and pain and suffering and all those things, and came out at the other side with this incredible love of Canada and the great outdoors and the wilderness. He basically put all that stuff behind and compartmentalized it into a cubby hole where it would stay. It's not until you're faced with something that's unexplainable or dangerous that those things come out. This was my dad pretty much to a tee. You look at a traumatic event. It really shows you who a person is when a person is faced with something very either dangerous or unexplained. His post-event problems that he had with the investigators, with the RCMP, it just shows that he was struggling to deal. He didn't have any reference for this other than his life, which was weird and odd to begin with, the whole war thing. He was struggling with trying to figure out: Who do you satisfy? Who do you make happy here? Who needs to know what? My mother, who was infinitely patient, was starting to lose her patience because she didn't know how to deal with this either. She was struggling just as much as he was, to keep him sane and to keep him okay. He was struggling to try and figure out how he should best handle all of this. That's what made the story so traumatic to the family because it was a very difficult time after the event. The event itself took a matter of a few minutes to a few hours, one weekend in May. The rest was the years of trying to deal with all of this. [Narration] JA: Stan said, "It really shows you who a person is when they're faced with something very dangerous or unexplained." Unexplained indeed. What did Stan Michalak see? Was it something "other worldly" or "terrestrial"? Can the records held here at LAC help us figure this out? Here once, again, is Palmiro Campagna. [Interview] Palmiro Campagna (PC): This is in the report by Corporal Davies where they have this set of questions. There's a general portion where they just explain Canadian Forces Headquarters as responsible for processing these types of reports, et cetera. Then, under Reporting: messages shall be addressed to Canadian Forces Headquarters. The first words in the text shall be "For Canadian Forces." I'm not sure what the "OC" stands for… Anyway, UFO Report. All reports shall include the following: date and time of the sighting, condition of the sky, identification of the observer, location of the observer at the time of the sighting. Identification of other persons who may have also observed, description of the sighting, shape, color, et cetera, duration, and any other relevant information. This is something that was produced by the RCAF 7th of October '66 and it's part of their instruction. As a cursory piece of initial information, that's great. You say "Oh yeah, there's a report. Maybe it's worth looking at." Once you get into the details, you have to start really posing a lot of other questions and following the leads, looking at the inconsistencies—if there are any—and really getting into the in-depth of what's happening… [Narration] JA: The incident was investigated by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the Royal Canadian Air Force. The main investigators were RCMP Corporal J. Davis and Investigating Officer Squadron Leader Paul Bissky of the RCAF. On May 23, three days after the sighting, Corporal Davis and another officer, Constable Zacharius, came to Stefan Michalak's home to take his statement. Also present at the house that day was Barry Thompson, a member of APRO (the Aerial Phenomena Research Organization), a civilian group that investigates UFO sightings. The two RCMP officers spoke to Mr. Michalak for about two hours. The RCMP came back the next day and he once again gave a full account of what had happened to him during the sighting on May 20, and everything that had happened afterwards. Officers Davis and Zacharius reported that he appeared to be suffering from an unknown illness and, therefore, unable to bring them out to the site of the incident at Falcon Lake. [PC in background, beneath the narration] …The Colorado questionnaire I think was a little bit more in-depth, but I still think that it too was a bit not as detailed as what I would expect a typical police investigation would be all about. If this was a crime scene and there was a body, the whole thing would be cordoned off and nobody would go anywhere near it, and the forensics guys would be in there, and et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. The chances of the stuff being compromised would be hopefully reduced. We know that that happens in those types of incidents as well, but at least it would be a whole different procedure I think that would have been invoked. [Interview] SM: The book is entitled When They Appeared. It's got nothing to do with the two UFOs. When They Appeared is about all the people that showed up at our door. [I've] got to tell you, once it started, it's like it wouldn't end. It started with, naturally, the RCMP, who showed up first. Then they involved the Royal Canadian Air Force, they showed up next. Then Atomic Energy Canada got involved. Then there was a series of doctors, none of whom could do much for Dad. Then there was the interesting organization that came out of the United States called APRO, which stands for Aerial Phenomena Research Organization. These people basically fed the fire of the UFO hysteria. These were the cult people, I guess cult's probably not the right word, but it sure felt like it. These are people who liked to retell all the stories of UFOs and speculate as to what planet these people were from and how many light years it takes to get to earth and all that jazz. It was pretty unusual stuff. We had a Canadian wing of that organization in Winnipeg. There was a representative who came to the house. And then there were the believers. No matter what dad says, "I believe you." He frankly didn't care whether people believed him or not but they wanted to make sure that he knew that, "Oh yes, you have supporters out here. We believe you." Almost to a religious extent. There were people who believed that he was communicated to by an otherworldly god who— It just began to really get ridiculous. The reporters who camped out on our lawn and who visited us almost daily, you can't really blame them. They were doing their job and their job at the time was to get as much as they could on the story. But that involved chasing me to school or that involved talking to my neighbours, our neighbours, about what kind of guy Dad was, all of that. It got intrusive and it got personal but there was a long, long, long list. We got a phone call at three in the morning from BBC London. Things just started to get so out of hand, but in all of that, there were a few people in the investigative group that became quite friendly and quite—I looked forward to them. One of the RCMP constables, Constable Davis, Corporal Davis rather, he was a fabulous guy. Constable Zacharius. These are two guys who were very sympathetic and they understood that this was traumatic and they treaded very lightly. They were doing their job. They were very efficient, but they recognized that Dad was having issues with all of this and having trouble. I guess the silver lining was there were a few people in this group that were sympathetic and caring and seemed to care about what this was doing to the family. Generally speaking, the people who investigated were out of their element. They had no reference material for this, they had no paradigm, there was no protocols established for investigating this sort of thing. They were coming in and basically groping in the dark and hoping that they would, I don't know, find something out. The RCAF, certainly—the Air Force—they really had not much to go on. It was very easy for them to say, "Yes, you know what, I don't believe this guy but we're going to do what we got to do anyway because we got to do it. We're going to go through the motions and when it's all over, we'll write our reports." You could see this, you could feel it, you could hear it from them when they spoke. [Narration] JA: We asked Stan if he thought there was any way the investigation into the incident was aimed to discredit his father. [Interview] SM: No, not really. I think not as a general rule. No, I think what came out is individual personalities. I think individuals who said, "You know what, I just don't believe this. I can't believe this. Therefore, I'm going to go out of my way to not be helpful or not be thorough or I'm just going to form an opinion and that's that." One of the opinions that came up was that Dad has been drinking… [Narration] JA: That theory was first suggested by RCAF Squadron Leader Paul Bissky. He brought forth the idea that Stefan Michalak was hallucinating from consuming alcohol the night before the incident. [SM in background, beneath the narration] …Again, if you sit down and analyze and just look over the facts in their correct order and sequence, it's impossible to believe that anybody could hallucinate the next day, at around noonish of the next day from a bender the night before. [Interview] SM: It doesn't matter if Dad went into the pub and had a beer, that means nothing. But to one of the guys in the RCAF—who incidentally had his own history with liquor—that was a problem for him. He was bound and determined that he was going to prove that Dad was a fall down drunk. When that didn't work and when the RCMP investigation actually showed that it wasn't possible for Dad to have consumed a whole lot of liquor, then that just disappeared. The problem was the moment he raised that concern, and the moment he began his campaign to see if dad truly was a fall down drunk, that became a focus of attention. As soon as that happens, and as soon as the media or somebody gets a hold of that, then once again it becomes an issue and it gets blown out of proportion and, oh my God. It wasn't an actual campaign to discredit him. It was more that everybody who touched this story from the official standpoint, every investigator who touched this story, unless they were completely willing and completely non-biased and completely accepting of the facts as they were, they would form an opinion. As soon as they did, they would follow that opinion. For example, we had a gentleman come up named Stuart Hunt. He was from Atomic Energy, I believe, or Health and Welfare Canada, one of those places. He came to Manitoba because there was a radiation scare. They said, "Oh, there's radiation at the scene. Oh my god." He came and he did extensive testing and researching and looking and poking and prodding. He actually went out of his way to search Manitoba. I'm talking about going to known radioactive waste disposal sites, to Dad's work, to medical facilities around the city to find out whether he could have stolen any radioactive material so he could take it up with him and see the site where the UFO landed. Now, I'm sorry, do you really think that's necessary or do you just deal with what you got. As it turns out, the radiation at the scene was a little higher than normal, unusual. Dad's blood cells and lymphocyte counts were a little off, yes, that's true, that's a fact, but there wasn't enough radiation to close the entire Whiteshell Provincial Park or form any kind of a public safety issue. But as soon as he arrived, that was his number one priority. When you talk to people like that, and when you read their final reports, and you read the bias that they're putting in there, you wonder whether or not these people were just simply following their own agendas and really had no interest in finding out what the truth was of the story. [Narration] JA: Back to the records at LAC with Palmiro Campagna. [Interview] PC: All the RCMP was trying to do here was just trying to confirm what state he was in. The whole thing with Bissky happens later. Because there is an indication… In fact, I think Bissky even writes somewhere that, in his personal opinion, he thought that maybe Mr. Michalak had been drinking and might have been subject to hallucination [or] what have you from that, but that that was his opinion. He's very clear about that and he says given all the other facts of the case that he can't really make any real determination about what happened to Mr. Michalak. Even he backs off a little bit on the drinking thing but I think that whole part of it is a bit of a red herring. [Narration] JA: Here's Chris Rutkowski [Interview] Chris Rutkowski (CR): Yes, certainly Paul Bissky had an arrogant attitude that there was nothing to this. He was convinced that Michalak had made up the story somehow, to the point where Bissky checked the hotel liquor logs to find out exactly whether Michalak would have been drinking heavily that night. In fact, in the accompaniment of other military investigators, they went and offered him something to drink at the bar to find out whether he was lying, because Mr. Michalak said that he wasn't a drinker and yet he was gladly willing to take drinks that were offered to him. Probably there's a difference there and I think most of it would get that distinction that Michalak certainly wasn't an alcoholic. He didn't drink to excess but he drank socially. To suggest that having a few drinks or even three or four drinks the night before his experience would make him imagine something to the point where he would be physically burned and leave radioactive debris behind is, I think, quite a quantum leap. PC: The other thing that we learn from the records has to do with the radioactivity that was found at the site. In that regard, I'm not sure how it was portrayed in the media. This might have been prior to the radioactivity being reported but, in any event, what they indicate here is that yes, there was a small, very tiny patch of soil in the landing zone that demonstrated a radium-like type of radiation which they likened to the luminous paint that used to be used back in the day for letting your watch glow at night and that kind of thing. Nothing major. He had collected samples from that area when he had found the site. Those samples demonstrated the same type of radium-like radiation. They did indicate that he was a bit careless with the samples and that he handled everything with his bare hands. The debate being the RCMP and the RCAF were quite concerned about that. But he didn't seem to be overly upset with it. There is one other curious part about the radioactivity. Here again the APRO fellow figures into it. He claims that he received some of the samples from Mr. Michalak, sent them independently to be analyzed. At least one of them came back indicating a higher level of radioactivity than this radium stuff, which is fine, but here again we've got a sample that's been compromised. Although he says he was told it came from the site, it would have been nice if they investigated and said, "Okay, exactly where did this sample come from? Exactly where did that sample come from? Show us on the diagram." Because they went through the entire landing zone area with three different types of meters, if you can believe the written record, and they found nothing other than that tiny little bit of radium paint-type of area. Here again, we have another piece of evidence which gets compromised and we don't really know where and wh… truncated (26,649 more characters in archive)
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