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#7: THE FALCON LAKE INCIDENTWritten by Lyndon Froese // Artwork by Seth Heinrichs #7: The Falcon Lake IncidentBy Lyndon FroeseImagine looking up into the stars on a clear night. There are one hundred billion planets in the Milky Way. Each of these are worlds of their own, with their own mountain ranges, deserts and oceans. Each with details like cliffs, beaches and windy days, just as real as the ones here. They have eccentricities like heavy blanket atmospheres, lakes of acid, ice kilometers thick and even active volcanoes. Think of all the volcanoes erupting right now, as you read this sentence – the winds blowing, the suns setting. Billions and billions and billions of unique realms, all made up of tiny whirling atoms, all changing over billions of years, hovering in space... far, far away.Are we alone?On the afternoon of May 20, 1967, a man named Stephen Michalak stumbled onto the parking lot of the Falcon Motor Hotel. He seemed drunk or something. At least that’s what the Falcon Beach Highway Patrol officer thought when he spotted the man walking down the highway earlier.Michalak was an industrial mechanic by trade and an amateur geologist on the side. He would often come out to Falcon, stay in the hotel and prospect for quartz and silver in the woods. It was not unusual to see the man around. But something had gone wrong this time. On the parking lot, Michalak approached the hotel owner and told her he needed a doctor. His eyes were bloodshot. He was out of sorts.That day there was no doctor in town, so Michalak rested in his hotel room. He phoned his wife and told her that there had been an accident, but that he was okay. He asked her if she could have their son meet him at the bus terminal in Winnipeg. He would be on the next bus out of Falcon Lake. At 10:45pm the bus pulled into the station in Winnipeg and Michalak’s son drove him directly to the hospital.When Michalak was seen at the Emergency Room, he was nauseous and dizzy. He had severe burns on his upper abdomen. What he told his physician about the injuries was likely the strangest explanation the good doctor had ever heard: He had been burned by a blast of hot air from a UFO.His account would eventually make its way into almost every encyclopedia of UFO encounters and become the topic of an episode of Unsolved Mysteries. This is the story of The Falcon Lake Incident.Stephen Michalak had been in the woods near Falcon Lake, across the highway from the townsite. Chipping away at a quartz vein, he looked up and saw two oval objects in the sky, glowing in an intense scarlet.The objects sunk toward the ground, keeping a constant distance between them, weirdly operating like a single unit – until one stopped and hovered. The other ship continued to the ground, eventually coming to land quite near where Michalak knelt.The craft still in the air ascended and disappeared. In dead silence, it left its twin resting on a flat section of Precambrian rock.Still kneeling with pick-hammer in hand, Michalak watched through the protective goggles on his face. The scarlet red of the craft faded to a stainless-steel sheen and he noticed an open hatch on the side of the craft: a lozenge-shaped opening about two feet by three feet in size. Warm air came off the craft in gusts, each wave wafting the smell of sulphur Michalak’s way. A tiny electric motor whirled. Air hissed lightly. But mostly it was quiet out there in the woods – just a man in goggles and a parked UFO.Michalak scanned the hull for identifying decals, perhaps of the United States Air Force.Light poured out of the upper circle of the craft, flooding the ground with purple. It was so bright that it outshone the midday sun, and when Michalak looked away, he vision was obscured by bright spots.He stood and moved closer. Within sixty feet he listened. There were... voices? He held his breath and strained to hear. From inside the craft came two distinct voices: one with a higher pitch than the other. They sounded human enough, although too muffled to make out what they were saying.“Okay, Yankee boys, having trouble?” Michalak said aloud, breaking the silence. “Come on out and we’ll see what we can do about it.”Falcon Lake isn’t far from the American border and these were the Cold War days – there were all kinds of secret military things going on, supposedly.No reply from the craft. He took some steps closer. He hesitated, then walked right up to the small hatch and peered into the opening. There were lights everywhere – focused beams shining across the interior. A series of flashing lights switched on and off in seemingly random sequences.He stepped away. The craft remained motionless.There were no signs of welding or seams to be seen anywhere. It was extraordinary. Michalak reached out with his gloved hand and touched its side. It was hot. Burning hot. He pulled his glove away and saw it was melted.Without warning, the entire craft tilted slightly. Michalak felt a scorching pain across his chest. His shi...

#7: The Falcon Lake Incident — Falcon Trails Resort