It was over 50 years ago, May 20, 1967, when Stefan Michalak, on holiday at Whiteshell Provincial Park, while looking for quartz vein near Falcon Lake (Manitoba), disturbed by a noise like the crackling of geese stared up into the sky and saw two cigar-shaped UFOs, of a bright red color similar to fire, descending at a forty-five-degree angle.

Michalak saw that the closer they came, the more the two UFOs seemed to be oval-shaped.

The Falcon Lake's UFOs

According to Michalak, one of the flying objects landed near a great rock, about 50 meters away from him, the second stood in static flight for a few, changing color from red to grey, then it flew to the west and disappeared behind the clouds. The UFO on the ground also turned from red to grey and finally to the color of "hot stainless steel".

This UFO seemed to emit brilliant purple light from its interiors, but since Michalak was wearing welding goggles to protect his eyes while examining the quartz the rays didn't hit him. The man claimed also that the UFO gave off a sulfurous smell and was making a whirring noise.

After an hour and a half, Michalak was still looking at the UFO, suddenly a door opened and he was able to take a look of an illuminated interior. Intrigued, the man decided to move closer and was able to hear voices coming from the object.

Stefan Michalak's incident

Believing that the object was some kind of experimental aircraft, Michalak started calling out in English, then in other languages but there was no response. Approached the open door Michalak took a look inside and saw a maze of lights on what appeared to be a panel, but he didn't see anyone, so he pulled back and waited.

A few after the door suddenly closed, but Michalak noted that the outer surface of the UFO was like highly polished colored glass. He tried to touch it, but it melted his glove. A few seconds later, without noise, a steel box with a lot of round holes, similar to an exhaust vent, came out of the UFO and there was a blast of a hot gas shot from these holes and a sort of propellent was expelled in his direction, setting his clothes on fire.

The UFO took off in the same direction of the other, but Michalak was too busy trying to tore off his burning garments and threw them to the ground to be able to track its flight. Soon after Michalak felt a sense of pain and nausea and noticed a strong smell of burning electrical insulation coming from his body.

Oval sores and hair losses

He tried to head back to the motel, but he had to stop several times because of the pain he felt. Subsequently, he was hospitalized, and initially, he declared that the sores had been caused by the unloadings of an airplane. As later referred his family doctor, R.D. Ottaway, Michalak was confused but conscious, had a hair loss and oval sores to the chest and the abdomen, as a first-degree burn.

The nature of these burns was never explained, while the health problems of Michalak lasted for months, among which a loss of appetite and weight, swellings, and episodes of faints. A psychiatrist who visited Michalak claimed that he didn't suffer from "meaningful mental or emotional illnesses."

Some weeks later the Royal Canadian Mounted Police opened an investigation on the episode and not being able to identify accurately the site of the presumed close encounter they tried to let Michalak find it again, by the way initially he didn't succeed in identifying it accurately.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police investigation

On June 26, nevertheless, Michalak and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police identified the site and they took samples of the soil, which resulted to be contaminated by radiation. On July 28, moreover, again Michalak and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police found a semi-circle on a rock in the area of the scene of about 4,5 meters diameter.

Radiation traces were found inside the semi-circle, on the point of the presumed landing, but not out of the perimeter of the semi-circle neither on the musk nor on the grass below the portion of rock where the semi-circle was found.

Over 50 years later the Falcon Lake incident remains officially "unsolved", while the radioactive material found resulted to be Radium-226, ferrous alkaline metal's isotope among the most frequent in nature, very used in the past for commercial uses (for instance in the luminescent varnishes for clocks and alarm clocks).

According to the investigation, such isotope hadn't a dangerous level of radiation for the residents of that area: it is not clear, however, if was Radium-226 that caused the pain felt by Michalak, as it has never been clear if the all story was a Michalak's hoax (according to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Michalak drunk a lot of bottles of beer the evening before the accident) or a real close encounter with an alien UFO.