“At first we thought it was an airplane. There was absolutely no sound… then we absolutely knew it was no airplane.”

“It” was a giant glowing orb floating rapidly over a sacred mountain in British Columbia while a documentary research crew studying atmospheric anomalies recorded it with night-vision cameras. What did they see and is it connected to the mysterious history of Stawamus Chief, the sacred mountain it hovered over?

The story reported in the Squamish Chief news starts with Rob Freeman and Marcus McNabb from the Centre for the Scientific Study of Atmospheric Anomalies in London, Ontario, traveling to British Columbia to meet with Charles Lamoureux, a skywatcher, amateur astronomer and ufologist who has acquired a number of video capture devices and combined them into one device he calls the Skywatcher’s Mobile Unit. Lamoureux has produced his own documentary, Nocturnal Lights, and does paranormal research for Simon Fraser University.

Lamoureux directed Freeman and McNabb to Squamish, home of the Stawamus Chief, a 2,297 ft (700 meters) granite monolith that is sacred to the indigenous Squamish people and a site known for UFOs, orbs and other sky anomalies. The filmmakers set up their own sophisticated night vision equipment on July 22nd and waited. At 10:59 p.m., Freeman says they saw a “huge yellowish white ball of light” that “appeared out of nowhere & then proceeded to go into the woods.”

They sent the video to Lamoureux, who confirmed it was not a plane from Vancouver International Airport (YVR) nor a meteor, satellite or drone. It is now being examined by the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON).

While we’re waiting for that report, let’s speculate on what they saw. The Squamish area and its nearby surroundings is a hotbed of UFO sightings, as a search on the UFO Hunters website will attest. For example, in late February 2017, police in Squamish received a call from a resident who reported multiple moving lights over Lions Bay. Squamish also has had a number of Bigfoot sightings. Are these paranormal events linked to the sacred mountain?

The Squamish name for the mountain is Siám’ Smánit (siám’ can mean “chief” or a high social ranking) and their folklore tells the tale of it being a longhouse that was transformed to stone by the Xáays, spirit beings more popularly known as the Transformers or Transformer Brothers. The deep cleft in the chief’s face was cut by the corrosive skin of Sínulhka or Sisiutl, an unusual giant two-headed sea serpent with a humanoid head in the middle of its body between them.

Sisiutl was believed to be a size-changing shape-shifter and its slime could kill on contact. In addition to being the god of warrior invincibility, it was also the guardian of the house of the sky people.

Aha! Are these orbs the Sisiutl protecting the area’s people? Whatever they are, the video will undoubtedly attract more professionals and amateurs to Squamish to look for orbs, UFOs and strange serpents.

If you’re planning a trip, don’t step in any slime.