Stefan Michalak Encounter

Stefan Michalak Encounter
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Date: May 20, 1967

Location: Falcon Lake, Manitoba, Canada

Stephen Michalak and his wife came to Manitoba, Canada, from Poland, after World War II. Stephen found work as an industrial mechanic and was also an amateur rock hound. He spent every spare moment in the beautiful natural woodlands of Manitoba.

I love nature. I love birds, animals. Every weekend I usually travel, go out in the country and snooping in the rocks.

During Victoria Day weekend, decided to do some prospecting in the Whiteshell Provincial Park.

Others had found several quartz veins near Falcon Lake that were associated with silver deposits, and Michalak had himself found a few promising sites. So, on May 19, 1967, he traveled from Winnipeg to Falcon Lake, where he spent the night in a motel on the Trans-Canada Highway.

Michalak left his motel at 5:30 a.m. and headed north into the wilds of the park. At about 9:00 a.m. he found a quartz vein near a small stream. At 11:00 a.m. he ate lunch, then continued to examine the quartz formation. At 12:15 p.m. His concentration was disturbed by the cackling of some geese. He looked up and was surprised to see two red, glowing cigar shaped objects descending at a 45º angle.

As they came nearer, their appearance became more oval and then disk shaped.

Looking on the tree, I notice two cigarette like shape things, with the hump in the middle.

I said:

What the hell is that?

As he watched, one of the objects stopped and hovered, while the other one descended and landed on a large, flat rock about 160' away from him. After a few moments the object still in the air departed, changing from red to orange to grey as it flew into the west and disappeared behind the clouds.

The object on the ground also turned from red to grey and finally to the color of hot stainless steel surrounded by a golden hued glow.

He had been wearing welding goggles while chipping at the quartz to protect his eyes from flying rock fragments, and now they served the additional purpose of protecting his eyes from a brilliant purple light that was shining through openings in the object's exterior.

The object was making a hissing sound and a whirring noise, and it gave off a sulfurous smell.

Stephen's son, Stan Michalak, was 10 years old at the time and recalled what his father witnessed:

I do remember one description that he gave at the time. He said that the skin of the craft, the outside of the craft was flawless. There was nothing. It was as though you had milled out of a solid block of steel, this disk, this saucer with the dome on top.

For several minutes, Michalak stayed where he was and sketched the object. After about half an hour, a door opened in the side of the object, revealing a lighted interior. Michalak decided to move closer, and when he was approximately 60' away from the object, he began to hear two voices over the other sounds coming from the object.

I start looking for marks. NASA or something, Nothing, I didn't see anything on it.

Believing that the object was a secret experimental American craft of some sort, Michalak called out in English. There was no response, so he tried Russian, German, Italian, French, Ukrainian, and then English again. There was still no response.

Summoning his nerve, He approached the open door and stuck his head inside. There he saw a maze of lights on what appeared to be a panel, and beams of light in horizontal and diagonal patterns. There was also a cluster of lights flashing in a random sequence like on a computer. Not seeing anyone, he pulled back and waited. Suddenly, 3 panels slid together, closing the opening completely. Michalak then examined the outer surface of the object, noting that it was like highly polished colored glass with no breaks or seams in its surface. He touched it, and it melted his glove.

Stephen told his son that, after a few moments, the door of the craft slowly opened. The light emitted from the door was so bright, he had to snap down the visor on his safety goggles. Then, after a few moments, the door suddenly shut.

Without warning, the object moved, and something like an exhaust vent was now in front of him. It was about 9" high by 6" wide, and contained a uniform pattern of round holes, each about 1/16 inch in diameter.

A waft of warm air that seemed to come out in waves from the craft onto his chest, setting his shirt and undershirt on fire and causing him severe pain. He tore off his burning garments and threw them to the ground, accompanied by the pungent odor of sulphur.

He looked up in time to see the craft depart like the first, and felt a rush of air as it ascended.

Once the object was gone, Michalak noticed a strong odor of burning electrical insulation along with the sulfurous smell he had noticed earlier. Some moss on the ground had been set on fire by his burning shirts, and so he stamped it out.

According to Stephen, the craft rotated counterclockwise, knocking him backwards, and setting his shirt on fire. After igniting with the fire, the craft lifts up 30' to 40' and vanishes. And then I decide, now is the time for me to buzz off from here. So I start going.

At the landing site was a circle about 15 feet in diameter, devoid of the moss and vegetation growing in other areas of the same rock outcropping.

Soil samples, along with samples of clothing, were tested and deemed to be highly radioactive.

Many of the items have long since been lost as they were transferred through various authorities and agencies. However, Michalak still has one of the pieces of metal, which remains radioactive. So were pieces of metal that were chipped out of cracks in the rock about a year after the incident. The metal had somehow been melted into the cracks.

As he looked round, he developed a severe headache, became nauseous, and broke out in a cold sweat. His nausea became worse, and he soon vomited.

Disoriented, he checked his compass, trying to find his way southeast, to the road. But the needle went haywire. Stephen made his best guess at the right direction.

He decided to head back to the motel, and on the way back he had to stop several times because of vomiting.

Finally, after asking for help from a passing RCMP officer and being refused, he reached the motel. At 4:00 p.m., he entered the coffee shop and asked where he could find a doctor. He was told that the nearest doctor was in Kenora, Ontario, 45 miles east of Falcon Lake. Michalak decided to return to Winnipeg rather than go into Ontario.

9 hours later, he finally arrived back home. He was badly burned and still disoriented. According to his son, Stan, Stephen's burns left doctors baffled.

The next bus to Winnipeg didn't come through until around 8:45 p.m., so he went to his room and called his wife. He told her not to worry, but that he had had an accident and to send their son to meet him at the bus terminal. He got to Winnipeg at around 10:15 p.m., and his son immediately took him to the Misericordia Hospital, where his headache and nausea were treated and the curious burn marks on his chest in the shape of a grid were noted.

At that point in time, the diagnosis, if you can call it that, was burns. And sure they were burns, yes. Heat caused burns. What they couldn't diagnose and didn't have a clue about was what appeared below the chest on the abdomen, the exact same pattern of holes that was on the grid on the side of the craft in the same order, in the same rows in the same number appeared as red spots on his lower abdomen, red dots.

Stephen was released from the hospital, but his symptoms worsened. The nausea continued and his body seemed to emit a sulfuric stench. Stephen was tested for radiation poisoning, but the results were negative. No one could explain the source of the strange burns on his torso.

One of the RCMP investigators tried to make the case that Michalak had burned his chest on a barbecue grill. However, the burn pattern was opposite to what it would have been had that been the case. There was a manned fire tower nearby, but the lookouts reportedly saw nothing that day.

Six weeks after the encounter, Stefan and a friend went looking for the site. After several hours they found a burned out circle the same size as the craft Stefan had seen.

It was more then 30' across. Within days, a team of experts from the United States, working with the Royal Canadian Air Force, converged on the site. They took measurements, cataloged soil samples, and checked for radiation.

The levels appeared quite high, and the Health Department considered quarantining the area. Later, however, they discovered that the high levels were caused by an unrelated vein of radium which ran under the entire region.

Meanwhile, Stefan's burns, which had appeared to be healing, suddenly flared up again. According to Stefan, his doctors remained mystified. After every three months, my burns from legs and here were coming back, showing up again and burning.

Nearly 30 years after his encounter, Stefan died with the burn marks still emblazoned on his torso. For the remainder of his life, Stefan Michalak never lost faith that on May 20, 1967, he had a remarkable encounter with something not of this Earth.

Over the course of the next two years, Michalak was examined by more than one dozen physicians in the United States and Canada. Site investigations were made by members of the RCMP, RCAF, government officials and numerous civilians. Among those who traveled back to the site with Michalak were representatives of: the RCAF, Royal Canadian Air Force, Training Command Headquarters, CFB, Canadian Forces Base, Winnipeg, RCMP CID, Criminal Investigations Division, the federal Department of Health and Welfare, and the Manitoba Provincial Department of Health and Welfare. Also, the University of Colorado Condon Committee investigated the case, Life magazine reporters came to Manitoba and two civilian UFO groups, APRO, Aerial Phenomena Research Organization, and CAPRO, Canadian APRO, became involved. Finally, the federal Department of Mines and Natural Resources got involved to a degree, as did the Whiteshell Nuclear Research Establishment, WNRE, the Manitoba Cancer Institute, the Mayo Clinic, and a host of other medical establishments.

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