Named after Metis poet and songwriter Pierre Falcon, Falcon Lake sits near the southeast corner of Canada’s Manitoba province, approximately one-hundred-fifty miles east of Winnipeg. With a surrounding community of fewer than four-hundred people, this obscure reservoir obtained a modicum of recognition when Neil Young wrote a song about his beloved summer hangout. But the affections of one of Canada’s favorite sons takes a back seat in the lake’s lore.

Few people outside of Manitoba and Ontario provinces knew of Falcon Lake until May 1967, when it was thrust into the international spotlight, and, perhaps, even the interplanetary spotlight.

Falcon Lake

Manitoba Canada

 

On May 20, 1967, Stephen Michalak, a local industrial mechanic and amateur geologist, was prospecting for silver and quartz at Falcon Lake when he said he encountered two unidentified flying objects. People who believe they have seen UFOs are often scoffed at because they have no evidence supporting their claims. But in this instance, Stephen contended he was more than armed with evidence; his whole torso appeared to have been torpedoed with burns.

Ufologists believe whatever was burned into Stephen Michalak’s body was evidence of an extraterrestrial encounter.

Spot-Covered Stephen Michalak

 

Michalak described seeing two cigarette-shaped objects with humps in the middle descending approximately one-hundred-fifty feet from the sky. One of them landed on a rock platform near him. He initially believed the objects to be American experimental aircraft, but he did not find any identifying insignia upon inspecting the landed craft, which he estimated to be thirty-five-feet in length and fifteen-feet tall.

Stephen Michalak’s Sketch Of The Craft

He Claimed To Have Encountered

The craft’s door opened shortly afterwards. Although they were muffled by the sounds emanating from the object, Michalak said he heard at least two humanlike voices coming from inside. He attempted to speak to them in English, Russian, Polish, and German, but he received no response and subsequently heard no more voices.

An Artist’s Rendering Of What

Stephen Michalak Said He Saw

 

As Michalak walked closer, a burst of light sprang from the door so bright that he had to snap down the visor on his welding goggles. Shortly afterwards, the door closed.

 

Stephen Wearing The Welding Goggles

 

The object emitted warm air and made a hissing sound as the air was expelled.  When he tried to touch the craft, which he said changed between gray and red in color and smelled like sulfur, Michalak said he was burnt by its exterior. As the object rotated clockwise, a grid-like exhaust vent on its side spewed out a large amount of gas setting his hat and clothes on fire and inflicting burns on his body.

The craft continued emanating waves of heat before returning to the sky and flying away.

Struck And Burned 

 

Royal Canadian Mountain Police (RCMP) Constable G. A. Solotki accounted a shaken, and he initially believed, drunk Michalak as he was attempting to return to his room at the Falcon Motor Hotel. When he realized he was not inebriated, the Constable contends he urged Michalak to seek treatment at nearby Falcon Beach, but that he declined to do so. Michalak, however, said Solotki was dismissive and did offer any assistance.

Instead, Michalak made it to his hotel room, checked out, took a Greyhound bus home, and was admitted to the emergency room of Winnipeg’s Misericordia Medical Center. For several weeks, he was nauseous and suffered headaches and blackouts, as well as frequent bouts of diarrhea and vomiting. He also lost thirteen pounds, his lymphocyte count plummeted to near lethal levels, and a sulfuric odor emanated from his body.

Stephen Michalak was tested for thousands of kinds of poisoning, including radiation, at both the Misericordia Center and Minnesota’s Mayo Clinic. All tests were negative.

The Source Of The Spot’s Is Not Determined

 

Much of his Michalak’s clothing was also damaged from the incident.

Stephen Michalak’s Burnt Glove, Cap, And Shirt

 

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police was unconvinced of Stephen Michalak’s UFO claims. Their skepticism began when he initially could not locate the landing site and grew after he refused to let an RCMP officer inspect his shirt or chest wounds. The officer described Michalak’s condition in the incident report, stating it appeared he had “taken a black substances [sic], possibly wood ashes, and rubbed it on his chest.”

The RCMP also reported no visible burns to the back of Michalak’s head, despite the damage to his hat. They also noted that he had consumed large amounts of beer on the evening before the alleged encounter.

The Canadian government classified the incident at Falcon Lake as “unsolved.”

The RCMP Report

 

A few weeks after his Falcon Lake adventure, Michalak located what he believed was the landing site, a thirty-foot burned-out semicircle in the ground, surrounded by dead branches. A few days later, he took the Royal Canadian Mounted Police to the site. Upon inspection, the RCMP detected radiation in soil samples and metal found to have melted in the cracks of rocks. A fifteen-foot circle of burned vegetation lay where he claimed the landing occurred.

Health Canada (the country’s Department of Health) initially sought to quarantine the site until it was determined the high radiation levels resulted from a radium vein running under the region.

The Alleged Landing Site

 

Upon returning to the site approximately a year later, Stephen Michalak found radioactive molten material, determined to be a type of rare silver, in the cracks of the area’s Precambrian rock. It had been coated with pitch-blend ore, a blend of uranium and radium.

Ufologists contend the extremely limited material supported Michalak’s claims of a UFO; others believe the material was planted to give more credence to his claim.

A Unique Finding

 

Doctors could never explain the burn marks on Stephen Michalak’s body. Their effects plagued him for the rest of his life, as they continued intermittingly appearing and causing him discomfort. UFO skeptics believe the burns developed from his alcohol use and that some of the long-lasting effects, including the skin lesions which he claimed to be due to his exposure to the craft’s exhaust blast, resulted from an allergic reaction.

Stephen Michalak died in 1999 at age eighty-three. He contended he never purported the UFO he saw was of extra-terrestrial origin, saying the media hyped his sightings as those of aliens. He always contended he believed they were some sort of (Earthly) experimental aircraft.

What Did Stephen Michalak Encounter at Falcon Lake?

 

In addition to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), the 1967 Falcon Lake incident was investigated by the Canadian Royal Air Force, Canada’s Departments of Health and National Defence, the United States Air Force, and the now defunct Aerial Phenomena Research Organization (APO). The American investigations were part of the Air Force-funded University of Colorado UFO Project studying unidentified flying objects under the direction of American physicist Edward Condon.  The findings were published in the January 1969 “Condon Report,” the informal name of the “Scientific Study of Unidentified Flying Objects.”

The Condon Report concluded significant scientific discoveries are not likely to be learned from studying UFO’s.

The Condon Report

 

To mark the fiftieth anniversary of the Falcon Lake incident, the Royal Canadian Mint issued a $20 non-circulating silver coin featuring the event as a part of its Canada’s Unexplained Phenomena series of coins. Designed by Ontario artist Joel Kimmel, the coin’s front depicts Queen Elizabeth II, while its back’s illustrates Stephen Michalak’s claim of falling to the ground from an exhaust blast at Falcon Lake while the alleged UFO hovers above him.

The 2018 commemorative coin glows in the dark with beams appearing to emanate from the craft’s underside. It is the first coin of its type to feature glow-in-the-dark elements.

Only 4,000 productions of the coin exist; they initially sold at retail for $129.95.

The Falcon Lake Incident Commemorative Coin

 

Stephen Michalak and his wife, Maria, came to Canada from Poland, settling in River Heights, a suburb of Winnipeg. During World War II, in which Stephen served as a Polish soldier, they and two of Maria’s sisters were captured by the SS and sent to concentration camps. All survived.

Maria Michalak died in 2015 at age ninety.

Stephen and Maria Michalak

 

Sources:
• Iron Skeptic
• Royal Canadian Mounted Police
• Unsolved Mysteries
• Winnipeg Free Press