Document · 26 May 1967 – 13 September 1967 · Falcon Lake, Manitoba, Canada
RCMP file on the Falcon Lake case, 1967 (LAC, RG 18, vol. 3379, file HQ 400-Q-5 pt. 1)
Also known as Falcon Lake RCMP file, Michalak RCMP reports
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police file on Stefan Michalak's report of 20 May 1967, held by Library and Archives Canada in the RCMP records (RG 18). Our copy is the selection LAC digitized for its 2005 online exhibition: police reports from the first roadside encounter to the August 1967 summary, the July telexes and memos on the radioactive soil samples, the Department of Health and Welfare's radiation investigation of September 1967 (a copy kept in the RCMP file), and a short National Defence summary. A few names are redacted under the Access to Information Act.
The reports record both sides. The investigators found Michalak's behaviour and parts of his story inconsistent: he could not lead them to the site, a motel employee contradicted his account of the evening before, and he later removed soil, cloth and a steel tape from the site after being asked not to. They also recorded what they could not explain: his illness, burns and weight loss, and a circle on the rock. The health investigator found a small patch of radium-226 contamination at the site, which his first tests suggested might be luminous paint, but left its origin undetermined; National Defence's summary says neither its team nor the RCMP's could disprove the account.
Pages 23 and 31 and paragraph 22 of the August report are faint typescript; their text in our index was transcribed by hand from the scans.
Sources: Library and Archives Canada, RG 18, vol. 3379, file HQ 400-Q-5 pt. 1, via the archived exhibition “Canada's UFOs: The Search for the Unknown” (local copy)
Facts and claims
- documented Our copy gathers 31 pages from the RCMP file on the case held by Library and Archives Canada (RG 18, vol. 3379, file HQ 400-Q-5 pt. 1), as LAC digitized them for its 2005 online exhibition “Canada's UFOs: The Search for the Unknown” (retrieved from Internet Archive captures of collectionscanada.gc.ca): the Falcon Beach patrol constable's report, Winnipeg G.I.S. reports of 26 May, 26 June and 10 August 1967, two headquarters telexes and two memos of July 1967, the Department of Health and Welfare radiation report of 13 September 1967, and a one-page National Defence summary. The 17-page interview of 24 May 1967 is not included. Source: doc-rcmp-falcon-lake-1967.pdf
- documented The Falcon Beach Highway Patrol constable reports that on 20 May 1967 Michalak, walking along Highway 1, “shouted to me to stay away from him” and “replied saying that he had seen two space ships”; the constable saw a burn on the back of his cap but was not allowed close enough to see whether he was injured (p. 1). Source: doc-rcmp-falcon-lake-1967.pdf
- documented A ground and helicopter search with RCAF Squadron Leader P. Bissky on 31 May–2 June failed to find the site; Bissky told the RCMP that “so far as the Air Force is concerned the matter is closed pending MICHALAK locating the spot”, and the RCMP's report of 26 June says “Our file is being concluded” (pp. 8–13). Source: doc-rcmp-falcon-lake-1967.pdf
- documented On 24 July 1967 RCMP headquarters telexed Winnipeg that laboratory tests showed “EARTH SAMPLES TAKEN FROM SCENE HIGHLY RADIO-ACTIVE” and that the Department of Health and Welfare was sending a radiation expert (p. 14); a memo of the same day records that the Radiation Protection Division thought the Manitoba Cancer Clinic might once have disposed of radioactive material in the area (p. 25). Source: doc-rcmp-falcon-lake-1967.pdf
- documented The RCMP's report of 10 August 1967 lists “a number of discrepancies in MICHALAK'S story that cannot be explained” (his drinking, his aimless wandering on the early searches, the error in the object's flight direction, his removal of the evidence after being asked not to), and adds: “On the other hand, there are certain facts that cannot be denied and cannot be accounted for or explained away”: his illness and weight loss, a blood-count fluctuation, “the burns to his chest, abdomen and clothing as well as the circle on the rock where he alleges the UFO landed” (pp. 22–23). Source: doc-rcmp-falcon-lake-1967.pdf
- documented The same report records that Stuart Hunt of the Radiation Protection Division identified the radioactive material as radium 226, and that his preliminary examination “indicated it might contain luminous paint with radium 226”; the RCMP laboratory doubted that, since such paint was by then rare (p. 22). Source: doc-rcmp-falcon-lake-1967.pdf
- documented Hunt's report of 13 September 1967: samples from the site “gave an indication that they were contaminated with Radium luminous paint”; Michalak's physician “felt that they were thermal burns”; and the conclusions: “Radioactive contamination of rock and lichens was found at the alleged U.F.O. landing site. The origin of this contamination has yet to be determined.” and “The radiation levels measured were not high enough to create a radiation hazard to the general public.” (pp. 26–30) Source: doc-rcmp-falcon-lake-1967.pdf
- documented The National Defence summary “UFO Report, Falcon Lake, Man.” ends: “Both DND and RCMP investigation teams were unable to provide evidence which would dispute Mr. Michalak's story.” (p. 31) Source: doc-rcmp-falcon-lake-1967.pdf
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