Clan Lake crash

Clan Lake lies in the Northwest Territories, about 30 miles north of Yellowknife. In 1960 two men, described as prospectors, were dropped there by floatplane. Their names have not surfaced in any published account. Even the date is uncertain. One account says that on 18 June 1960 a prospector told the Yellowknife RCMP detachment that a month earlier he and his partner had seen a UFO at Clan Lake. Library and Archives Canada gives a different date. June 22, 1960.

About 20 minutes after the plane left, the two campers heard it. "A loud noise similar to an airplane." The sound grew louder. They looked to the sky but saw nothing.

Seconds later, an object fell from the sky and crashed into the water just offshore. It began to rotate, throwing spray around it. To the men it looked like a rotating object with "arms or spokes," splashing water in all directions. It was small. Perhaps 4 to 6 feet across.

There was no steam to indicate that the object was hot. It kept spinning on the surface for some time. As it lost speed, a wave of water swept over the men on the shore. Then the object sank. No smoke. No fire. No debris.

The RCMP followed up. On 19 July 1960 officers flew an aerial patrol over the lake. On the east side they found an area of water about 12 feet wide by 40 feet long, completely clear of reeds and grass. A narrow channel had been formed in the reeds. Some accounts describe the reeds as looking burnt.

The shallow lakebed was probed with long pieces of wood. Nothing was found underwater. No geologist was available, so no magnetometer check was ever made. On 16 August 1960 the Yellowknife Detachment asked the RCAF for help. The reply came on 23 September.

The RCAF had checked with space tracking agencies in Canada and the United States. Neither had recorded an impact in the area. The Department of National Defence said no space object had been tracked there, ruling out rocket or satellite debris. The explanation offered was a meteorite "which became heated during descent through the earth's atmosphere." A partial break-up could create "the illusion of rotating objects." Steam from the hot meteorite could account for "the burning of reeds and grass." Chris Rutkowski attributes the steam explanation to a National Research Council scientist.

The witnesses, though, had seen no steam. Rutkowski, writing in 2010, noted that meteorites are not always hot when they land. He also asked why a meteorite big enough to clear a 12 by 40 foot patch never drew specialists to the site. No missing aircraft matched the account either. No object was ever recovered, and the case was closed.

Six RCMP and RCAF documents on the case were later released through the National Archives, and Library and Archives Canada holds the file. In 2010 Rutkowski called it a little-known UFO crash in northern Canada, and Northern News Services ran a story headlined "Something came in over the trees." Mikey McBryan of Buffalo Airways later travelled to Clan Lake to look into the sixty year old sighting.

The case is often set beside other Canadian water and trace cases, Shag Harbour and Falcon Lake among them. A spinning object. A cleared channel in the reeds. An empty lakebed. The pieces have never been made to fit.