On october 7, 1975, 27 year old carpenter Robert Suffern, of Bracebridge, Ontario, received a phone call from his sister who lived not far and urged him to go investigate a strange gleam which seemed to come from a barn of the surroundings and that she though could be a fire. Suffern took his car and went to check, but there was nothing. Then he saw, posed on a path that went to the lake, in front of his car, a saucer-shaped object of which he estimated the dimensions as of approximately 3.5 meters to 4 meters of diameter and 2.5 meters high. The craft showed no lights or signs of life, and before he could stop his car, the object took off without raising dust and without apparent propulsion engines and went straight up and over the trees.
Suffern said he was terrified, and decided to travel back home instead of going to her sister's. He then soon saw on the road just in front of his car, a creature of 1,20 meters tall, humanoid, with two arms and legs, very broad shoulders, disproportionate compared to its body, which carried a silver gray suit of tinfoil appearance and a spherical helmet of lighter color. Suffern hit the brakes and his car skidded on the gravel, as he avoided the creature only by a few centimeters. The creature ran to the edge of the road, jumped over a coppice and disappeared in a field. When it arrived at the fence, it put the hands on a pole and he passed over the fence without any effort, as if it was lightweight.
Suffern drove back to his place, where the sound and image of the TV went out. He then looked by the window and saw the UFO now hovering a few meters above the road. It then made a tour around a pole and was lost again in the night sky. That part of the story immediately appeared in newspapers. The rest of the story is apparently from CUFORN ufologists, who noted that Suffern was besieged by journalists, UFO investigators and curious people, and he stuck to his story in front of all. On July 15, 1976, a CUFORN investigator visited him and described him as a very balanced individual. Suffern talked freely about his sighting during 5 hours. The CUFORN man discovered that the Suffern couple thought they knew all about UFOs, though they did not attach much importance to the topic and did not speak to anybody about the continuations of the sighting which they then explained. Suffern told that on December 12, 1975, whereas their farm started to find some peace after being assaulted during weeks by flocks of curious people, they were visited by three men who had been announced to them as of November 1975. Suffern claims these people were provided with impressive letters of accreditation and introduced themselves as top persons in charge of the Canadian Forces of Ottawa, the U.S. Air Force and of the US Navy secret service. They interviewed Suffern about his sighting, and he frankly answered all questions.
Suffern claims that he asked them whether he had seen some secret government aircraft, but they told him that what he saw was an alien spacecraft in trouble, and they even apologized about the "error". They revealed that the American and Canadian governments are cooperating with aliens since 1943 and knew about their moves on our planet. The Sufferns claim that they were telling the truth because they knew the exact hour of the incident, whereas they never mentioned it to anyone, and that they knew about other UFO sightings at the farm, which they had never reported. Suffern said that while amateur ufologists that visited him did not know much about the aliens, these officers knew much more and even produced close up photographs of UFOs and other documents.
This second part of the story, of quite nonsensical content, seems to have surfaced from CUFORN people and it made its way in the famous Charles Berlitz book on the alleged Philadelphia Incident because the Suffern talked about a first UFO incident in 1943 and the alleged Philadelphia experiment took place that same year. Reports and interview transcripts about all these statements by Robert Suffern do not seem to be available in the ufology litterature.
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[Ref. lf1:] LONDON FREE PRESS:
MAN 'SHAKEN' BY SPACE CREATUREWhat do you do... offer them a beer?BRACEBRIDGE (CP) - Robert Suffern of Three Mile Lake says a spaceship landed about 13 miles northwest of here Tuesday night and he almost ran over one of its occupants with his car. Mr. Suffern said Wednesday the ship was about 12 to 14 feet across, nine feet high and circular in shape. "There was a black strip running around the circumference and what looked to be a small platform at the bottom of the vehicle," he said. "Other than this there were no markings or antennae or anything." Mr. Suffern said he found the ship while driving around to investigate "a glow in the sky" seen by his sister, who lives nearby and telephoned him to say she thought his barn might be on fire. The ship was parked on a cottage road that led to the lake. He said that a few seconds after he saw it, the ship lifted straight up from the road in front of the car. "There was no dust raised, no apparent thrust, nothing," he said, "It went straight up and over the trees." Mr. Suffern said he turned his car around and headed home. However, when he reached the top of a hill, he had to slam on his brakes to avoid hitting "some sort of creature." The creature, he said, was the height of the car fender and dressed in silver. It had two legs, two arms, a globe-shaped helmet and walked "sort of like a midget." "His helmet was slightly lighter in color and his spacesuit was like tin foil, that has been crushed and flattened out," he said. The creature turned, took three or four steps, vaulted over a fence and disappeared. Mr. Suffern said he raced back to his house and arrived in time to see the space ship hove near his home before crossing the lake. Mr. Suffern said he was badly shaken by the incident. "It's all right to think what you would do if you came face to face with a situation like this," he said, "but when it actually happens, you are scared because you are dealing with the unknown." "I mean what do you do if they come to the door... offer them a beer?" |
[Ref. fs1:] FLYING SAUCER REVIEW:
This ufology magazine indicates in 1976 that on October 7, 1975, in Canada, at Lake Bushkong in Utterson towards 08:30 p.m., the sister of Robert A. Suffern phoned to him because the barn seemed to be on fire. Suffern came out and did not see anything, but little afterwards he took his car to go to see the cattle which seemed agitated, and he saw, posed in the middle of the road, a craft in the shape of a saucer of matt aluminum color and irregular and undulated surface, without any light. He estimated that the saucer was approximately 3.60 to 3.80 meters broad for 2.5 meters in height. He accelerated and the machine took off. He took the road skirting the lake to return home, when he saw a creature, in a silver colored one piece suit, the head covered of a bulb of clearer color. The creature swiveled without the least effort to jump the barrier and to disappear in the meadow. Back home, Suffern noted that the sound of its TV was suddenly cut and that the screen had become black. He went outside and saw a fluorescent orange light behind the barn; which followed the contours of the ground to move towards the lake.
[Ref. bm1:] CHARLES BERLITZ AND WILLIAM MOORE:
Co-author William Moore met CUFORN secretary Michelle Alberti, who investigated like he did into the so-called "Philadelphia experiment" during which US Navy is said to have made a ship disappear or to have sent the ship traveling in time, according to an eccentric letter of one "Carlos Allende." Michelle Alberti tells Moore that what made her interested in this story is an investigation about a close encounter of the third kind in Canada on October 7, 1975, at the end of the afternoon.
A 27 year old carpenter, Robert Suffern, resident of Bracebridge, Ontario, received a phone call from his sister who lived not far from his place and who urged him to go investigate a strange gleam which seemed to come from a barn of the surroundings. Suffern took his car and went to see, but did not notice anything abnormal and was on the point of making a half-turn when he suddenly saw a dark object in the shape of a saucer of approximately 3,50 meters to 4 meters of diameter, on the road, right in front of him.
Suffern later stated to a journalist of the Toronto Sun: "I was terrified. It was there, just there, without lights nor sign of life." His car was not yet stopped, when this object "spun right towards the sky and disappeared." He had just resumed his travel towards his place when he saw on the road just in front of his car, a creature of 1,20 meters tall, of human appearance, with "very broad shoulders, disproportionate compared to its body", which carried a silver gray suit and a helmet in the shape of a sphere. Suffern hit the brakes and his car skidded on the gravel, he avoided the creature only by a few centimeters. The creature threw itself on the side, ran to the edge of the road, jumped over a coppice and disappeared in a field. Suffern told the Toronto Sun: "When it arrived at the fence, it put the hands on a pole and he passed over without any effort. You had the impression that it did not have weight." Suffern was amazed but succeeded in driving back to his place. Whereas he looked by the window, he noted that the UFO had followed and now hovered a few meters above the road, then made a tour around a pole and was lost again in the night sky.
Michelle Alberti indicates that Suffern's friends, his family, journalists, investigators and the simple curious did not succeed in making him admit a prank, and Suffern maintained his statements, saying: "I know very well what I saw, but I do not care to see this creature again..."
Moore indicates that on July 15, 1976, a member of CUFORN accompanied by a movie director who made a round of investigations on several observations reported in Ontario in order to gather material for a documentary film "UFOs, the Canadian phenomenon" went to interview Suffern. Suffern is described as a very balanced individual and talked freely about his sighting during 5 hours. They discover that the Suffern couple thinks of being completely informed about UFOs, without attaching much importance to the topic, and that they did not speak to anybody about the continuations of the sighting which they then explained to these two visitors, these "amazing revelations" having surface because Mrs. Suffern accidentally let escape some words about this. Moore then quotes the CUFORN investigator:
"Suffern loosened up and spoke more freely. He seemed anxious to satisfy our curiosity. Now, the less we asked we and the more he talked... On December 12, 1975, whereas their farm started to find some peace after being attacked during weeks by flocks of curious people, the Sufferns saw the arrival of three men who had been announced to them as of November. These official in neat suits provided with impressive letters of accreditation introduced themselves as top persons in charge of the Canadian Forces of Ottawa, U.S. Air Force and of the US Navy secret service. Suffern, who had been questioned about the nature of his UFO encounter, claimed that these three people answered in the most direct way and without the least hesitation all his questions. Thus he learned he learned the why's and the how's of this affair. This revealed that the American and Canadian governments were not unaware at all as regards UFO since 1943, and that they cooperated with the extraterrestrials since that time. As if it were not enough, these so well-informed military men found it useful to apologize to Suffern for the incident of October 7. They told him that it was an error! Suffern thus speculated aloud that he must have witnessed the operations of a top secret military craft. Not at all, they corrected: it was a technical hitch on board the saucer which had obliged it to land on his property with its passengers. Mrs. Suffern refused to believe a word of all this, but, when she wanted to challenge them, the officials proved to be able to give her the exact minute of the landing, a detail about which her husband and herself had informed nobody. They had seen a UFO above their property by three times and, there again, though they told only about the last, the omniscient trio was able to specify the days and the hours to them. Then the knowledgeable officials exhibited books, registers and photographs of UFOS taken with teleobjectives, and insisted again on the accidental side of this landing which should never have occurred."
And:
"In the course of the conversation, we learned that the military designated the UFO occupants under the name of "humanoids". The first contact would have taken place in 1943 and since, the authorities know about the movements of these aliens on our planet."
And:
"Suffern really insisted on the fact that they answered in a "satisfactory manner" all his questions about the machine and its occupant, whereas before many "civilians" had come to visit him to offer various assumptions supposed to clear up the mystery of his encounter: none of the latter had offered him answers "of such a precision". The crucial point in Suffern's encounter was that he nearly hurt with his car a small size being equipped of a silver colored one-piece suit. If he had hit the creature, serious repercussions would have perhaps been to fear. Thus, one can imagine, this intervention of the military and their surprising openness to them..."
Moore specifies that the Sufferns were firm in these statements and that Robert Suffern claimed to know the identities of these three men and to be able to prove that they were not impostors. He answered in the negative when he was asked whether he had to promise to keep silent, adding that he prefers to keep certain details of the story secret to respect "the wish of the government", which seems to him morally justified.
According to the CUFORN investigator, the Canadian and American authorities had examined Suffern in depth, medically and psychologically before the secret meeting of December, thinking this was probably with an aim of establishing their probable reaction to the revelations they were going to offer them.
Moore and Berlitz do note that the story seems preposterous; they are interested owing to the fact that Suffern talked about an incident in 1943, year of the alleged "Philadelphia experiment", topic of their book.
[Ref. jc1:] JEROME CLARK:
Jerome Clark indicates that on October 7, 1975, a carpenter, Robert Suffern, aged 27 and resident of Bracebridge, Ontario, Canada, was called over the phone by his his sister: she had seen a fiery glow near his barn and thought there must be a fire; so Suffern drove there after finding out there was no fire, started to drive back to the road. But while driving back, he encountered a large disc-shaped object resting in his path. He said he was scared, as the object was right there in front of him with no lights and no sign of life. But before he could fully stop the car, the disc suddenly took off and ascended out of sight. Suffern turned his car around and decided to go home instead of going to his sister place as he had intended. At that point, he saw a small figure wearing a helmet and a silver-gray suit that stepped in front of the car, and he had to use the brakes and skid to a stop. The figure ran into a field, and when it got to the fence, Suffern said, "it put his hands on a post and went over it with no effort at all. It was like he was weightless."
In the next two days, Suffern's report was broadcast on the newswire and he was besieged by UFO investigators, journalists, curiosity-seekers, and others. He made no effort to benefit from the story and seemed convinced that what he saw was true, but was soon tired of discussing it. A year later, Suffern and his wife told a Canadian ufologist that a month after the encounter, they contacted by high-ranking officials that wanted to interview them. They told that on December 12, an Ontario Provincial Police car arrived, with three military officers, one Canadian and two Americans who were carrying books and documents. They claimed these men had a long conversation with them, and even apologized for the UFO landing that they said was "a mistake caused by the malfunctioning of an extraterrestrial spaceship." The officers produced close-up pictures of UFO and said that the U.S. and Canadian governments knew well about aliens since 1943 and were cooperating with them. The Sufferns claimed that these officers knew the exact dates and times of two previous but unreported UFO sightings on the Suffern property. The Sufferns said the officers answered all their questions fully and frankly, but they did not specify what the officers exactly answered. The were interviewed again by a ufologist some months later and stuck to the same story, but added few more details. The Sufferns also claimed that "they were given thorough examinations by military doctors." Investigating ufologist Harry Tokarz said that Robert Suffern is a strikingly measured individual with visible sincerity, and that his wife, a local country girl, is "quick to air her views and state unequivocally what she believes to be fact."
[Ref. bg2:] BOB GRIBBLE:
Bob Gribble published a case summary for an article in the MUFON UFO Journal in 1990, providing the same information as Jerome Clark [jc1] but only about the sighting of the saucer and the being, with no mention of the part of the story that involved military men visits.
[Ref. ar1:] ALBERT ROSALES:
Albert Rosales indicates that according to Henry McKay, a MUFON ufologist, in Utterson, Ontario, Canada, on October 7, 1975 at 08:00 p.m., Robert Suffern was alerted by his sister who thought his barn was on fire. He thus drove on a side road, in which he saw a non-luminous clam shaped object from 12 to 14 feet in diameter resting on a broad base; which was "the color of the dull side of aluminum foil," with an irregular and wrinkled surface. The object rose vertically and disappeared, showing no lights. Suffern then drove home, when he saw beside the road, about to cross it, a short being with broad shoulders wearing a silvery one-piece suit and a whitish globular helmet. This figure jumped over a fence and disappeared into the pasture. Later, Suffern's TV blacked out, so he went to the door and saw an orange light traveling away.
[Ref. bg1:] BOB GRIBBLE:
Bob Gribble published a case summary for the NUFORC website, providing the same information as Jerome Clark [jc1] but only about the sighting of the saucer and the being, with no mention of the part of the story that involved military men visits.
The second part of the story, in which US and Canadian officers tell the witness that they cooperate with aliens since 1943, has little inherent credibility. You would think that a CUFORN 5 hours interview of the witness would bring out a huge number of verifiable details about these men; but where is this information?
The witness claims that these officers apologized to him about the incident, weirdly called an "error". But what sense is there in these apologies? Were they sorry that the witness nearly run over an alien friend with his car?
One essential policy in any government kept secret is the need-to-know. What need-to-know would justify that government officials would tell some ordinary close encounter of the third kind witness that they cooperate with aliens since 1943? Why would this particular information be entrusted to that one particular witness and nobody else in decades of such sightings, counting by thousands?
In the end, with these bold claims, only one approach should be practiced by sensible ufologists. Its credibility amounts to the evidence that it did happen. The story offers no such evidence.
| Id: | Topic: | Severity: | Date noted: | Raised by: | Noted by: | Description: | Proposal: | Status: |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Data | Severe | September 13, 2006 | Patrick Gross | Patrick Gross | No CUFORN investigation reports available. | Help needed. | Opened. |
Probable hoax, much potentially essential information not made available.
* = Source I checked.
? = Source I am told about but could not check yet. Help appreciated.
| Main Author: | Patrick Gross |
|---|---|
| Contributors: | None |
| Reviewers: | None |
| Editor: | Patrick Gross |
| Version: | Created/Changed By: | Date: | Change Description: |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0.1 | Patrick Gross | September 13, 2006 | Creation, [lf1], [fs1], [bm1], [jc1], [ar1], [bg1]. |
| 0.2 | Patrick Gross | September 13, 2006 | First published. |
| 1.0 | Patrick Gross | June 27, 2008 | Conversion from HTML4 to XHTML Strict. Addition of [bg2]. |
