Christine Grimard
Northern News Services
Published Monday, November 5, 2007

FORT FRANKLIN - An unidentified flying object was seen hovering over Deline the morning of Nov. 2.

Simon Neyelle was on his way home at 5 a.m. when he first saw a bright light hovering near a ridge just outside of the community.

Northern UFO sightings Jan: 30, 2004: UFO sighted in the community of Fort Liard Aug. 6, 2004: A Nahanni Butte resident attributes two stands of downed trees in the shape of a circle to UFO activity. Feb. 5, 2001: UFO sighting reported in Gjoa Haven, Nunavut. Dec. 11, 1996: 22 witnesses from three communities in the Yukon report a UFO sighting on the same night.

"It was just sitting there, it didn't move," said Neyelle. He observed the object hovering over the ridge for an hour, and called other people in the community to see the object.

Martina Taniton and Dave Taniton also saw the object and Dave took nearly an hour of footage. Martina described the object as a triangle shape with a big light in the middle of it that looked like a bright star. The object was close to the Taniton's residence, and Martina said it was slowly moving backwards.

Pheobe Esau also saw the object and her husband took a short video. Esau said she could see some sort of laser coming out of the bottom of the object going into a lake below.

The Taniton video was later shown at the Ehtseo Ayha school. The school's principal Reed Smith, who saw the video briefly, said it was a grainy image of a large glowing object hovering in the sky.

Greg Wasserman, who works as an observer communicator and normally maintains radio contact with incoming aircraft, said he didn't get any radio communication. He noted, however, that not all aircraft always radio in when they are flying over.

He said he briefly saw the bright light at around 8 a.m. when he went outside for a weather observation, and assumed it was an aircraft.

"Usually when you see a bright light, it's a plane flying by."

Kevin Hyllestad with Sahtu Helicopters, and Jodie Bohlken from Canadian Helicopters, the two companies who fly helicopters for the region, both said they had no aircraft flying close to Deline that morning.

North-Wright Airways Ltd. would not confirm if they had any aircraft around Deline at that time.

Ron Singer, a communications advisor with Nav Canada said they didn't received any reports of UFO's in the area at that time. The agency has no staff presence in the area, and Singer said that since UFO's usually don't have transponders they don't pick them up on radar.

"There's no way of confirming if something was in that airspace," said Singer.