The sighting that cemented my interest in UFO's

I'll start by saying that I have had a life long interest in all things weird. As far back as I can remember, I've always been fascinated with the unknown. Subjects ranging from lake monsters to UFO's, the paranormal, and everything in between.

I remember one morning sitting at my parents kitchen table at the age of 6, reading a book on UFO's that I'd taken out from the school library and eating a bowl of cereal when my mom asked me why I was so interested in the subject. I remember saying something to the effect of "I don't know. I just think it's neat" when my mom casually suggested to my Dad that he tell me about his UFO sighting. I got all excited and my dad seemed reluctant (he always seemed hesitant to encourage my interest in the subject when I was younger).

After I refused to take no for an answer, he shared his story with me. Now obviously I don't expect anyone to believe this account as it is 3rd hand information that happened over 50 years ago, but I thought I'd share it anyways for anyone who has a similar interest. I can state that part of the reason my fathers story had such an impact on me is because he is such a down to earth, no nonsense kind of guy, and simply does not fabricate stories or make things up. I know for certain that what he shared with me, is genuinely what he experienced. The other reason it always stuck with me is the fact there were multiple witnesses.

Anyways, recently my father has become quite ill, so I asked him to write down his sighting for me. I also asked him if he would be ok with me sharing it with people here, and he gave his consent for me to do so.

The following is his account:

My name is *edited* and I was born in Kirkenes, Norway on June 04, 1946. I have resided in Canada since 1972 and am a Canadian citizen. The following is an account of a UFO sighting I witnessed together with 14 other individuals above the seaport of Hammerfest in the County of Finnmark while employed as a deckhand on the freighter, S/S Tore Hund. Although more trivial details of that day have faded with time, the experience itself remains a very clear and crisp memory although some details, such as day of the week and exact month and year, are estimated using reasoning and deductions as outlined in my account.

I believe the year to be late winter/early spring of 1961/1962. I base this estimate on preceding events in my life in the merchant Navy as well as subsequent ones. The day of the week has long since been lost to time. The day was partly overcast with a hint of sun on some distant mountains leaving the surroundings in a pale winter light. The ground and mountains were covered in snow and the temperature cold enough to require winter work-clothing. I distinctly remember the time to be 1430 Hours and that the officer of the deck had instructed us to be ready for departure at 1500 Hours.

For those familiar with conditions so far north, the time of day in this context lends itself quite precisely to my memory in that the sun had begun to cast only some rays on the upper mountain tops for perhaps an hour or two before darkness sets in after a very short day as it relates to light and darkness. Mid winter days at these latitudes are nearly pitch dark, interrupted by a couple of hours a day when light conditions can at best be described as a darkish twilight with no hint of sunlight. Thus, considering the light conditions, rays cast by a still invisible sun and the far north location places the incident most likely in the month of March.

I was operating an on-board crane while a ship mate acted as my signal man at the open cargo hold. There were no other ship personnel on deck at the time. I had hoisted the last pallet of cargo clear of the ship's deck and swung it over the dock where there were 14 longshoremen working. As I began to lower the pallet of cargo onto the dock I noticed that the longshoremen had stopped working or paying attention to my load. They were all looking skyward to the north east while a couple of them were pointing. Getting the attention of a couple of the workers I was able to lower my load onto the dock and, after being unhooked, swung the crane to its on board position. When my on-deck shipmate and I had retrieved the crane we turned our attention to the area of the sky where the shore crew were looking and pointing.

We both observed an object in the sky in the shape of an arch-typical “flying saucer” or UFO. Its dome, however, was quite pronounced by its roundness and height above the disk portion. While observing this there was quite a bit of bewildered conversation taking place among the shore crew as to what we were all seeing. I recall shouting to the longshoreman closest to the ship's railing asking him what it was. I'll never forget his somewhat bewildered grin while he answered me in Norwegian: “flygende talerken” - literally “flying dinner plate” in English (which was the Norwegian name for “flying saucers” at the time). At this point my shipmate and I made our way to the bridge where we retrieved high-quality naval binoculars from the wheelhouse and started watching the object while standing outside on the port bridge wing.

To my surprise I was able to now see “windows” around the object which had not been visible to the naked eye when we first started observing the object. The “windows” were not sharply outlined but clearly noticeable through the binoculars.. This seemed to indicate that I was observing an object of immense proportions while also being a long distance away. Our observations were interrupted by orders to make the ship ready to go back to sea, a process that would have taken less than an hour. As soon as we were sea-ready I was called to the bridge for helm duty. The officer on the bridge was our first mate who by now was also aware of the object which remained in the same position as when we first observed it. We were joined by the same ship mate who had first seen the object together with myself. Both he and the officer kept watching the object with binoculars while I was at the wheel and unable to see the object from my position.

My ship mate traded me off at the wheel at intervals so that I also could have turns at viewing the object while using binoculars. As we sailed out into open waters, the ship was navigated in a way that put the object on our port side and increasingly towards the rear of the ship. Although I cannot put a window of precise time on our observations, it nevertheless seemed to go on for quite some time with our course placing the object further and further behind us rather than directly off our port side as was the case when it was first observed. As darkness set in, and the object being directly behind us, my ship mate stepped onto the wing once in a while to have a look. After some time, and the next time he stepped onto the wing, the object had disappeared.

That is also as I remember him telling it. I asked him to draw it for me, and he pulled out a pen (which he always seemed to have in his shirt pocket) and drew what he described above on a napkin for me. A "classic UFO" with circular windows surrounding the upper raised portion. He said it was metallic, and he could see the sun shining off of it, and that it didn't seem to have a colour per say, but was more like a silver or chrome type metal. Hope you found his story interesting (I know I sure did!)

Edit: From what I remember, Object M3 bares the closest resemblance to what he drew for me out of these:

Thanks for the interesting account, and kudos to your father for allowing it out in the open. Understandably it's a lot more difficult for elders than it is for us younger folk. My parents scoff at the subject and reply to my serious questions about it with jokes. No wonder other people around that age are reluctant to spill the beans of their own mysterious sightings. But this one is very nice! Thanks again, and here's hoping your father gets better soon

I also hope your father gets better real soon. Thanks for sharing his story! Its good you had him write it down for you word for word as it appeared. I once saw a UFO as well. It was a hot summer evening around 9:00 pm when i spotted this Cigar shaped UFO in the sky. It had a big round white light on the tip end of it. Reminded me of a flash light. Did your father say if he heard the UFO make any sounds like humming or a buzzing ?

That is an amazing tale, I envy people that seem to have such vivid memories, and are able to recall and put to words the details so eloquently. I thank you for sharing this with this once great forum. Perhaps it will be great once again.

Its dome, however, was quite pronounced by its roundness and height above the disk portion.

M3 type?

A4 has much more pronounced dome...
also E2 and E8, but i can't see the windows on them...

This seemed to indicate that I was observing an object of immense proportions while also being a long distance away.

A4 also looks much bigger?

I really enjoy personal accounts that have that ring of "I'm just telling you what I saw." Nice job of getting your pop's sighting on paper AND sharing it with us. Nobody knows our parents like we do, eh? God-speed on his healthy recovery.

Oh yeah: Please make sure and tell him that we truly appreciate him allowing his sighting to be shared with us.

I saw one that was similar to m3 too during the day time. it was translucent, but you could still make out the shape. It was spinning slow a light was shooting from iit toward the sky. I saw it while driving down an expressway. This happened last year. I wish I would have stopped the car and got out to see it. It was only about 6 feet off the ground.

This is a great first-hand account. I have no doubt they are out there. Accounts like this only solidify my belief.

Thank your father for sharing this with us, and let him know we all hope he feels better.

Nice one OP

The UFO that presented it's self to me 3 years ago was the F9.

ETA: I've also seen O1, L6 & J2.

Very Interesting Post OP.

I hope your Father becomes Well very soon.

reply to post by DeadSeraph


I applaud you for getting your father's story down the way you have. My dad saw a UFO when I was a kid too and I was with him but didn't see it myself. He pointed it out but tried to tell me it was travelling really fast and I guess I just couldn't get a bead on it at that age... Oh well, I saw my own UFO in broad daylight with my kids and ex-wife about 30 years later as we were getting ready to pull into the driveway and by the time we pulled in and got out it had just vanished.

My dad was also a really rational kind of guy. He was a Navy Sea-Bee during WWII and a mechanical engineer, and was always the kind of guy to scoff at any kind of story that didn't mesh with his worldview. I think he sort of dismissed his early UFO sighting because he never mentioned it again. Later in his life though, he had numerous UFO sightings and I think he sort of developed an interest in the subject though he didn't talk about it much. I can see how it might be suggested that as he got older he might have been more subject to tricks of the mind or hallucinations, but I don't think so knowing my dad as I did.

I also wish your father a speedy recovery!

reply to post by DeadSeraph


have your father recount this in front of a camera...or, maybe, you can.

If you stand by your story that is. That would be like a deposition.

posting so I can come back to read when I have time.

thanks for sharing OP

Nice story but to me it reads just like that, a story..

There's details that have no place added to flesh out the tale, when I got to the 'He took out a pen that he always seemd to have in his top pocket' and I concluded rightly or wrongly that I was reading a mini story.

Sorry to the OP if that's not the case..

Due to his reluctance to share in the beginning and his report being very "I saw this, this is what happened" without making any assumptions or jumping to conclusions, I find this much easier to accept. These are the kinds of sightings that need more exposure, to steer public opinion away from ufo believers being raving lunatics that tell everyone fantastic tales about everything. We need objective views about sightings to be more prevalent.

reply to post by DeadSeraph


Nice post and great writing skills, made it very enjoyable reading this account. Once again thank you for taking the time to Post this awesome story.

Originally posted by Mclaneinc
Nice story but to me it reads just like that, a story..

There's details that have no place added to flesh out the tale, when I got to the 'He took out a pen that he always seemd to have in his top pocket' and I concluded rightly or wrongly that I was reading a mini story.

Sorry to the OP if that's not the case..

I fully expected replies like this. It's ATS afterall. It's a factual account. I'm not sure what my father always carrying a pen in his pocket has to do with the veracity of his sighting, but whatever. If you don't believe it, it's no skin off my back. I wanted to share it for people who find personal accounts interesting, and because it's the first UFO sighting I ever heard about in person (from an important person in my life no less).

Imo it was a military craft. Havent you UFOlogists heard of the major experimentations with aerial vehicles in this time period, and wouldnt you assume that experimentation and advancement would not immediately stop?

Also while im sure an alien craft could very well have windows, I would think that if aliens have the ability to travel from another solar system to earth in a very small craft, they would have the technology to not need windows.

Originally posted by ImaFungi
Imo it was a military craft. Havent you UFOlogists heard of the major experimentations with aerial vehicles in this time period, and wouldnt you assume that experimentation and advancement would not immediately stop?

Also while im sure an alien craft could very well have windows, I would think that if aliens have the ability to travel from another solar system to earth in a very small craft, they would have the technology to not need windows.

That's certainly possible, but the location of the sighting and the fact it occurred in 1961 or 1962 would seem to cast doubt on the military craft theory. As for the windows, We don't really know if thats what they actually were. Could have been exhaust vents, or something else and just appeared to be windows.

I will offer my own "logical" explanation: Maybe it could have been a mirage of some sort? Maybe somehow a ship which was sitting in the harbor was reflected into ice crystals in the clouds, and the port holes of the ship were the "windows" that my father saw? I'm not sure if that is even possible, or if it's reasonable (as my father reported the object as being solid when viewed through binoculars).

As for the whole Aliens from outer space issue, I will just say that my father doesn't believe Aliens are visiting earth, and he doesn't believe that UFO's are alien space craft (although he does believe they exist, having seen one himself). He always told me he knows what he saw, but he has no idea what it was or where it came from. He's speculated on a wide range of possibilities, but finds the idea of space aliens least likely.