Michalak felt dizzy, and vomited for days afterward, and lost over twenty pounds in the coming weeks. He suffered minor burns to his face and more serious burns on his chest, a photograph of which showed a pattern matching his description of the exhaust grid. He experienced intense headaches, rashes, and swelling, especially in his hands, which “looked as if they had been inflated with air.” He went to a hospital in Winnipeg, where the attending physician, an immigrant with limited English, attributed the marks to aircraft exhaust. Michalak was too tired to relate his experience to the doctor. On May 23, he saw a radiologist who found nothing wrong. A week later, he was tested for radiation at the Whiteshell Nuclear Research Establishment in Pinawa, Manitoba, with no unusual results. The grid pattern remained, however, with no explanation from doctors. After another trip to the hospital, he was told his swelling was caused by an allergy.
His symptoms continued into 1968, and Michalak, at his own expense, visited the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. He spent two weeks under study, with disappointing results. Doctors were able to describe his problems quite nicely but were unable to determine causes, nor provide a remedy. They found “no overt evidence of significant mental or emotional illness.”
Meanwhile, researchers had been trying to investigate the landing site. These included the Canadian Aerial Phenomena Research Organization (CAPRO), the Royal Canadian air force, the Colorado Project, and numerous other groups. For a while, no one could find the site. Michalak, at first too sick to go with the parties, attended a helicopter search on June 2, 1967, and a ground search on June 25. Both failed to find the site.
The University of Colorado sent project investigator Roy Craig on June 4, 1967, but he was unable to find the site. He did, however, interview local individuals who might have been in a good position to have observed the object on May 19. This included a ranger, who noted that the forest was dry, and that a fire capable of burning a man would have started the forest burning. The watchmen in towers, who usually noticed smoke from campfires immediately, saw nothing unusual. Moreover, no watchtower personnel saw a metallic saucer. On the other hand, Craig found that those who knew Michalak considered him to be honest. Disgusted, Craig returned to Boulder.
Soon after, Michalak stated that during the search of the twenty-fifth, he had found the site he was originally looking for (as a quartz prospector) and had no intention of leading anyone else near the landing site until he had staked his claim. On June 30, Michalak found the landing site while searching with another person. They found an outline of the landed object, remains of his shirt, and the tape measure he had lost that day. Within a month, he had cooperated with the RCAF, who reached the site on July 28, and collected samples. The Canadian air force representative, Paul Bissky, also saw the outline, which he described as a “very evident circle.” He wrote that it was
an approximate fifteen-foot diameter circle on the rock surface where the moss and earth covering has been cleared to the rock surface by a force such as made by air at very high velocity.
The RCAF also found a high level of radiation in some samples from the site, which it deemed to be “a possible health hazard.” Upon returning, they found a highly localized contamination at the site—right on the crown of the rock where Michalak alleged the landing occurred, and where the fifteen-foot-diameter circle was. No explanation ever emerged, other than by hoax, as to how this “smear” of radiation got onto the rock.
A year after the sighting, Michalak again visited the site with a friend and found pieces of radioactive material in a fissure of rock at the landing site. This had been missed, evidently, by a representative of Manitoba’s Department of Mines and Natural Resources, who had visited the site several times. Some researchers believed the metals were planted. Craig wrote, “In view of the thoroughness of the earlier searches ... it is improbable that the particles discovered a year later would have been missed.” Several groups analyzed samples of the metal. Some tests confirmed the presence of Radium 226, which was also found in the soil samples from a year earlier; other tests were inconclusive. The Colorado Project simply noted the “inconsistencies and incongruities in the case” implying that the event was a hoax, a conclusion which has been disputed over the years.41
McDONALD RIPS BLUE BOOK AND MENZEL
In a March 1, 1967, interview with the
