Home · Science & Technology · The Unexplained · Close Encounters of the Canadian Kind
Topic spans: 1962 - 2000
Close Encounters of the Canadian Kind
It can border on the outrageous, the credible and even the entrepreneurial. For centuries people claimed to have boarded UFOs, encountered aliens and even sipped on Crop Circle Beer. Skeptics may dismiss believers as nerds and nutters but there's no doubting the increasing popularity of the paranormal in the mainstream. Canada has one of the highest rates of UFO sightings per capita and, for many Canadians, life beyond earth is a definite reality.
12 television clips
6 radio clips
An invitation that's out of this world
Broadcast Date: July 2, 1967
The town of St. Paul, Alta., has taken western hospitality to a new realm.The small Prairie town has built the world's first UFO landing pad. It's all in an effort to attract both tourists and Martians to this rural pocket of Canada.
What starts off as a tongue-in-cheek celebration of Canada's centennial has grown to full-fledged intergalactic fervour.
There's plenty of extraterrestrial fun to be had. As seen in this CBC Television footage, folks are having a blast dining on Saturn Salads and Martian Burgers and cruising aboard the Martian Express Bus.
An invitation that's out of this world
• Aliens have yet to land in St. Paul, but the Queen and Mother Theresa have dropped by for a visit.• The UFO landing pad, a circular cement deck, attached to a spaceship-shaped Chamber of Commerce, weighs 130 tons.
• The price tag for the pad was $11,000.
• Thanks to its UFO theme, St. Paul attracts some 30,000 visitors a year.
• There have been reports of people stumbling upon mutilated animals with no apparent explanation. Some believe the grisly process, which surgically removes an animal's organs and drains its blood, may be the work of extraterrestrials. The bizarre phenomenon attracted theories of alien intervention due to the lack of footprints surrounding the mutilated carcasses. A St. Paul resident and retired cattle rancher, Fernand Belzil, is one of the leading experts on the strange occurrence.
An invitation that's out of this world
Medium: Television
Program: CBC Television News
Broadcast Date: July 2, 1967
Guest(s):
Reporter: Ab Douglas
Duration: 1:42
Last updated:
May 29, 2009
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18 clips in this topic . page
An invitation that's out of this world.
The CBC Digital Archives Website.
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
Last updated: May 29, 2009.
[Page consulted on Feb. 15, 2012.]