
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, April 11, 1990                   TAG: 9004110596
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A/6   EDITION: EVENING 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WINNIPEG, MANITOBA                                LENGTH: Medium

CANADIAN SURVEY TALLIES 141 UFO SIGHTINGS IN '89

Unexplained flashing lights and strange circles in the ground are spotted in Quebec, a saucer zooms over houses in Newfoundland and a diamond-shaped object zips through the Manitoba sky.

Throughout the country, people said they saw at least 141 unidentified flying objects last year, according to what's being touted as Canada's first national survey of UFO sightings.

"It tells us that UFOs haven't gone away, it tells us that UFOs are being seen right across Canada," said Chris Rutkowski, a Winnipeg researcher who compiled the study.

Rutkowski put together the survey from reports submitted to private investigators, police and the Ottawa-based National Research Council, which supplied two-thirds of the material for the study.

Such information was always available but never marshalled into a form that painted a picture of UFO sightings across the country, he said.

More than half the reports didn't have enough information to evaluate properly and one-third had probable explanations, said Rutkowski, who has a degree in astronomy and is president of the Winnipeg branch of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada.

Of the rest, seven sightings were stamped as solidly unknown, meaning they were seen by several people and investigated by the police and National Research Council, without any explanation being found, he said.

He related three such incidents.

Startled residents of the rural Quebec community of Ste-Marie-de-Monnoir saw flashing lights glide over a field and out of sight. The next morning, they found strange circles swirled into the ground.

At Wesleyville, Newfoundland, eight or nine people noticed a classic saucer-shaped object swoop low over rooftops and along the shoreline.

And near Beaver Creek, Manitoba, people reported seeing a diamond shape with red lights zip over their car and out across Lake Winnipeg.

Rutkowski stresses that he wants to take a rational, scientific approach to the reports and will not offer any theories about unexplained sightings.

But he hopes publicity from the survey will spark more people to come forward with their observations, providing a larger body of evidence that could be investigated by scientists.

by CNB