Charlie Red Star: True Reports of One of North America’s Biggest UFO Sightings

223 Pages·2017·3.25 MB·English

by  Grant Cameron

To Bob, Elaine, Freddie, Mark, Rolande, Eleanor, Peter, Jean in Sperling, the
Dufferin Leader staff, and the adventurous film crew from CKY-TV in
Winnipeg. By looking up in the sky, you provided a wonderful story for the
world to read.
Table of Contents
Cover
Copyright
Dedication
Acknowledgements
Introduction
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
Appendix 1
Appendix 2
Notes
OF RELATED INTEREST
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank all who have helped on this project over the past several
decades. Their input and suggestions helped a reluctant author make sure this
book finally got published.
My very special thanks to Rob Diemert and his wife, Elaine, who helped me
for the two years I was in and out of Carman investigating and talking to
witnesses. Rob set up interviews for me, and because he was at the centre of the
entire rash of sightings, there was almost nothing he didn’t know.
Elaine helped me edit and typed up the very first manuscript that was done
shortly after all the sightings stopped. If it hadn’t been for her, there would have
been no manuscript.
Thanks to all the people in southwestern Manitoba who talked to me
knowing they would get ridiculed if their stories ever got out. Thanks also to
others who were ridiculed after they talked but continued to talk. Many of the
witnesses in this book are now dead, and because the names have been changed,
their children and grandchildren will never know the historic role their parents
and grandparents played. I, sadly, am one of the few people who got to hear their
experiences. I am eternally grateful; their stories changed my life greatly.
The biggest thank-you probably goes to my oldest sister, Pat. She is the
historian of the family. Long ago, when the manuscript didn’t get published, I
gave it to her, and she kept it for a quarter century, years after I’d forgotten I’d
ever written it. When she gave it back, I realized she had saved the story, since I
had long since discarded most of the notes used to write it.
Finally, a big thank-you to those who pushed to have the manuscript
published. It was my younger sister, Sandra, who encouraged me to publish it
when I had no interest in doing so. Then it was Teza Lawrence, a TV producer in
Toronto, who really pushed for Charlie Red Star to be published. She actually
took her valuable time to find Dundurn and negotiate with them when I still
didn’t believe.
Thanks, too, to Brian Westbrook and Laurie Rosenfield for early editing,
and for their enthusiasm, which prevented me from scrapping the project. If not
for this chain of people pushing the book to the finish line, it wouldn’t have
happened, since I fought against publishing it the whole time. In many ways, I
consider myself the person who worked the least to get Charlie Red Star
published.
Introduction
Americans assume that facts are solid, concrete, and discrete
objects like marbles, but they are very much not. Rather they
are subtle essences, full of meaning and metaphysics that
change their color and shape, their meaning, according to the
context in which they are presented.
— Dwight Macdonald, Esquire, March 1965
This book is the recounting of my work investigating the numerous unidentified
flying object (UFO) sightings that occurred in the Canadian province of
Manitoba in 1975–76. The investigation initiated a long trip into the mystery of
UFOs that has never ended.
I have held this manuscript for thirty-six years. The reason it is being
published now is to put the events on the record. It is not to prove anything, but
to detail a series of incredible events that occurred in a small Prairie town.
When the flap1 of sightings broke out in 1975 around Carman, Manitoba, I
was a political studies student at the University of Manitoba. Prior to my first
sighting, I can’t recall ever having thought about UFOs. I certainly don’t
remember reading anything on the subject. The only reason I can recall
venturing out on the first night to Carman was to observe what everyone else
was reportedly seeing.
Once I was involved in the Charlie Red Star story, an evolution began in my
thoughts on the subject of UFOs. When I first glimpsed the object, I went from
ignorance to absolute amazement. My increased awareness and belief
crystallized after speaking with many of the major witnesses in the flap area. It
became apparent to me that something very extraordinary was going on.
The Charlie Red Star story is a unique tale. In terms of time and the number
of sightings involved, it was one of the biggest UFO flaps ever to have occurred.
It is perhaps for this reason that the National Enquirer, an American tabloid
newspaper based in Lantana, Florida, considered calling Manitoba the UFO
capital of the world after its initial investigation in the spring of 1975, followed
by a two-week study of the sightings in 1976.
Despite the number of sightings that occurred, not many people have ever
heard of the flap, since almost none of the sightings were publicized beyond
local TV, radio, or newspaper reports. Even the largest local book publisher
failed to help spread the word. When approached with a manuscript that would
tell the rest of the world the story, the publisher wrote: “Mr. Cameron. You may
believe in this sort of thing. Consider me among the unbelievers.”
The stories that follow will hopefully replace those constantly repeated in
ufology, which have become thin through their constant retelling. It is hoped
these stories will provide some researcher somewhere new information that
might help solve the UFO mystery.
The majority of this book is simply a retelling of the many tales told to me
by citizens involved in the sightings. Together, the witnesses and I agreed that
the only proof existed in what we had seen.
Therefore, instead of this book being a vain appeal for others to believe what
we saw, it looks at how others treated the witnesses, their personal opinions, and
above all, their emotional reaction to a story that is personally theirs. The two-
year flap is unique and worthy of being documented in book form.
In many circles the prevailing attitude is that sightings occur throughout a
scattering of civilization when the witnesses are “in the wrong place at the
wrong time.” In other words the general position is that “you don’t find UFOs —
they find you.”
In Manitoba there was sufficient evidence to say that this model didn’t
apply. On at least five occasions, mobile TV crews from Winnipeg “went out to
find UFOs” and did indeed do so. That was how CKY-TV in Winnipeg captured
what came to be considered one of the most famous UFO nocturnal light movies
in the world at that time. Nine different photographers made it a point to
regularly seek out UFOs and photograph them. Hundreds of other people did
likewise.
The story of Charlie Red Star is also a look at what has been learned with
the perspective of more than 40 years after the sightings happened. It appears
that the Manitoba experience didn’t follow the general rules in a number of
categories. Most UFO studies have shown that sightings are random, and yet for
some reason the Manitoba ones weren’t.
The Manitoba UFO flap was also different from other historic ones in that
the UFO became personified. The object that appeared almost nightly became
known as Charlie Red Star. People and newspapers alike called it Charlie rather
than a UFO. Charlie became a legend and was even part of advertisements
placed in a local Carman newspaper by companies selling their goods.
As to what Charlie was, no one really pushed a pet theory. Many thought it
was extraterrestrial, some believed it was an angelic phenomenon, and a few
were convinced it was demonic. Usually, the object was simply Charlie, who
meant no harm to anyone and whose course for the night just happened to bring
him into the Pembina Valley, around Carman where the vast majority of the
sightings took place.