Haunted Ontario 3-Book Bundle. Terry Boyle

new technologies with unknown potential.”

      By 1953 Project Magnet moved into the Department of Transport facilities at Shirley’s Bay, just upstream of Ottawa, on the Ottawa River. Some of his research equipment included a magnetometer, a gamma-ray detector, a powerful radio receiver, and a gravimeter, in order to measure gravity fields in the atmosphere.

      Wilbert Smith described Project Magnet in these terms. “Project Magnet was authorized in December 1950, following my request to the Canadian department of Transport for permission to make use of the Departments’ laboratory and field facilities in a study of unidentified flying objects and physical principals which might appear to be involved.”

      In an article entitled “We are Not Alone,” Wilbert Smith truly described his beliefs and findings. “Our universe is a very large place. The universe is also incredibly old. Maybe the universe doesn’t even have an age, that it is eternal and ever passing through the cycle of energy to matter and matter to energy.

      “It is only reasonable to speculate that somewhere else in the vastness of space and the eternity of time, other intelligent life could have blossomed forth. Since we have made such rapid progress toward space travel in such a short time, a differential of only a few hundred or at the most a few thousand years between the development on some other planet and ours could easily have resulted in a race capable of doing right now what we plan to do in the future. In fact, intelligent races might even set about accelerating environmental conditions to their liking, seeding and stocking planets with appropriate life forms, and watching over them as they develop.”

      Smith then addressed the UFO sightings.

      “Thousands of people have seen lights and apparently solid objects in the sky that behaved as no light or object normally seen in the sky ought to behave. Thousands have seen these objects under circumstances, which enabled them to say definitely what they were not, even though they were not able to say what they were. Reliable photographs and movies have been taken, and bits of ‘hardware’ collected which cannot be explained away without challenging the integrity of a great many cases, and there is quite a bit of evidence of physical contact with these strange craft.”

      Smith summarized by stating, “There is virtually no doubt that alien craft are visiting this Earth, and that the beings who operate them are very much like us, probably our distant relatives.”

      By 1953 the press became suspicious of Smith’s work. Word leaked out that he and his team were doing UFO research. Questions were soon asked of the Department of Transport. Paul McManus stated, “Denials were made, but it became obvious that something unusual was under way.

      On August 8, 1954, “contact” was made at 3:01 p.m. The gravimeter results, recorded on graph paper, showed a very large and unexplainable deflection and the researchers rushed outside to have a look. All they saw was dense cloud cover.

      Two days later the Department of Transport issued a press release admitting they had been performing UFO research for three-and-a-half years.

      Smith stated what happened next. “When the Project Magnet report was made and permission sought to extend the scope of the investigations through federal support, the decision was finally made in 1954 that this would not be advisable in the face of the publicity from which the whole project had suffered.”

      The conclusions reached by Project Magnet and contained in the official report were based on rigid statistical analysis of sightings and were as follows:

      There is a 91 percent probability that at least some of the sightings were of real objects of unknown origin.

      There is about a 60 percent probability that these objects are alien vehicles.

      In 1961 Smith was involved in an interview with television station CJOH. During the session he was asked if he believed that flying saucers were real.

      Smith replied, “Yes. I am convinced that they are just as real and tangible as most things we deal with in our everyday lives.”

      “Next question, Have you, yourself, actually handled any material believed to be from a flying saucer?”

      Smith, “If by that, you mean material substance showing evidence of fabrication through intelligent effort and not originating on this planet, I have.”

      During the interview Smith never used the word UFO. He knew from the very beginning that the phenomena he was studying and tracking was extraterrestrial.

      According to Wilbert’s son, Jim Smith, just prior to his father’s death in 1962 his father called him in, and told Jim that he had in fact seen the alien bodies from a crash, and had been shown the crashed remains of a flying saucer outside Washington D.C while conducting the official Canadian investigation.

      Smith did reveal that there were sometimes mobile gravity anomalies all over the Lake Ontario area. He especially noted areas of “reduced binding” in the atmosphere above the lake. He described the areas as “pillar-like columns a thousand feet up in the atmosphere.” Some of these invisible, mysterious columns appear to change location.

      One phenomenon that might play a role in the unexplained events in the Marysburgh Vortex is the number of magnetic anomalies. According to Smith there are no fewer than 14 of these magnetic anomalies — areas of strong local magnetic disturbance — plainly marked on present-day navigation charts. The majority of these locations are clustered in the eastern end of Lake Ontario.

      The Marysburgh Vortex was also one area where Smith conducted a number of investigations into UFO sightings. There had been another earlier discovery here that may have the same origins but also has some folkloric aspects. In 1804, Captain Charles Selleck and his crew of the Lady Murray detected something on the surface of the water during a crossing of Lake Ontario. It seemed that in one small area the wave movement was different. The ship was stopped and a lifeboat was lowered over the side. He and some crew members rowed to the area to investigate.

      What they found was a gigantic stone monolith just three feet (one metre) beneath the surface. It measured 40 feet (over ten metres) square. Sounding it revealed a sheer drop on all sides of approximately 300 feet (less than 100 metres) straight down.

      The captain entered his findings in his logbook; this object was a major navigational hazard and others would need that information. Curious seekers sailed out to poke and prod this immense monolith for many months to follow. Among the visitors to the site was Captain Thomas Paxton of the government schooner Speedy. No one knew what this foreshadowed for Captain Paxton. An event near the village of Port Perry on Lake Scugog would precipitate this strange incident.

      In 1806 the Farewell family opened a trading post for barter with the Native peoples on Washburn’s Island on Lake Scugog. One day the Farewells left their agent, John Sharp, in charge of the post. When they returned, they found him dead. It was alleged that a Native named Ogetonicut had done the deed to avenge the murder, by a white man, of his brother, Whistling Duck. Ogetonicut was arrested and after a preliminary hearing it was decided that the trial would be held at the Newcastle courthouse.

      Newcastle was the new district town planned for Northumberland and Durham to be located at Presqu’ile. The murder had been committed in that judicial district. Ogetonicut was taken first to York, now Toronto, to await transportation to Presqu’ile. A government schooner named the Speedy was chartered in October to take those who needed to be present at the trial down the lake. Judge Thomas Cochrane, court officials, and a selected group of dignitaries were to officiate.

      The Speedy had two alternate captains. One was Thomas Paxton and the other was James Richardson. Apparently Richardson had some forewarning concerning the trip, his intuition told him not to go. There was danger. He attempted to change the minds of the officials. Even the witnesses refused to board. Paxton, however, was ordered to do the job.

      According to local lore, Ogetonicut’s mother travelled from Lake Scugog to the shores of Lake Ontario near Oshawa to watch for the Speedy. When she caught sight of the vessel, and in the knowledge that her son was on board, she began to chant against those who had taken him away.

      That evening a violent storm struck.