due to their appearance.
The headline of the Toronto Globe on February 15, 1915, read: “Ottawa in Darkness Awaits Aeroplane Raid.” Call-outs in the body of the article warned: “Several Aeroplanes Make a Raid into the Dominion of Canada,” and “Entire City of Ottawa in Darkness, Fearing Bomb Droppers.”
One alarming series of headlines and secondary headlines told readers: “Machines Crossed St Lawrence River, Passing over Brockville — Two over Ganonoque — Seen by Many Citizens, Heading for the Capital — One Was Equipped with Powerful Searchlights — Fire Balls Dropped.” To anyone reading the latest news from the country’s capital, it appeared as though Canada was about to enter the war on its own home front.
The excitement began on the night of February 14, about 9:15 p.m., when many people in Brockville were startled to see the lights of unknown aircraft crossing over the St. Lawrence River and heading for Ottawa. The lights were even seen by the mayor and three city constables. The unidentified craft flying rapidly overhead was said to have made “unmistakable sounds of the whirring motor.”
A second flying machine was heard as it crossed the St. Lawrence River from the direction of Morristown, New York. As it passed overhead, three balls of fire were seen to drop into the St. Lawrence. Some observers thought these might have been bombs, while others worried they could have been flares used by enemy pilots to find their way across the border or over the ocean to the Canadian interior. Two more aerial invaders were reported to have passed over the east and west ends of Brockville, raising further fears.
The mayor said he also had seen a bright beam of light, like a searchlight, flash out from the aerial craft, lighting up an entire city block. The police chief, facing numerous inquiries from nervous citizens, called the mayor for instructions of what to do. He then relayed information to the mayor and police chief of Ottawa, advising them of the approaching aircraft.
At approximately 9:30 p.m., the mayor of Gananoque contacted the Brockville police chief with the news that two invisible aircraft were heard quite distinctly passing overhead there. With so much activity over the seat of government, it was not long before advisors met with Prime Minister Robert Borden and evaluated intelligence information about the mysterious fliers. Borden and his caucus were concerned that the lights of Parliament Hill would make it an easy target for any invasion, and ordered them to be turned off.
Under direct orders by the government, Parliament Hill went dark at about 11:15 p.m., and the entire city of Ottawa followed suit at approximately 11:20 p.m., including Rideau Hall and the Royal Mint. Shutters were secured and windows were darkened throughout the Capital region. Military and police marksmen climbed to the roofs of government buildings in Ottawa and were given orders to shoot down any hostile aircraft. This was the first blackout and air raid in Canadian history, only one month after the first raid on Britain.
Ottawa was not the only target of an “aerial invasion” that night. Early in the morning of February 15, people living in a Toronto suburb notified police of a “strange aeroplane” hovering over their homes. Later in the morning, a man in Guelph saw “three moving lights passing over the agricultural college.” He called out to other residents in his boarding house who also watched the silent lights until dawn.
Meanwhile, far to the west, three people returning home from a late-night game of curling in Morden, Manitoba, heard a peculiar noise in the sky and looked up to see a bright light moving to the northwest. They, too, described it as an “aeroplane” travelling swiftly through the night sky.
It is important to note that there may have been an explanation for at least some of the objects seen in the skies over Ontario that night. It was reported that the hysteria in Ottawa was the result of a prank by a few jokers in Morristown. Supposedly, three fire balloons with fireworks attached were sent aloft in celebration of the 100th anniversary of the end of the War of 1812. The explanation went on to say that the fireworks created the impression of aircraft lights and engines, falling balls of fire and the beam of light seen over Brockville.
IN THEIR OWN WORDS
West Springfield, Massachusetts September 1, 1994
This summer on Labor Day weekend in West Springfield, Massachusetts. My wife and myself saw what appeared to be a green fireball. We observed it for approx. 6–7 seconds before it disappeared over the horizon. I checked with the local science museum and the astronomer in charge of the planetarium said she saw it too. However she said she would check with Boston Observatory and they told her nothing was reported to them. How odd us three were the only ones that saw it and reported it.
Reported by T.T.
Source: Ufology Research
At first, the government and its citizens refused to believe this. Even the profoundly skeptical Dominion Observatory rejected the explanation, noting that prevailing winds were from the east and would not have taken the balloons northeast towards Ottawa from Morristown. However, on February 15, a Brockville policeman found a paper balloon near Eastern Hospital, and a second paper balloon was later found along the river. This seemed to validate the explanation of fireworks, and afternoon media took advantage of the discoveries to poke fun at the morning dailies that had been quick to fall victim to hysteria. Nevertheless, the next night, the lights of Ottawa were again turned out and guns were set up on rooftops.
Later research showed that at the time of these observations, only a handful of aircraft in the United States were actually capable of making the flight from the border to Ottawa, and none of these were capable of carrying searchlights.
Elsewhere in the world, an early report of an unidentified object occurred in 1930, in an area southwest of Rio de Janeiro called Jacarepagua, long before any modern development. A couple was asleep in their small cottage one night, situated in a large expanse of primitive grassland. They were awakened to light streaming into their bedroom through the slats in the blinds, a very unusual thing because there were no others living near them and no roads or railroads near their homestead at that time.
When they opened the window to look out, they were shocked to see a large craft, “a white rounded object with two monstrous ‘eyes’” and a leg or column coming down from it. The eyes were square, brick-shaped holes in its body, and they likened it to a man-made “ghost” constructed to frighten them for some reason. The husband took out his pistol and fired several shots in its direction, but the object was unaffected.
The object crossed the lawn in front of them, moving slowly up and down as if it was walking. It then rose up and headed for a dam some distance away, but paused and rotated back to “look” at the couple several more times before it was lost in the distance. The next day, the wife broke out in a rash of some kind, but it cleared up after a few days. Another apparent physical effect was that the grass on their lawn had turned from a lush green to a dead grey.
On June 10, 1931, pioneer aviator Francis Chichester (later knighted for his courage) was flying solo between Australia and Norfolk Island across the Tasman Sea when he saw flashes of light that he assumed were from other nearby aircraft. He noted that a “dull, gray-white shape of an airship” like an “oblong pearl” was heading towards his plane. He was momentarily distracted by more flashes beside him, and when he looked ahead the airship was gone.
Soon, however, another such craft
