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What Can the Fort Simpson Sketch Really Prove?

A colourful 1969 witness drawing preserved a striking visual impression but could not establish the object's size, distance or structure.

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On this page

  • What the 1969 drawing shows
  • How bright lights can appear layered or coloured
  • Why sketches preserve impressions, not measurements
Preview for What Can the Fort Simpson Sketch Really Prove?

Introduction

The hand-drawn sketch attached to an RCMP sighting report from Fort Simpson in February 1969 is one of the most distinctive visual records in the Northwest Territories’ UFO archives. It is memorable because it depicts a layered, star-like object with a circular centre and coloured bands rather than a conventional disc or aircraft. Yet the drawing’s real value is often misunderstood. It does not prove the object had that physical shape. Instead, it preserves how one witness perceived an unusual light at a particular moment and shows how the RCMP documented eyewitness testimony in remote northern communities. As evidence, the sketch is historically important but scientifically limited: it captures appearance, not measurement, and impression, not physical structure.[Batadora]batadora.trentu.caetd 776A History of Canada's UFO Investigation, 1950-1995 | Digital Collections…

Fort Simpson illustration 1

What the 1969 drawing shows

The surviving RCMP report relates to a sighting near Fort Simpson on 6 February 1969, with the formal report dated 8 February 1969. The file forms part of the RCMP’s “Flying Objects (Sighting Of)” records, later preserved by Library and Archives Canada. The archival catalogue confirms two related Fort Simpson records for that incident, demonstrating that the report entered the normal federal reporting system rather than remaining a purely local curiosity.[Library and Archives Canada]collectionscanada.gc.caLibrary and Archives Canada ARCHIVEDLibrary and Archives CanadaARCHIVED - Results - Canada's UFOs: The Search for the Unknown - Library and Archives Canada…

The witness sketch shows:

  • a circular central point;
  • several surrounding layers resembling a stylised star or flower;
  • different sections labelled with colours;
  • a symmetrical appearance rather than an irregular shape.

The drawing stands out because many RCMP reports from the period contain only written descriptions. Matthew Hayes’ history of Canadian UFO investigations identifies the Fort Simpson illustration as an example of the relatively uncommon occasions when investigators included a witness drawing alongside the written report. Hayes reproduces the sketch to illustrate how visual impressions were preserved in official files.[Batadora]batadora.trentu.caetd 776A History of Canada's UFO Investigation, 1950-1995 | Digital Collections…

The sketch therefore tells us something important about the witness’s experience: the object appeared structured and multi-coloured enough that words alone did not seem adequate.

How bright lights can appear layered or coloured

The strongest lesson from the Fort Simpson drawing is not that the observed object possessed coloured layers, but that bright lights viewed under difficult conditions can appear surprisingly complex.

Several well-understood visual effects can create impressions similar to those shown in the drawing:

  • Atmospheric turbulence. Light from a bright star or planet passing through unstable layers of air can appear to shimmer, distort and momentarily stretch into irregular patterns.
  • Colour scintillation. Objects low above the horizon commonly flash between red, green, blue and white as Earth’s atmosphere refracts different wavelengths differently.
  • Glare within the eye. Bright point sources frequently produce halos, rays or apparent layered structures because of the optical properties of the eye rather than the object itself.
  • Memory reconstruction. When witnesses later sketch an observation, they often combine several fleeting visual impressions into a single coherent image.

None of these mechanisms proves that the Fort Simpson witness observed an ordinary astronomical object. Equally, the drawing itself does not demonstrate that a physically layered craft existed. The sketch is compatible with either an unusual light phenomenon or an object whose true appearance cannot now be reconstructed because the necessary observational data were never recorded.[Batadora]batadora.trentu.caetd 776A History of Canada's UFO Investigation, 1950-1995 | Digital Collections…

Fort Simpson illustration 2

Why sketches preserve impressions, not measurements

Eyewitness drawings are valuable historical documents, but they are fundamentally different from photographs or instrumental observations.

A sketch cannot reliably establish:

  • the object’s actual diameter;
  • its distance from the observer;
  • its altitude;
  • whether apparent layers represented physical structure or optical effects;
  • precise movement through the sky.

Those questions require information such as angular size, compass bearing, elevation angle, duration, independent observers, photography or radar correlation. None of that can be recovered simply from the illustration itself.

Instead, the Fort Simpson drawing records what cognitive psychologists would describe as a perceptual representation: an attempt to communicate the appearance of something difficult to describe verbally. It therefore has evidential value about the witness’s experience, not necessarily about the object’s objective form.[Batadora]batadora.trentu.caetd 776A History of Canada's UFO Investigation, 1950-1995 | Digital Collections…

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What the sketch contributes to the Northwest Territories record

Within the broader history of RCMP sighting reports across northern communities, the Fort Simpson sketch is important for reasons that have little to do with proving extraordinary claims.

It demonstrates that:

  • RCMP investigators occasionally requested or accepted witness drawings as part of official documentation.
  • Northern reports sometimes preserved richer observational detail than brief typed summaries alone.
  • Federal archives contain visual evidence alongside written testimony, allowing later researchers to examine exactly how witnesses represented unusual observations.
  • Officials were willing to preserve ambiguous material without claiming they had identified the phenomenon.

That makes the sketch an unusually informative archival artefact even though it does not resolve the underlying sighting. It illustrates the practical methods used by the RCMP when investigating reports in remote communities where specialist equipment, multiple investigators and rapid follow-up were rarely available.[Batadora]batadora.trentu.caetd 776A History of Canada's UFO Investigation, 1950-1995 | Digital Collections…

What can the Fort Simpson sketch really prove?

The drawing supports several conclusions with reasonable confidence.

It shows that a witness reported an unusual visual experience serious enough to be documented by the RCMP. It shows that colour differences formed part of the reported observation. It also demonstrates that Canadian officials preserved eyewitness illustrations as part of their UFO reporting process during the late 1960s.[Batadora]batadora.trentu.caetd 776A History of Canada's UFO Investigation, 1950-1995 | Digital Collections…

What it cannot prove is equally important.

The sketch does not establish the physical shape of the observed object, its distance, its size, its construction or its origin. Nor does it distinguish between an unfamiliar aerial object and an ordinary bright light seen under atmospheric conditions that exaggerated colour and apparent structure.

For historians of UFO reporting in the Northwest Territories, the Fort Simpson sketch therefore occupies a useful middle ground. It is stronger evidence than a second-hand anecdote because it survives within an official contemporaneous record. At the same time, it remains an eyewitness impression rather than a direct measurement. Its lasting significance lies in documenting how people experienced and recorded unexplained sights in Canada’s North—not in proving what the object ultimately was.[trentu.ca]batadora.trentu.caetd 776A History of Canada's UFO Investigation, 1950-1995 | Digital Collections…

Fort Simpson illustration 3

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Endnotes

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Canada's UFOs: The search for the unknown - Canada.caMarch 2, 2026 — CANADA'S UFOS: THE SEARCH FOR THE UNKNOWN The Library and Archives C...

Published: March 2, 2026

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5. Source: collectionscanada.gc.ca
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Additional References

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Published: September 1, 2019

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David Hamel's Granite Saucer...

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22. Source: youtube.com
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Link:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPd619LWbuQ