Urban Legends
Jon Eben Field from Vancouver, BC, Canada · CC BY 2.0 · Wikimedia Commons

Falcon Lake and the Burn on the Chest

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On 19 May 1967 an amateur geologist named Stefan Michalak was prospecting for quartz by Falcon Lake in Manitoba when, by his account, he saw two cigar-shaped craft; one landed a few dozen metres away. He walked up, touched the hot skin — his glove melted — and when the object lifted, hot gas from a grille in its side set his shirt alight. Michalak was hospitalised with burns in a grid pattern across his chest. The burns were photographed by doctors, and the pattern matched the grille he described. The Canadian government handled the case; a thick file survives in the archives, including soil analysis from the site that found raised radioactivity. The file contains no explanation.

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