UFO Sighted over Parliament Hill
UPDATE 2003-01-19 See Jan 19, 2003 log and last paragraph of text before the hints, the UFO has left the area but it has been replaced with a normal cache.
Ottawa, Ont, Canada - At 16:11 hours on May 31st 2002 an unidentified flying object was sighted hovering stationary over
Parliament Hill. It was seen by a small number of reliable witnesses and multiple air traffic controllers from local airports confirmed a low altitude object was in unauthorized air space at co-ordinates 45°25.489' W075°41.942'
A witness working on Parliament Hill during the incident (profession and name withheld) was quoted as saying: “It’s one of the strangest things I’ve ever seen. I just happened to look up in the sky and there it was, sitting quietly a few hundred feet in the air. It was silver in color and shaped like a saucer with these two bumps sticking out the back of it. After about half a minute it just disappeared and a few seconds later there was a tremendous sonic boom. I couldn’t even see which direction it left in!”
Reports from Air Traffic Control show that the object left Parliament Hill headed East 74.89 degrees True North in a straight line at a constant speed of 2160 kilometers per hour before coming to a complete stop 20 seconds later. After remaining stationary for a short time, it disappeared off radar completely.
In Orleans, an amateur photographer taking pictures of odd storm clouds snaps this chance photo of the object before it reportedly “dropped straight out of the sky like a rock”.
The photographer stated “It just appeared out of nowhere over a wooded area near here. After a few seconds it plummeted straight down behind the forest. It’s probably still sitting there in a crater or something! Someone should go find out!”
Cache container is the UFO itself, with two 18 inch PVC tubes 4 inches in diameter painted with non-toxic/lead-free Krylon Origional Chrome paint. The area is well-forested and some minor bushwacking is involved. Be sure to place the cache back in it's hiding place with the natural foliage intact. Chrome and nature just don't mix well.
Note: due to the variance in long distance waypoint projection among GPS units and the inability to input decimal degrees or mils on some I’ve posted the last 3 digits of the co-ordinates of the cache itself in hddd mm.mmm format. A waypoint projection on most GPSr units in degrees (rounded to 75° in the case of my Etrex)will get you in the "ballpark" and then you can substitute the last three digits for the exact co-ordinates. They are:
hddd°mm.171' hddd°mm.031'
No need to account for descent, wind direction, or deceleration(in fact, let's just blame the inaccuracies in waypoint projection on that stuff).
- Remember to set your GPS to True North for the projection, and to set it back to magnetic again if you use a compass when you geocache (recommended for this one due to the overhead tree cover).
- Take bug spray! This is Mosquito city!
UPDATE 2003-01-19 We now have visual confirmation the UFO has been repaired by it's tiny occupants and has left the planet for parts unknown (ok, not really, some kids probably took it, but...). To commemorate this crash site, a small cache container has been left behind in the cave that used to house the UFO. Be sure to look at the updated picture and take care to hide it well when leaving the site.