Canada's Most Documented UFO Case | Falcon Lake

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Why Files: Operation Podcast

Episode: Canada's Most Documented UFO Case | Falcon Lake
Air Date: June 19, 2026
Host: The Why Files
Theme: In-depth exploration of the Falcon Lake Incident—Canada’s most famous and well-documented UFO encounter—mixing humor, research, and skepticism.

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Episode Overview

This episode unpacks the 1967 Falcon Lake UFO encounter, in which Polish immigrant and mechanic Stefan Michalak (Mihalik/Mihalyk) claimed to be burned by a mysterious flying craft in the Canadian wilderness. The Why Files presents the event, its investigation, skeptical takes, and enduring mysteries, ultimately reflecting on belief, truth, and how "impossible" stories should be received.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Setting the Scene: The Encounter

• [00:37, 03:12]
  On May 20, 1967, Stefan Michalak emerges from the Manitoba woods, burned and vomiting, telling a Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) officer he was injured by a UFO and may be radioactive.
  "He said he was burned by a flying saucer and might be radioactive. The officer didn't believe him. Nobody did. Then the scars came back and kept coming back. For 30 years, he never said the word aliens. Not once in all that time. He just wanted someone to believe him." (Narrator, 00:37)

• Stefan, a tough WWII survivor, was out "rock hunting" for silver when he noticed two glowing, cigar-shaped objects descending into the forest outside Falcon Lake.
  "A disc shaped craft sat on a rocky clearing. It was 40ft across and 15ft high with a dome on top. It looked like it was made out of aluminum or brushed stainless steel." (Narrator, 03:12)

2. Direct Observation and Contact

• [05:00–07:47]
  Stefan approaches one of the craft, noticing advanced metallurgy and a peculiar, seamless design. He sketches the object while hidden, observing its venting of heat and the bright, strange-colored light emanating from a doorway.
  "What he couldn't see was how the thing was built. There were no seams or rivets, no weld lines... He spent his whole life working metal. This was the best metal work he'd ever seen." (Narrator, 07:47)

• Upon hearing muffled, human-like voices, he calls out in six languages. No response. Investigating the open hatch, he's blasted in the chest by hot gas from a vent.
  "Hot gas shot out of the grid and hit him square in the chest. Then he realized he was on fire. He tore off his shirt and stamped out the flames... He dropped to his knees and threw up." (Narrator, 12:05)

3. Aftermath: Medical and Physical Evidence

• [15:41–18:00]
  Stefan’s son and doctors note a persistent, chemical smell and burns forming a grid on Stefan’s chest, matching the UFO’s vent.
  "The room reeked. It smelt like sulfur and burnt electronics... The pattern on his skin matched the grid on the vent. The undershirt he wore... had charred holes in the same spots in the same pattern." (Narrator, 15:41)

• He loses 22 pounds in a week, suffers headaches, blackouts, and recurring burns—showing cyclical flare-ups every 112 days.
  "Lymphocyte count dropped far below normal... typical of whole body radiation exposure. He put the dose at between 100 and 200 roentgens." (Narrator, 15:41)

• Mayo Clinic found no psychological illness.
  "The Mayo psychiatric report said Stefan Mihalik showed no delusion, no hallucination, no mental illness of any kind." (Narrator, 15:41)

4. Investigation and Official Responses

• [19:22–23:45]
  Extensive investigation follows: RCMP, Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF), Department of Health, US Air Force. The original site evades detection until Stefan himself finds it, confirming physical damage (burnt soil, radium 226 in the sample, considered a health hazard).
  "There was radium 226 in the soil... The lab called it a serious health hazard, and they recommended closing the whole area down." (Narrator, 21:43)

• A year later, silver-metal bars covered in uranium are discovered in the landing circle crack, stumping investigators.
  "One year later... he found two bars of metal. The lab took them apart. One bar was 93% silver, the other 96. And both were covered in crushed uranium. They were radioactive." (Narrator, 23:43)

• Official reports consistently label the case "unexplainable".
  "Bisky, the man who wanted him to be a liar, called the whole case unexplainable." (Narrator, 27:21)

• Government officials restrict access to the file, refusing to answer MPs’ questions, but later commemorate the event on a silver coin.

5. Skeptics’ Theories and Critiques

• [25:49–27:10]
  Skeptics suggest Stefan was drunk, hallucinated, or self-inflicted his injuries—pointing to a bar tab and an alleged secret lover’s testimony.
  "That was the case against Stefan the Holic. A bar tab, a cheating spouse, and a hunch." (Narrator, 21:26)

• Physical evidence is questioned due to possible environmental sources of uranium, natural radium in local soil, and the silver bars’ similarity to commercial sterling. Later grid-pattern burns (1968) are suspected as self-inflicted.
  "The white shell is naturally rich in uranium. And the soil's radium could have come from a natural vein. The silver bars make the story worse. Their makeup matches commercial sterling, not raw silver..." (Narrator, 25:58)

• Still, the initial severity of Stefan's symptoms and a lack of clear motive for a hoax trouble even the skeptics.
  "If he faked the grid in 1968. Nobody ever explained the Burns of 1967..." (Narrator, 27:10)

6. Enduring Mystery and Human Truth

• [28:20–29:54]
  The host emphasizes that, hoax or not, Stefan never profited, never changed his story, and suffered for decades. Official Canadian and US studies close the case as “unexplained.”
  "If Falcon Lake was a hoax. A 51-year-old mechanic burned his own chest. Starved off 22 pounds. Fooled a dozen doctors and a Mayo psychiatrist. Look, if it was real, something landed on that rock that we still can't name." (Narrator, 28:20)

• The core reflection: regardless of paranormal implications, we must respect and help those who share “impossible” stories of suffering.
  "You don't have to believe the story, but you should try to believe the person standing in front of you, hurt, begging for help." (Narrator, 29:37)

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Notable Quotes (with Timestamps)

• "He said he was burned by a flying saucer and might be radioactive. The officer didn't believe him. Nobody did." (Narrator, 00:37)
• "A disc shaped craft sat on a rocky clearing... Whatever it was, Stefan wasn't going near it." (Narrator, 03:12)
• "When Stefan reached the door, the light was blinding. But he had protection." (Narrator, 09:07)
• "Hot gas shot out of the grid and hit him square in the chest. Then he realized he was on fire." (Narrator, 12:05)
• "The smell was coming out of his father's skin and it lasted for weeks." (Narrator, 15:41)
• "The laboratory called it a serious health hazard, and they recommended closing the whole area down." (Narrator, 21:43)
• "If the encounter was real, it would show the existence of alien flying vehicles in our environment." (Narrator, referencing US Condon Committee report, 28:20)
• "You don't have to believe the story, but you should try to believe the person standing in front of you, hurt, begging for help." (Narrator, 29:37)

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Timeline of Key Segments

• [00:37] Initial encounter and introduction to Stefan’s ordeal
• [03:12-05:30] Stefan’s background; description of UFO; initial approach and sketching
• [07:47-12:05] Close contact, burns, and escape
• [15:41-18:00] Medical aftermath; physical evidence; investigation begins
• [19:22-23:45] Multi-agency investigation; site found; radioactive evidence
• [25:49-27:10] Skeptical explanations and counterpoints
• [28:20-29:54] Enduring mystery, official “unexplained” verdicts, and reflection on personal belief

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Memorable Moments / Humor

• Comic sidekick “Hacklefish” lightens up the story with quips about rock hunting, “probing,” and German engineering jokes throughout.
  "Probe it before it can probe you." (Co-Host / Comic Relief, 09:03)

• Playful banter about the word “hunt”:
  "We are using the word hunt way too literally these days. House hunt, Rock hunt. Helen Hunt where's the danger?" (Co-Host / Comic Relief, 03:55)

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Conclusion

The Falcon Lake case is a rare blend of credible witness, physical trace evidence, medical documentation, and thorough (yet ultimately inconclusive) investigation. Despite earnest attempts by both believers and skeptics, the case closed as “unexplained” and continues to mystify. The episode’s final message—believe those who are suffering, even if their story seems incredible—underscores the Why Files’ mix of curiosity, skepticism, and empathy.

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For anyone interested in Canada’s most enigmatic UFO mystery, this episode packs in exhaustive research, skepticism, humor, and a compassionate look at one man’s extraordinary experience.

Transcript

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[Narrator / Main Host]

On a May afternoon in 1967, a man stumbled out of the Manitoba woods and flagged down a police car. His shirt was gone. His chest was burned. He threw up in the ditch while he waited. When the officer stepped toward him, the man waved him back. He said he was burned by a flying saucer and might be radioactive. The officer didn't believe him. Nobody did. Then the scars came back and kept coming back. For 30 years, he never said the word aliens. Not once in all that time. He just wanted someone to believe him. The government finally took him seriously, and maybe we all should.

[Co-Host / Advertiser]

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[Narrator / Main Host]

Stefan Mihalik hid behind a rock and sketched what he saw. Half a football field away, a disc shaped craft sat on a rocky clearing. It was 40ft across and 15ft high with a dome on top. It looked like it was made out of aluminum or brushed stainless steel. Whatever it was, Stefan wasn't going near it. So here he was in the middle of the woods, sketching a flying saucer. He wasn't frightened. He was a 51 year old Polish immigrant who survived a Nazi death camp during World War II. Not much can rattle a man who lives through that. Sure, the object was weird, but it wasn't scary. It was inconvenient. After a half hour of hiding, Stefan wanted to get back to hunting rocks.

[Co-Host / Comic Relief]

We are using the word hunt way too literally these days. House hunt, Rock hunt. Helen Hunt where's the danger?

[Narrator / Main Host]

Well, Twister was pretty dangerous for the cows.

[Co-Host / Comic Relief]

Hey, you know the scariest hunt of all?

[Narrator / Main Host]

What, Mike Ugh. 90 miles east of Winnipeg is the White Shell, a stretch of Canadian wilderness about the size of Rhode island. And in 1967, it was silver country. Stephon knew that country well. He found white quartz running through the rock, and where there's quartz, there's silver. He was an industrial mechanic by trade, but his real passion was silver. So on weekends he hiked the woods with a hammer and chisel, looking for treasure. On Friday, May 19, he traveled to Falcon Lake and checked into a motel. The next morning he found a vein of quartz and went to work. The woods were quiet except for the sound of tapping metal. But at 12:15, the geese went crazy. A whole flock flew up off the water at once. Stefan looked up to see what spooked them. Two objects came down out of the sky, glowing red, shaped like cigars. As they dropped lower, they flattened into disks. One of the objects stopped. It hovered over the trees for a few seconds. Then it shot back up into the sky and was gone. The other object kept coming straight down and slowly settled onto a clearing about 160ft away. The red glow faded to orange, then to gray, like stainless steel. Hot metal does. This steel comes out of a forge, glowing red, and as it cools, it runs through orange on its way back to gray. So whatever just landed on that rock was very, very hot. Stefan stayed hidden behind a rock and just waited. And waited. Nothing happened. So he grabbed a pad and pencil and sketched the thing like it was a broken engine he'd been called in to fix. He got down. The shape, the color, the way the air around it bent and shimmered with heat. For a half hour he drew. Then a door slid open on the side of the craft and light poured out. A color that doesn't even exist on earth.

[Co-Host / Advertiser]

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[Narrator / Main Host]

The light came from a doorway near the top of the craft. It was hard to describe, not quite blue and not quite purple somewhere in between. And it was bright, brighter than the daylight around it. Stefan was done hiding. He had to get a closer look. The first thing he noticed was it didn't have legs or wheels. It just balanced there on the bare rock like it weighed nothing. He couldn't see an engine, but the object hummed, a low frequency hum that he felt more than heard. There were no markings on the object, no flag, no incentive insignia of any kind, and it didn't look like an aircraft at all. Completely round with no wings, no rudder, no cockpit. At least none that he could see. The metal was polished so bright and clean he could see his reflection. What he couldn't see was how the thing was built. There were no seams or rivets, no weld lines. That bothered him more than the lights. He spent his whole life working metal. This was the best metal work he'd ever seen. The walls looked about a foot and a half thick, but they weren't solid. The metal was worked in a hollow grid pattern. It looked like a steel honeycomb. When Stefan reached the door, the light was blinding. But he had protection.

[Co-Host / Comic Relief]

Yeah, smart. Probe it before it can probe you.

[Narrator / Main Host]

Not that kind of protection.

[Co-Host / Comic Relief]

Are you sure? You just spent five minutes telling us how this guy likes to hammer stuff. Alone in the woods,

[Narrator / Main Host]

he put his welding goggles on. He brought them to protect his eyes from chipping metal. But they also had a tinted visor. With his shades on, he leaned in through the doorway. Inside, he saw a wall of lights. Beams ran in horizontal and diagonal patterns. Banks of different color lights blinked in sequences that never repeated. He looked for a button or a switch or anything familiar, but he found nothing. And no pilot seat. No controls. The room was empty. Just the lights and that low hum. Then the smell hit him. Sulfur. Ozone. Burning electronics. This was the first time Stefan was afraid. Not of the object, of the air he might be breathing. It was time to go. Then, from somewhere inside the craft, he heard something familiar. Voices. The voices sounded human. There were two of them. One pitched higher than the other, muffled the way conversations sound through a closed door. He couldn't make out the words, but voices meant a crew, and a crew meant somebody built this thing. Stefan was pretty sure he knew who, and it wasn't aliens. He knew about UFOs from sci fi magazines, but he didn't think this was a spaceship. He figured it was something classified. An experimental aircraft from the US Air Force.

[Co-Host / Advertiser]

The US and the Soviets were in the middle of a race for space

[Narrator / Main Host]

and both wanted to land on the moon first.

[Co-Host / Comic Relief]

The race to the moon, Also known as the Sprint to Stanley sound stage in Burbank.

[Narrator / Main Host]

Anyway, when something weird falls out of the sky, your first thought is the Americans are up to something. But it was almost an hour since the craft came down. Maybe there was a mechanical failure. Maybe someone was hurt. So he called out to see if they needed any help. He yelled, ok, Yankee boys having trouble? No reply. Maybe they weren't American. He called out again, this time in Russian, Then German, Italian, French, Ukrainian, then back to English. One More time. A lifetime of war and exile gave him six ways to say the same thing.

[Co-Host / Advertiser]

I can help.

[Co-Host / Comic Relief]

Hey, hey, hey. How do you know how many Germans it takes to change a light bulb?

[Co-Host / Advertiser]

Uh.

[Narrator / Main Host]

Nine.

[Co-Host / Comic Relief]

What?

[Narrator / Main Host]

No, that's what I said.

[Co-Host / Comic Relief]

You said nine.

[Narrator / Main Host]

Exactly. No, nine Germans.

[Co-Host / Comic Relief]

Are you messing with me, Human?

[Narrator / Main Host]

Yeah, well, never mind. How many Germans does it take to change a light bulb?

[Co-Host / Comic Relief]

Zero. It was engineered properly the first time and does not require changing.

[Narrator / Main Host]

So I was right. 9.

[Co-Host / Comic Relief]

One of us is having a stroke right now, but I can't tell which one of us.

[Narrator / Main Host]

After Stefan ran through his languages. The voices stopped. And then the thing came alive. A whine started up like an engine and got louder and the heat came back. Stefan felt like he was in an oven. He still had his heavy welding gloves on, so he reached out to see how hot it really was. And that was a mistake. When his fingers touched the metal, he felt the gloves go soft. He heard a sizzle as the rubber melted onto his fingers. The door snapped shut. The craft started to rotate, and as it turned, Stefan saw a panel, a grid, a small vent, maybe 9 inches by 6, drilled full of tiny round holes in neat rows. Then the blast. Hot gas shot out of the grid and hit him square in the chest. Then he realized he was on fire. He tore off his shirt and stamped out the flames. And when he looked up, the craft was already off the rock. It rose without a sound. A minute ago, the thing was loud as hell, and now it was dead silent. He felt a rush of air as it climbed. And then it was gone. Stefan was alone in the clearing. His chest was scorched raw. He had a splitting headache. Then he felt his stomach turn over. He dropped to his knees and threw up. He got up and started walking. The burns on his chest started to swell into a pattern. He vomited his way out of the forest. He was. He walked, stopped, retched and walked again. And the headache came in waves. When he finally made it to the highway, he flagged down a police officer. He told the officer a story. Then the officer said, sorry, but I have other duties to perform, got back

[Co-Host / Advertiser]

in his car and drove away.

[Narrator / Main Host]

Stefon got himself home to Winnipeg that night. When his nine year old son walked into the bedroom, the first thing the boy noticed wasn't the birds. It was the smell. Summer always changes the way I dress.

[Co-Host / Advertiser]

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[Narrator / Main Host]

The smell hit Stan before anything else.

[Co-Host / Advertiser]

He was nine years old.

[Narrator / Main Host]

He walked into his parents bedroom and the room reeked. It smelt like sulfur and burnt electronics. It wasn't the burns and it wasn't his clothes. The smell was coming out of his father's skin and it lasted for weeks. Stefan was sure he was radioactive. He couldn't keep food down. He weighed 180 pounds on the morning of the encounter and one week later he weighed 15822 pounds gone in seven days. And he kept fainting. He had headaches and blackouts with huge gaps in his memory. His doctor found reddish raised sores across his upper stomach and singed hair in his hairline. The pattern on his skin matched the grid on the vent. The undershirt he wore that day had charred holes in the same spots in the same pattern. And Stefan's blood was affected. His lymphocyte count dropped far below normal. Lymphocytes are a kind of white blood cell, a part of your immune system. Doctors knew a drop like that could come from. A radiologist in the United States said this was typical of whole body radiation exposure. He put the dose at between 100 and 200 reentgens. A Reentian is a measure of radiation and at 400 you usually die. The radiologist wrote that the exposure must have lasted only seconds. Any longer and it would have killed it. And the burns kept coming back. They healed and returned, healed again, and then came back again. Doctors tried medication after medication, but nothing worked. Over the months, they learned the sores returned every 112 days, right on schedule. More than a dozen doctors examined him in Canada and the United States, and not one of them knew what was wrong. Stefan paid his own way to the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, one of the best hospitals on earth. They ran every test they had, and they came up empty, too. But they ruled one thing out. And it matters. The Mayo psychiatric report said Stefan Mihalik showed no delusion, no hallucination, no mental illness of any kind. Whatever happened to him, he was not making it up. And while doctors mapped his symptoms, the Royal Canadian Air Force ran into a problem of its own.

[Co-Host / Advertiser]

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[Narrator / Main Host]

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[Co-Host / Advertiser]

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[Narrator / Main Host]

What landed at Falcon Lake pulled in almost everybody. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police opened a file. So did the Royal Canadian Air Force, the Department of Health, and the Department of National defense. A civilian UFO group sent an investigator who photographed Stevens Burns three days after the event. And the U.S. air Force came, too. And before it was over, The Falcon Lake case was about 300 pages thick. Five days after the encounter, the Air Force sent its first search party into the white shell. They had Stefan's sketch, his marks on an aerial photo, but they found nothing. So they escalated. They put Stefan in a helicopter and on the ground, close enough to find rocks he chipped with his own hammer. The site never appeared. One investigator's whole job was to make it go away. Squadron Leader Paul Bisky of the Royal Canadian Air Force. He didn't believe a word of the story. The saucer was nonsense, and the witness was a drunk who hallucinated the whole thing. And Bisky came to prove it. And Bisky had one lead. Stephon swore he didn't drink at Falcon Lake, but the motel bartender said he served him five or six beers the night before. So Stefan lied about drinking. Now Bisky needed to prove the main man couldn't say no to a drink. So he ran a test. He took Stephan back to that same bar and offered him a beer. Stephan said no. Bisky offered him Orion ginger. Stephan said yes. And he drank a few of those. And he loosened up. And out came the stories. That was all Bisky needed. He wrote up his report. Stephan threw himself a private party the night before, and 10 hours later, still drunk or hungover, he hallucinated a flying saucer. Bisky floated a second theory. Stephan got drunk and fell on a hot barbecue grill. His source was a woman who never came forward. She spent that weekend at Falcon Lake with a man who wasn't her husband, so she preferred to keep quiet. That was the case against Stefan the Holic. A bar tab, a cheating spouse, and a hunch.

[Co-Host / Comic Relief]

A bar tab, a cheating spouse, and a hunch. That's not a federal case, Yeoman. That's a country. Sort of.

[Narrator / Main Host]

Then, on June 25, the skeptics hit a wrinkle. Stefan found the site himself.

[Co-Host / Advertiser]

He led the search party straight to

[Narrator / Main Host]

it, 50 yards from where the search teams had already looked. There it was. Everything was still there. The ring of dirt and pine needles around the rim. The investigators collected soil, rock, and vegetation from the area, and the samples went to the RCMP crime lab in Ottawa. When the results came back, the tone of the file changed. There was radium 226 in the soil. That's the stuff that made old watch dials glow in the dark. There was so much radium, the lab called it a serious health hazard, and they recommended closing the whole area down. So Bisky's hunch fell apart. When he finally wrote his report, the Air Force's chief skeptic put three things on the record he couldn't make go away Stefan's illness, Stefan's burns, the circle in the rock. And he used one word for all three. Unexplainable. But in a crack in that same rock, two inches under moss, was some evidence, some very important evidence that everybody seemed to miss. One year later, almost to the day, Stefan Mihalik went back to the rock. He worked along the landing circle and in a fissure under the moss, he found two bars of metal. The lab took them apart. One bar was 93% silver, the other 96. And both were covered in crushed uranium. They were radioactive. Remember, this was the most searched patch of rock in Canada. Police, military, radiation officers, civilians, all of them combed that circle for a year and found nothing. Either the bars appeared sometime that year or every search team in two countries walked right over them. Even Bisky, the man who first thought it was a hoax, had to admit this was strange. He sent a teletype to headquarters. Should this be a hoax, someone is going to considerable effort to perpetrate saying

[Co-Host / Comic Relief]

a translation from the Bunkeries. I came here to call him a liar and now I need a drink.

[Narrator / Main Host]

While the labs worked, the government closed ranks. When Manitoba MP Edward Schreier raised Falcon Lake in the House of Commons, the speaker cut him off. And when Parliament finally let one MP see the file pages had already been pulled, they said full release would not be in the public interest. That silenced MP went on to become Governor General of Canada. The government's own representative once asked his government about Falcon Lake, and his government refused to answer. Stefan didn't care what the craft was. He just wanted a diagnosis. Months after Mayo, he still had no results, and he carried the case the rest of his life. The burns came back for years. The scars stayed under his skin for decades. He died in 1999 at 83. And he never recanted, never embellished, never changed a word. And in 2018, the same government that sealed his file put the Falcon Lake UFO incident on a coin. Silver, of course. And it glows in the dark. Stefan Mihalyk walked into the white shell looking for silver. And 50 years later, his government minted his story in it. So that's Falcon Lake. A mechanic walked into the woods, came out burned and carried marks no doctor could explain. Great story, but did it really happen this way? We'll start with the famous burns. The neat grid of dots from the photos shows up in January 1968. In eight months after the encounter, the doctor who saw him the day after described something else. Irregular, blotchy, unevenly spaced burns. And when the grid finally did appear. A Mayo psychiatrist called it obviously factitial.

[Co-Host / Comic Relief]

What does that mean?

[Narrator / Main Host]

Fake? The burns were self inflicted.

[Co-Host / Comic Relief]

Burning a Game of Connect 4 into your belly every few months. Now that's how you commit to a bit.

[Narrator / Main Host]

The radiation has an explanation too. The white shell is naturally rich in uranium. And the soil's radium could have come from a natural vein. The silver bars make the story worse. Their makeup matches commercial sterling, not raw silver. Right down to the copper and cadmium that make up the alloy. And they were coated in foundry sand. They surfaced a full year later at a site dozens of people could reach. After the pros had searched it and found nothing. Investigators are pretty sure that metal was placed there. Then the awkward details. A fire watchtower overlooked the area and the ranger on duty saw nothing. The leading skeptics of the day called Falcon Lake a badly executed hoax. Case closed. Except for everything else. He really did lose 22 pounds in a week. That's almost impossible unless you're really sick. The burns were real. And no one ever described disputed that. A doctor documented first degree burns the day after. A charred undershirt that matched the wounds. You can still see the shirt. It's on display at the University of Manitoba.

[Co-Host / Comic Relief]

The Louvre's got the Mona Lisa. The Manitoba's got a bright undershirt. Checks out.

[Narrator / Main Host]

If he faked the grid in 1968. Nobody ever explained the Burns of 1967. Well then follow the money. Well you can't because they're isn't any uh.

[Co-Host / Comic Relief]

Oh, he didn't write a book.

[Narrator / Main Host]

He wrote a booklet.

[Co-Host / Comic Relief]

There's always a booklet.

[Narrator / Main Host]

Yeah, but the booklet lost money. It was something he gave to people for free. He gave it to them who wanted to hear his story. He was so sick of telling it he would just give them the booklet and say read this. And the Mayo Clinic. He paid for that himself. And that's not cheap. Bisky, the man who wanted him to be a liar called the whole case unexplainable. The Department of National Defense admitted it was unable to provide evidence which would dispute Mihalik's story. And in the Conda Committee, a US study built to close UFO cases, they filed Falcon Lake as unexplained. They even added a line you almost never see in an official report. If the encounter was real, it would show the existence of alien flying vehicles in our environment. If Falcon Lake was a hoax. A 51 year old mechanic burned his own chest. Starved off 22 pounds. Fooled a dozen doctors and a Mayo psychiatrist. Look, if it was Real something landed on that rock that we still can't name. The case is still unsolved. But here's the part that bothers me. Strip away the saucer, and Falcon Lake is about a man who told the truth as he knew it. To the military, to doctors, to the government. And he got a door slammed in his face every single time. The first human being he met after the worst hour of his life listened to his story, heard his story, and drove away. And that wasn't just a civilian. That was an RCMP officer, trained and sworn to help people he refused to help. Stefan never asked anyone to believe in flying saucers. He only asked people to believe him. And that's one of the hardest, bravest things you can do. Tell the truth, no matter what it costs, and refuse to take it back. Most of us will never meet a man burned from a flying saucer. But all of us will meet somebody someday carrying a story that sounds impossible. And maybe they're wrong. Maybe they're confused, maybe not. Maybe they're on the highway like Stefan was asking you to stop. You don't have to believe the story, but you should try to believe the person standing in front of you, hurt, begging for help. And when that happens, you have only one option. You stop the car. Thank you so much for hanging out today. My name is A.J. that's Hacklefish.

[Co-Host / Comic Relief]

Guten Abbas, mein.

[Narrator / Main Host]

Yeah, this has been the why Files. If you had fun or learned something, I'd really appreciate it. If you, like, could, like, subscribe, comment, share.

[Co-Host / Advertiser]

And that stuff really helps.

[Narrator / Main Host]

Helps the fish. And like most topics we cover on the channel, today's is recommended by you. So if there's a story you'd like to see or learn more about, go to the y files.com tips send a message on Discord, email us, catch us in chat. There's a lot of ways to get

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a hold of us.

[Narrator / Main Host]

We're always looking for new stories.

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And if you enjoy the stories I

[Narrator / Main Host]

tell on the Y Files, check out my other show on the channel. It's called the Basement. It's a conversation show where I chat with interesting people behind the episodes. Some of them you know, some you don't, but all of them are really interesting. Experts on fun topics like the Knights Templar, the moon landing hoax, lots of quantum physics, different dimensions, warp speed travel, jfk, conspiracy stuff. I mean, it's. It's random, but it's fun. And if there's someone you'd like to see on the show, let me know. I'm always looking for Good guests. Remember, the why Files is also a podcast. You can take us on the road, upload at least twice a week, episodes, campfire stories, interviews. It's called the why Files Operation Podcast and it's available everywhere you get your podcasts. And if you are listening on an audio platform, if you can click the thumbs up, the, like, the follow all those buttons, they really help so much. Now, if you need more WI files in your life, check out our discord. There are over 100,000 people on there, so 24. Seven, there's somebody there talking about all kinds of weird stuff. It's an amazing community, it's really supportive, it's a lot of fun, and it's free to join.

[Co-Host / Advertiser]

And speaking of 24.

[Narrator / Main Host]

7, check out our 24. 7 live stream of the Wide Files backstage Over there. We run episodes back to back with some fun, unique content in between. And actually, the live chat is more entertaining than the videos. And here's a secret I'm not supposed to tell all the members only videos

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on the main channel. I usually post over there for everybody to see.

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Don't tell anyone that. Special thanks to our patrons who make this channel possible. Every episode of the WI Files is

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dedicated to our Patreon members.

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I couldn't have done any of this

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without you and still couldn't do this without your support.

[Narrator / Main Host]

So thank you. And if you'd like to support the channel, keep us going and join, join our community.

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Become a member on Patreon for as

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little as three bucks a month to get access to perks like seeing videos early with no commercials, exclusive merch, and

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two private live streams every week just for you.

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And the whole WAP House team is on the stream.

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And you can turn on your camera,

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jump up on stage, ask a question

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if you want to talk more about

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a topic, recommended topic, tell a joke, or just chat. It's a good way to get to know us as people, and I think

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it's the best perk there is.

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Another great way to support the channel is grab something from the wifi store,

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grab a heck of a T shirt and one of these fistable fluffy lights you can stick your fist in. Your alien fist, your German fist, whatever fish you want to put in there. Put a French fist up in there. Oh, yeah, I'll give you one of these hoodies. Set my face on it. Okay. One of these adorable squeezy. Oh, I taste. My heart sinks when I see it. A durable stick.

[Narrator / Main Host]

But if you're gonna buy merch, make sure you become a member on YouTube.

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YouTube members get 10 off everything in the WI Fi store forever.

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And it's only $3. So if you're gonna spend 40 bucks on the store on fistable mugs or T shirts or. I was gonna say crab cat whiskey, I don't know if you can do the discount on those. I'll look into that. Oh, you didn't know there's a whiskey. I don't think I was supposed to say. Well, I'm leaving it in anyway. If you're gonna spend 40 bucks at the store, become a member on YouTube. It pays for itself. And if you want to cancel after you get your discount, that's cool. The code is not there to make me money. It's there to save you money.

[Co-Host / Advertiser]

Besides, I don't keep that revenue anyway.

[Narrator / Main Host]

Goes all for the team. Those are the plugs. I think. I think I missed it.

[Co-Host / Comic Relief]

You.

[Narrator / Main Host]

I'll get them next time. Speaking of, until next time, be safe, be kind, and know that you are appreciated.

[Musical Performer / Guest]

Olivia senarium 51 a secret code inside the Bible said I was I love my UFOs and paranormal fun as well as music song sang in the LA Then another conspiracy theory becomes the truth my friends and it never ends no, it never ends. I feel the crap cat and got stuck inside Mel's home with mkultra of being only 2 aware did Stanley Kubrick fake the moon landing alone on a film set that were the shadow people there the Roswell aliens just f the smiling man I'm told and his name was cold But I can't believe I'm dancing with the fishes handle fish on Thursday nights with a J2 and W W. All I ever wanted was to just hear the truth all through the night. The mothman sightings and the solar storm still come to Agatha the secret city underground mysterious number stations Planet Circle 2 Project Stargate and what the dark watchers found. The black Max satellite it shows me so I can't believe I'm dancing with the fish head fish on Thursday nights with D when the weapons to the

[Co-Host / Comic Relief]

night

[Musical Performer / Guest]

All I ever wanted was to just hear the truth of weapons I repeat all through the night fish on Thursday nights when they change you and. I'm good enough then you loves to dance yeah K loves to dance on the dance floor because she is a camel and camels love to dance when the feeling is right Always in time.

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