Red Lake airport, 29. June 03

Fellow nomads,

After hearing the reports about stuff disappearing from several hangars, Coop asked me to join him in a surveillance mission at Red Lake airport. He sat in the Tower, while I was waiting in a Hummer near the dESPair hangar. We were equiped with patience, beer and a walkie talkie.

The evening was cloudy and dark and it was constantly raining a bit, making it easy to stay inside the Hummer... I was carefully watching the surrounding, and exchanged sparsely some informations with Coop who was watching the field with his binoculars.

Nothing happened for more than three hours. Man, this was almost like flying an airliner... boring! ;-)

Just at the moment when I was thinking about finishing the mission because of lack of activity, I saw smoke or water spray in the rear mirror
of the hummer. I asked Coop to
confirm the sighting, and he indeed
saw something too.



But it was still too far away and the night was to gray and rainy, so we decided I should go and try to sneak near that "something". I started the Hummer and drove very slowly, staying close to the buildings as to not get spotted too early. Asking Coop to keep visual contact with "it", I sneaked around the FBO building, and yes! ... there "it" was:

It looked like a car, maybe a pick up. and We guessed it might be red. But the view really was too bad to be sure. Coop asked me to follow the car if I can. And so I tried...



Here you see a picture I took. But notice, it has been twice digitally enhanced. The real view was even darker than the picture, and the small section in bright green has been processed to get a better view of the car model.

What then followed was a scary ride towards the town, and in the general direction of the Sabourin base. I tried to keep in contact with the car, but this is not easy if you don't know the area by heart. So I sometimes almost lost track. Luckily the car produced enough water spray and tracks on the wet ground
so I was able to follow him.



I stayed in contact with Coop all the time, and he urged me to monitor the Sabourin base from the distance until he joins me in another car. So I killed the engine and sat there, wathcing the seemingly calm and abandoned base.

No signs of activity, no presence of people. Again, the following pictures all have been enhanced. Otherwise you would see what I saw: darkness and grey skies...







After waiting for more than a quarter hour, with still no signs of human activity, I decided to approach the base. Very slowly and stealthly.

Suddenly, I saw something sneaking out of the hangar. It wasn't immediately clear what sort of vehicle or "thing" this was. All I saw was the rather bright color yellow.

I opened the window to hear any engine noise to get more clues about the thing, but there was not much to hear at that moment. It took a few seconds until the thing had
left the hangar entirely, and it became
clear to me what sort of vehicel this was:



Suddenly the mighty roar of a powerful speed boat engine came up and I saw how the boat was accelerating very fast, leaving wth a heading of approx. 300° into the dark night. It was around 19:30 local time, and the darkness was falling pretty quickly.

I saw the boat just a few seconds before it disappeared into the darkness of the lake at night. What I saw is that it was a yellow boat with green stripes. I left the Hummer and took some more pictures in the hope to have them digitally processed. I might repeat
myself, but the night was REALLY
dropping a dark courtain over my eyes...



On this picture, you see the boat leaving in great speed, jumping and bouncing over the waves. The boat captain must have been a pro, to steer that speed boat in this dark night...

I went back to the Hummer, fired up the engine and drove towards the base, still alerted that I might find some people, and maybe the red car, there.








But when I arrived, the hangar was empty and abandoned. No signs of the boat, it's crew or the red car could be found. The lights were still on, but no one around. I talked to Coop, and decided to drive along the coast for a while to see if they get a shore in the near vicinity... but at that time, I couldn't see my hand before the eyes. So Coop and me decided to call it a day, go back to Red Lake and discuss the event a bit. (And of course to write up the PIREP, although there was no plane involved today :-)


It is not yet clear to me what we can make up of all that. Any ideas, gentlemen?

Clear sky!

Hak