The Carp 'Guardian' UFO Landing Video

It began with the mail. From 1989, packages signed only "Guardian" reached UFO researchers. They claimed that "Canadian and American Security Agencies are engaged in a conspiracy of silence, to withhold from the world the alien vessel seized in the swamps of Corkery Road, Carp, in 1989."

Guardian pointed to 4 November 1989. That evening Diane Labanek of Manion Corners saw "an intense, bright light pass overhead, heading towards a swamp at the far end of the field south of her home." Earlier she had seen helicopters scanning the area with bright lights. Neighbours said cattle scattered. Guardian's version was grander. A blue sphere 20 metres across. Three dead crew. Parts taken to Kanata.

18 August 1991. About 11 p.m. Labanek was putting her children to bed. From a second-floor window she saw what looked like "a fire, or perhaps flares burning at the far end of the field." Then a craft landed beside them. "After a few minutes, maybe five or eight, the very bright lights on the craft went out." Soon after, the flares went out too. Some minutes later a helicopter hovered over the area, "like they were looking for something."

She drew a silver-grey craft with a zigzag design, resting on three blocks. MUFON Ontario said it matched a drawing in the Guardian package, one she said she had never seen. A second witness, known as "Sarah," said the object landed on the road in front of her house and two beings came out. According to Bruce Maccabee, she passed two polygraph tests.

In October 1991 a VHS tape reached CUFORN, labelled "GUARDIAN" and bearing a single thumbprint. It showed a clump of bright lights beside four red flares or fires in barrels. Philip J. Klass saw "the silhouette of a saucer-shaped object with a flashing blue strobe light surrounded by what appears to be smoking flames." Three frames showed a pair of windshield wipers. A version sent to Bob Oechsler in February 1992 added a closer shot and stills of Grey aliens.

In May 1992 Oechsler, CUFORN and MUFON Ontario took soil and plant samples. They found excess titanium in plant material bearing black residue, but no detectable strontium. Oechsler and Maccabee argued this ruled out red military flares. Then the RCMP stepped in. Constable Dennis De Haitre found signs reading "Defence Canada," "Killing Fields" and "Test Area" linked to the Labanek property. He noted that "the lettering-style on the signs was similar to those in the Guardian documents." Three Transport Canada experts reportedly thought the object was probably a Sikorsky S-76 or UH-60 helicopter. Maccabee disputed this.

MUFON Ontario called the case a probable hoax. Labanek had described details from over 2,200 ft away that the closer video does not show. The filmed craft was red, not silver-grey. Oechsler later wrote of lithium carbonate, used in expensive fireworks or perhaps roadside emergency flares. Others suggested a truck in a field surrounded by road flares. Investigators were pointed to Bobby Charlebois, a local man said to use the name "Guardian." He denied it. Nothing was proven. Leonard Stringfield raised the possibility of deliberate disinformation.

On 3 February 1993, Unsolved Mysteries took the tape to a national audience. In 2021 the CBC documentary "UFO Town" returned to Carp with author Ian Rogers, a 16-year-old investigator in 1991. His conclusion was that everyone but Oechsler believes it was a hoax. Guardian has never been identified.