Cape Breton's Magazine

AVisit with Wilfred Prosper, Eskasoni In 1955 we had just gotten a new truck, and we were up in Judique, picking blueber? ries , way up in the backwoods there, in the fields. As a matter of fact, I was with the chief, Donald Marshall. Dinner break. We were lying down between a bunch of trees. Donald had his hat like this, o- ver his face, to save himself from the sun--we were lying down--and I didn't. I was just lying there like this, looking up at the sky. And all of a sudden I saw some? thing. I'd heard about them, but I never believed it. This flying saucer thing. And I said, "Donald, look!" Before he could remove his hat, it was gone. Just flying over between the trees. It looked like a saucer, a big saucer. That was the first sighting I saw. I saw this as clear as anything sitting there. It was quite a bit up the sky. It was moving. I didn't know if it was rotating--I didn't see it long enough. I just saw it come out from this tree on this side, and I said to Don? ald, "Look! Look at the saucer!" Donald didn't see it. Before he could look up, it was gone beyond the other trees. 1955. I told people, and I knew what the reaction was going to be. "Oh, baloney!"--that would be the first reaction. I said. To hell with it, what's the sense? Nobody would believe it anyway. Then I saw--we were coming from mass here one Sunday. It was just after mass. There was myself, and this fellow who stayed with us, and my nephew. We were just going into the house when I looked out and I saw what looked like a balloon. But it was a clear--you know, like water colour--what would you call it?--it wasn't coloured--a clear balloon. It was like a bubble, a big bubble, falling from the sky (into the Bras d'Or). And I said, "Look!" And they looked up, and they both saw it. And I'm telling you, boy, we didn't spend long be? fore we decided we'd go up and check what it was. We headed down the shore, we took a couple of pair of oars. And we'd seen where it landed. And we rowed around that spot for a half hour. Never saw a glimpse of anything. (Or anything on the water?) No. But there was a stranger sight than that. This one particular night--it was a moon? lit night. Oh, a beautiful night. Beauti? ful, clear skies--not a cloud in the sky. Except two. And the moon was just across there, above Big Pond. And those two clouds--one was below the moon to the left, one was to the right--both of them were just below the moon. I didn't think any? thing of it. I looked out and I saw those clouds, and I walked away. And it dawned on me. "Isn't that awfully strange?" I said to myself, "Those two clouds could be the same shape." So I looked out again. And sure enough, they were both oval- shaped clouds, exactly the same size, ex? actly the same shape. Then I said to the kids--to the bunch of kids and the wife--I said, "Look out there. Look at those clouds. Don't they look strange? They look exactly the same. Look at them." They went out--all of them--some of them went out to the platform there, some of them were up on the window, look? ing out. They looked at them. And I walked away. And before I walked away, one just disappeared. It just disintegrated, like. And the other one started to move where the other one was. Now, I walked away. But as I walked away, the kids saw--and I be? lieve this, the wife--lights formed around this other, this second cloud. And then it just disappeared. But I never saw it, 'cause I walked away. But the funny thing was that the two clouds were of exact same shape--both oval. I don't know. Being an Indian, boy, you hear all kinds of weird stories. A lot of people say it's mythology; I suppose a lot of it is. Oh, you hear all kinds of queer stories, about ghosts and goblins and what? not. I've never seen people so immersed in things like that, as Indians. (The Scot? tish people seem to have their share.) Yeah, the Scottish people have. (I some? times think it's Cape Breton Island.) I don't know. I've heard some wierd stories. My father had a couple of them. He used to tell about this particular place between Barra Head and St. Peters. He said he and the other fellow were coming home, coming off the train. And they had no way of transportation but walk home in those days--that was a long time ago. He was a young man then. And this fellow happened to be drunk. And he had a few of them, I guess, himself, but he wasn't near as plas? tered as the other fellow. And he said the

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