Near Vancouver, British Columbia, 1912 — a round machine with a glass cabin landed on Abram Penner's father's farm. Several small entities emerged. One examined the six-year-old boy's body and admired his hands. Communication was telepathic. His father told him never to speak of it. Source: URECAT-001135. Case status: Insufficient Data.
THINK ABOUTIT UFO | UAP | ENTITY ENCOUNTER REPORT
1912: Contact Near Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
In 1912 on a farm near Vancouver, British Columbia, a six-year-old boy named Abram Penner watched a round machine — something like a helicopter with a glass cabin — land on his father’s property. Small figures came out. One of them felt his body. They admired his hands and told him, without speaking aloud, that his hands were different from theirs. Their hands were different. Their feet were round. Their legs were short. They had no knees. They had no elbows. They operated on mind power. He understood everything they said. His father told him never to tell anyone. He didn’t — not for decades. When he finally wrote it down, the account went into the URECAT catalog and stayed there. The archive holds it here.
Date: 1912 — exact date unknown
Sighting Time: Insufficient Data — not recorded in available source
Day/Night: Insufficient Data — not recorded in available source
Location: Near Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada — farm property, exact location not recorded
Urban or Rural: Rural — farm
No. of Entity(‘s): Several — exact number not recorded
Entity Type: Small humanoid — non-human; described as space men by the witness in his written account
Entity Description: Small in stature. Round feet. Short legs. No knees. No elbows. Hands different from human hands — the entities specifically noted and admired the witness’s hands in comparison to their own. Communicated without speech — operated on mind power; the six-year-old witness stated he understood everything they said without verbal communication. One entity physically examined the witness’s body by touch. Demeanor described as curious and non-threatening — they admired rather than harmed. No clothing description recorded in available source.
Hynek Classification: CE-III (Close Encounter III) — close observation of animate non-human beings associated with a landed craft; physical contact between entity and witness; telepathic communication reported
Duration: Insufficient Data — not recorded in available source; long enough for physical examination, communication, and the witness to observe multiple entity characteristics in detail
No. of Object(s): 1
Description of the Object(s): Round machine described by the witness as something like a helicopter; equipped with a glass cabin; landed on the farm property; round in shape; no propulsion description recorded
Shape of Object(s): Round
Size of Object(s): Sufficient to carry several small occupants with a glass cabin — exact dimensions not recorded
Color of Object(s): Insufficient Data — not recorded in available source
Distance to Object(s): Ground level — landed on farm; entities exited and made direct physical contact with witness; distance zero at point of physical examination
Height & Speed: Ground level at time of encounter; arrived and departed by flight; speed and altitude not recorded
Number of Witnesses: 1 primary — Abram Penner, age approximately six at time of encounter; account written down by Penner in adulthood; father also present on the property — told son never to speak of the event
Special Features/Characteristics: Witness was a child of approximately six years at time of encounter — account recorded in adulthood from memory; telepathic communication confirmed by witness — entities operated on mind power and witness understood their meaning without spoken language; physical examination of witness by entity — one entity felt his body; comparative anatomy observation — entities noted difference between their hands and human hands; father’s suppression instruction — the witness was specifically told never to tell anyone, suggesting the father witnessed or was aware of the event and considered it significant enough to require silence; the account entered the URECAT catalog, indicating it was evaluated and retained as a credible historical CE-III report
Case Status: Insufficient Data — single witness, account recorded decades after the event; no corroborating physical evidence documented; the telepathic communication and anatomical detail are internally consistent and specific enough to distinguish this from confabulation but primary source verification is not possible
Source: URECAT-001135
Summary/Description: In 1912 on a farm near Vancouver, British Columbia, a round machine with a glass cabin landed on the property of Abram Penner’s father. Penner, approximately six years old at the time, encountered several small non-human entities who physically examined him, admired his hands, and communicated with him telepathically. He understood everything they conveyed. The entities had round feet, short legs, no knees, and no elbows. His father instructed him never to speak of the event. Penner recorded the account in writing in adulthood. The case entered the URECAT catalog as case number 001135.
Related Cases: 1909: West Hobart Tasmania Luminous Figure | 1912: Australian Humanoid Sighting, Currockbilly Range | Canadian Sightings Archive | Telepathic Contact Cases Archive
Detailed Report
The Round Machine With A Glass Cabin — Near Vancouver, British Columbia, 1912 Source: URECAT-001135
In 1912, on an unknown date and time, a round machine described as something like a helicopter, with a glass cabin, landed at the farm of the father of Abram Penner — then approximately six years old.
Several small occupants were present. Penner wrote in his own account: One man felt my body; they admired my hands. They have different hands than we do; they have round feet, short legs, no knees, and no elbows. They operate on mind power; I understood what they said.
His father told him never to tell anyone.
Penner eventually recorded the account in writing. It entered the URECAT catalog as case 001135.
RESEARCHER’S NOTES
The Round Machine With A Glass Cabin — Vancouver Farm 1912 and the Childhood Contact Case as Archive Evidence
- The Anatomical Detail as Credibility Marker: The specific physical description Penner recorded — round feet, short legs, no knees, no elbows — is not the kind of detail a fabricated account reaches for. A fabrication in the early 20th century, drawing on available science fiction or folklore, would produce large heads, strange eyes, unusual skin. The absence of standard joints — no knees, no elbows — is a precise anatomical observation that implies close physical proximity and attentive looking by a child who noticed what was different rather than what was dramatic. The detail is counterintuitive as invention and entirely consistent with a child’s focused observational report of something genuinely unusual about the bodies in front of him.
- Telepathic Communication — Pre-Modern Contact Pattern: The witness’s statement that the entities operated on mind power and that he understood everything they said without verbal communication places this case in a specific contact pattern that appears across multiple pre-modern CE-III accounts in the archive. The 1897 wave entities communicated verbally. The Vancouver entities communicated without speech — and a six-year-old child understood them. The archive notes that telepathic or non-verbal communication is documented in CE-III cases across multiple continents and multiple decades, and that its appearance in a 1912 account written by a witness who would have had no framework for that concept beyond his own experience is analytically significant.
- The Father’s Instruction — Suppression as Corroboration: Penner’s father told him never to tell anyone. This instruction is the most analytically underappreciated element of the case. A father who dismissed what his six-year-old son described as a dream or a fantasy does not tell the child to keep quiet about it. A father who told his child never to speak of the event had a reason to want silence — which means the father had knowledge of or direct experience with whatever had landed on his property. The suppression instruction is not a minor domestic detail. It is evidence of a second adult witness who assessed the event as real and significant enough to require permanent secrecy.
- Source Chain — URECAT and the Childhood Retrospective Account: URECAT (UFO Related Entities Catalog) is a systematic database of entity encounter cases maintained by researchers working from multiple international sources. Case 001135 represents an account written by the witness in adulthood from childhood memory — a category with known limitations including memory distortion, narrative accretion, and contamination from later exposure to UFO literature. These limitations are acknowledged. They do not invalidate the case. The anatomical specificity, the telepathic communication detail, the father’s suppression order, and the round machine with a glass cabin described in 1912 before the concept of a helicopter was culturally established in rural British Columbia all argue toward a genuine experiential account rather than a confabulated one.
A round machine with a glass cabin landed on a farm near Vancouver in 1912 and a six-year-old boy stood close enough to one of its occupants to have his hands admired and his body examined. His father told him to say nothing. He said nothing for decades. When he finally wrote it down the account went into a catalog and stayed there. The archive holds it here — not as proof of what landed on that farm, but as the record of what one witness observed, remembered, and eventually could not keep silent about any longer.
