St. Paul is home to the world's first UFO landing pad, built as a centennial project in an effort to attract both tourists and Martians to the municipality. The pad consists of a raised platform with a map of Canada embossed on the back stop, consisting of stones provided by each province of Canada.
On June 3, 1967, Paul Hellyer, Minister of National Defense, flew in by helicopter to officially open the Pad.
Next year (2017) the UFO landing pad will turn 50. On is 45th anniversary, in 2012, the National Post ran an article on the landing pad, investigating whether it was still the popular attraction it was when first dedicated in 1967. It turns out that it is, still drawing tens of thousands of tourists annually, outdrawing anything and everything for many miles around. Read a bit of the National Post article further below. Forty Nine years have gone by without a single documented landing at the site by a UFO...
The sign beside the pad reads: "The area under the World's First UFO Landing Pad was designated international by the Town of St. Paul as a symbol of our faith that mankind will maintain the outer universe free from national wars and strife. That future travel in space will be safe for all intergalactic beings, all visitors from earth or otherwise are welcome to this territory and to the Town of St. Paul."
In the 1990s Mayor Paul Langevin officially opened an adjacent UFO tourist information centre to welcome visitors. As you enter St. Paul from the West, drop in to visit this landmark and see the UFO exhibit downstairs. This is an opportunity to view actual photographs of UFOs, crop circles and cattle mutilations. The exhibit is designed to educate. A UFO Hotline complements the display with reports of UFO sightings and encounters of all kinds.
Ready and waiting: Alberta town built world’s first UFO landing pad 45 years ago
Jen Gerson | August 7, 2012 8:59 PM ET
ST. PAUL, Alta. — Everyone wants to see something unique.
“They travel to Glendon for perogy,” says Glenn Andersen, mayor of St. Paul, Alta. Glendon has a 27-foot statue of the Ukrainian dumpling pierced by a fork.
Ellen Cartier chimes in: “Mundare has the kielbasa.” It’s home to the world’s largest garlic sausage.
“Then they have the duck in Andrew and the Goose in Hanna. You go in there and it’s an identity for the community,” Mr. Andersen says.
“And Vilna has mushrooms,” Ms. Cartier adds.
“Vilna has mushrooms, yes,” the mayor agrees.
Everyone in Alberta loves giant statues of food, it’s true. But St. Paul — a town of about 5,000 resting between Edmonton and the Saskatchewan border — well, it has something really special.
The pale green paint is a little cracked and ne’er-do-wells seem to have chipped away some of the stones that once depicted a map of Canada. The Star Trek-like curves that would have marked the apogee of futuristic style look anything but, now. However, the 130-tonne landmark of concrete and steel can still draw a crowd like nothing else for 200 km in any direction — and maybe much, much further.
That’s because St. Paul is home to the first-ever UFO landing pad, a monument that turned 45 years old this year.
When it opened in 1967, it was a Big Deal.
Read more at the National Post