‘You can see fighter jets chasing some of these UFOs’: Vancouver liquidator to auction off decades of research

A Vancouver liquidator is preparing to auction off what he calls one of the most unusual collections he has ever handled: decades of research material on UFOs, alleged extraterrestrial encounters and declassified government documents.

Jeff Schwarz, the owner of East Vancouver’s Direct Liquidation, says the shipment stands out, even among the eclectic items that pass through his warehouse.

“I’ve been doing this for 40 years, I get all kinds of stuff,” said Schwarz. “Anything and everything that you could possibly think of. Getting something like this – I would say it’s probably in the top one, if not the top one.”

Where it came from

The archive comes from California producer Chris Wyatt, who made multiple documentaries on UFOs in the ‘90s. Wyatt says he became “Hollywood’s de facto UFO producer” while gathering thousands of pages of documents, testimony and photographs for his work.

The collection includes interviews, purported evidence of government investigations and a photo archive said to show alleged UFO sightings from around the world, many taken long before digital editing tools existed.

“You can see fighter jets chasing some of these UFOs,” Schwarz said, while browsing through a photo album culled from images captured primarily in the ‘80s and ‘90s.

The centrepiece of the collection

One of the most unusual and potentially valuable pieces is a yearbook from Roswell Air Force Base in New Mexico, where the remains of an alleged crashed UFO were said to have been taken in 1947. Wyatt says copies of the yearbook were confiscated at the time.

“The military ordered all of the yearbooks from 1947 to be turned in and destroyed,” he said. “The reason why was they knew that the press was going to come from around the world, and they’d certainly want the yearbook to be able to go in and start interviewing all of the military officers who were there.”

Wyatt says he obtained the copy that’s part of the collection from a former officer, who insisted on passing it on before he died.

“This gentleman was on an oxygen tank,” Wyatt said. “He said, ‘I don’t have long to live. This is my prized possession, and I think you’re the guy to own it.’”

Wyatt says he paid handsomely for the yearbook and expects it will be the most lucrative item in the auction next month.

“I’d be surprised if it sold for less than $100,000,” he said.

Wyatt has since stepped away from filmmaking and hopes the all the material will be purchased by a production company interested in continuing the investigation.

Piquing paranormal interest

Mike McCune, the operations manager at Direct Liquidation, says the collection has already sparked considerable discussion in the city long associated with UFO lore after providing the filming location for The X-Files.

“Everybody seems to have a story,” McCune said. “I ended up talking to a guy and he’s like me and my dad saw one when I was a kid. And, you know, we never talked about it because we didn’t want people to think we were crazy.”

The collection is expected to go to auction next month.