On October 7th, 1948, in Duncan, British Columbia, near Vancouver the world welcomed Granger Taylor. Though quickly into his life, tragedy struck the family. His father drowned in Horne Lake during the family’s vacation at their cabin.
Granger was just an infant.
By the time he was two years old, his mother would remarry a man named Jim Taylor. Jim had children of his own, Granger grew up with 7 siblings: three biological, three step-siblings, and one half-brother.
Granger’s mother and stepfather knew Granger was different from a young age. He was much more withdrawn and tended to lack social skills. Though what he lacked… He made up for it with his extraordinary intelligence and understanding of mechanics.
He strongly desired to take things apart and put them back together. Granger would spend hours alone dismantling toys to understand how they worked.
Unfortunately, Granger showed very little interest in school and would drop out after the 8th grade. His neighbor, an auto mechanic, would allow Granger to work as an apprentice. Granger decided after a one-year-long apprenticeship, that he had learned the necessary skills for him to work on his own. He would go on to create a shop on his parent’s property which bordered a forest.
Granger would work the days away on many of his own very unconventional projects. Some of these projects he would sell to collectors for large amounts of money.
By the age of 14 Granger had built a single-cylinder automobile.
Three years later, Granger had found an abandoned bulldozer and rebuilt it. The machine had been dismissed by professionals and deemed
as unsalvageable.
By the time Granger reached his twenties, he rebuilt a locomotive. It had been abandoned in a nearby forest and trees were growing through the chassis. It took only two years for Granger to rebuild it to working order.
Once it was functional, he laid tracks throughout his parent’s yard and would offer neighborhood children rides in it. Granger and his workspace had become a local attraction, those around him were in awe of his skills.
During the time he worked on the locomotive, a strange occurrence took place at the Cowichan District Hospital.
It was 5:00 am on New Year’s Eve of 1969. Four nurses were tending to her geriatric patients on this night shift and all stated they saw an extremely lit-up, but silent flying saucer hovering outside the the third story near the children’s wing of the hospital.
The first nurse to have seen the UFO, Doreen Kendall, would state that the craft’s cockpit window was transparent and she saw two pilots standing in the cockpit.
Neither appeared to be human.
The other three nurses claimed to have just watched in wonder and amazement as the UFO floated away into some trees before shooting off into the night sky.
After this sighting, there were many reported sightings from citizens all throughout the area. School teachers and even a Royal Canadian Naval Air Service pilot reported seeing the same UFO.
For months after no one could talk about anything else.
This must have piqued Granger’s curiosity. As he had found a fuselage, engine, partial cockpit, and some landing gear in the nearby woods. He used photographs as a guide and rebuilt the entire plane.
The plane was a WWII P40 Kitty Hawk.
Within two years, Granger’s rebuilt Kitty Hawk was ready for the air. Though he would be unable to fly it without an airstrip for take-off.
Anxious to get it in the air, Granger installed restraint bars on the back of the craft to then chain it to a tree. He powered up the engine, used the flaps, and was able to elevate the craft and hold it to hover.
He eventually sold the plane to a private collector and earned $20,000
By the 1970s, Granger focused his attention on how flying saucers worked. He began construction of his flying saucer. He began the project by building a structure the size and shape of a UFO, this would also become his private office. Building his UFO from two abandoned radio tower satellite dishes, erecting them on stilts and decorating the sides of the metallic structure with lightning bolts and port-like windows.
Since this UFO was his private office, he added a couch, TV, and wood-burning stove and stocked it full of his books, science fiction novels, and pseudoscientific books about UFOs. During his time in his private UFO-shaped office, he researched UFO propulsion.
From 1970 to 1980, Granger spent all his time in his UFO-shaped office in the backyard of his parent’s home. During this period of research, Granger claimed to have been contacted by extraterrestrials.
Granger had also taken under his wing a local teen. Robert Keller. Granger shared the extraterrestrial contact with Robert. He explained that the extraterrestrials contacted him telepathically and to facilitate more contact he created a radio for them to continue to contact him.
Granger would go on to have multiple conversations with the extraterrestrials. Focusing on his questions regarding the propulsion of their crafts. Though he claimed they never explained anything more than it had to do with magnetism.
By October of 1980, Granger shared with his friends Bob Nielsen and Robert Keller that the aliens had now invited him to come along on a trip with them through the Galaxy.
His friends had a hard time believing the story, but they didn’t not, not believe it either. They both felt if anyone would be chosen from Earth to tour the galaxy, it would be Granger.
Granger explained to them they couldn’t come along as they had too much on Earth to leave behind, but he would be picked up by the extraterrestrials soon. It would be on a rainy night so no one else would be able to see their ship.
On November 29th, 1980, the town of Duncan experienced a large storm, with a torrential downpour, strong winds, thunder, and lightning. Before the storm reached its peak around 6 pm, Granger had a meal at Bob’s Grill, a place he frequented. The waitress would later say he was wearing his usual clothing, jeans, boots, and a sweater. Around 6:30 pm he paid for his meal and was seen driving away in his 1972 light blue Datsun pickup.
Granger Taylor was never seen again.
The next day, while the town of Duncan battled the aftermath of this large storm, clearing roads of debris and trees and taking in the damage, Granger’s parents discovered a note left by Granger.
His stepfather Jim Taylor found the note taped to him and his wife’s bedroom door.
The letter read:
“Dear Mother and Father,
“I have gone away to walk aboard an alien ship, as recurring dreams assured a 42-month interstellar voyage to explore the vast universe, then return.
“I am leaving behind all my possessions to you as I will no longer require the use of any. Please use the instructions in my will as a guide to help.
Love, Granger”
On the back of his note, there was a hand-drawn map that led to Waterloo Mountain, which was about 10 miles southwest of his home.
Jim Taylor and his other children searched for Granger. They checked in with hospitals, exploring back-logging roads in the area, but Granger was nowhere to be found.
When reviewing Granger’s will they noticed he had changed the word, “deceased” to “departed”.
Years went by with no traces of Granger or his truck. Though he stated in his note he would be gone for this 42-month tour of the galaxy, so on June 29th, 1983, Granger’s stepbrother, Douglas Taylor who was employed by the Canadian Coast Guard, sat on the deck of his patrol boat for half the night, hoping to spot any sign of Granger or an alien spacecraft.
Six years after Granger disappeared, in April 1986, a city work crew found an artificial crater near Mount Prevost Road; this mountain area overlooks the northwestern area of Duncan. Scattered around the crater were pieces of what had once been a truck. Authorities investigated and found what eventually proved to be human bone shards near the crater.
While it’s believed to be the bones of Granger Taylor, it has never been confirmed as DNA was not strong in its form at that time.
What do you think happened to Granger? Did he get picked up by aliens? Or do we leave this to the realms of the unexplained?
