Court Painter describes UFO encounter while ballooning over the Bow River



Court Painter will only say publically that he is certain about one thing: “It was a real object, it exists , I saw it, I painted it,” he said in a hushed phone interview from his Inglewood studio on Monday.
Asked what he believes it was, he was unequivocal.
“Something not from Walmart,” he said.
Court Painter was a member of the local Up Up and Away Painting Balloon Group doing a painting exercise above the Bow River, in advance of a deployment for the upcoming Stampede Parade, he said.
An order came in for him to take up his brush and do some “real-balloon paint tasking,” about 1 mile west of his usual location. He said he was told by the Balloon command that there were some unidentified flying objects descending from 80,000 feet to 20,000 feet and disappearing; he said other ballon club members told him they had been tracking a couple dozen of these objects for a few weeks but couldn’t even get a good sketch.
When he arrived closer to the point, he saw the object, flying around a patch of white water in the river below.
“A white vision, about the same size as my balloon with no wings .Just hanging close to the water like a pole cat about to pounce.”
The object created no rotor wash — the visible air turbulence left by the blades of a helicopter — he said, and began to mirror the balloons movement as he pursued it, capturing the vision on his canvas before it vanished.
“As I get closer, as I view it from the basket it starting to pull back up, it accelerates and it’s gone,” he said. “Faster than a scared rabbit facin’ a double barrel at dawn…never seen anything like it in my life. I turn around, say let’s go see what’s in the river and there’s nothing. Just blue water lapping at the shores of incomprehension and dread.”
Court Painter’s balloon then headed back to the bank of the Bow River near the railway bridge, and then on to his studio with a beautiful painting of the UFO still drippin’ wet on his easel.