June 16, 1979. 5:00 pm
Mississauga, Canada
Traven Manchett and his daughter Donna are in their backyard, doing backyard stuff. Suddenly, a perfectly cylindrical, burning UFO crashlands on their picknick table. The Manchetts are shocked, but Donna shows some presence of mind and extinguishes the UFO with a garden hose. What is left is a “a flat, dark green rock, 8 inches in diameter with a fibrous, “pock-marked” texture.”
Excited about the first contact with aliens, at least in their lives, Traven calls the Toronto airport, a Canadian military base, the University of Toronto and the Ontario Science Center. But none of the institutions offer an explanation or admit any contact with aliens or UFOs.
Traven is disappointed by the lack of reaction to his discovery and finally resolves that the world needs to know the truth.
Mississauga, looking inconspicuous.
June 27, 1979
Traven finally reached someone who would listen and on this day, an article appeared in the Toronto Sun, finally attracting all the attention the topic deserved. The story was published worldwide and set devastating events in action.
As a reaction to the story, the Ontario Ministry of the Environment sent an inspector to the Manchetts. An inspector, I personally imagine like Ichabod Crane. In meticulous legwork, the inspector, together with the police, questioned friends, families, neighbours and everybody else they could get their hands on.
And this is what they found: [buckle up!]
[T]he object was a “flaming Frisbee” thrown into their yard as a prank.
kalafudra's Stuff 
Wow, and I thought it was real too.
Made me laugh.
Anna :)
Glad, I could make you laugh :)
I know I laughed when I first read it.
Great story – I stumbled upon this on wikipedia, and later found your posting as well – I actually remember this and the wiki story served as a sort of memory trigger for me. Of course this all happened in the pre-internet age, and the story would have taken longer to get out, and perhaps even longer to finally have it debunked by officials. This left lots of time for some fantastical speculation in my child brain!
Yeah, today there’s probably be a billion blogs claiming to have been in contact with the aliens from the burning frisbees within minutes.
And then there’d be some serious debunking nobody would listen to. ;)