UFO Landing Pad (St. Paul, Alberta)

UFO Landing Pad
Photo by Al Hunt

Located in the center of the northeast region of Alberta, the St. Paul town motto “A People Kind of Place!” seems strangely out of tune with the fact that they have the Official World’s First UFO Landing Pad. On the Corner of 50th Avenue and 53rd Street, the unique parking place specially reserved for extraterrestrial visitors was built in 1967 to celebrate Canada’s centennial but has been attracting and delighting more earthlings than anything else.

Jules Van Brabant, St. Paul mayor at the time is credited with the idea for the UFO landing pad, but it would not have possible without the the help of local business owners who donated the concrete and steel materials, and a local designer that developed the blueprint. And though it was created to serve as much as a town landmark than it was for official spacecraft parking, the UFO Landing Pad has nonetheless been officially recognized by the Canadian government.

Technically considered an “Official UFO landing welcome site”, the large flat concrete structure weighs just a bit more than 130 tons and contains a time capsule to be opened on the 100-year anniversary of the pad’s opening in 2067. At the rear edge of the pad a large map of Canada is made of stones from each of the provinces and in the 1990s, a flying saucer shaped tourist information center/museum was added to the site.

Featuring an otherworldly collection of “UFO memorabilia”, some of the items on display at the visitors center/museum were originally part of the J. Allen Hynek Center for UFO Studies, an organization founded by a former member of the United States Air Force UFO study called Project Blue Book.

A sign mounted on the pad reads:

Republic of St. Paul (Stargate Alpha).

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.

UFO Landing Pad Facts

  • The UFO landing pad was visited by Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip during their 1978 tour of Canada. Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip’s tour of Canada also included a visit to The World’s Largest Easter Egg (not actually the world’s largest…) in Vegreville.
  • On June 3, 1967, Canadian Minister of National Defence, Paul Hellyer, flew in by helicopter to officially open the Pad.
  • The site now includes a tourist information center, an exhibit of UFO photos, and a gift shop.
  • The concrete landing pad holds the Guinness World Record for the first UFO landing pad ever built.
  • The pad was one of over 100 Centennial Projects organized by the town.
  • UFO memorabilia at the center includes photographs of landing sites, crop circles, and other unexplained phenomena.
  • The St. Paul center maintains a toll-free hotline for people to report extraterrestrial sightings. The number is 1-888-See-UFOs (1-888-733-8367).
  • The Landing Pad was mentioned in the George Fox song, Real Canadian Town.