Taylor told friends that he had telepathy with aliens and often dreamed about them taking him away.

On the stormy night of November 29, 1980, 32-year-old Granger Taylor left a letter to his parents informing him that he boarded an alien spacecraft and began a 42-month journey to the stars.

That night, Taylor and his pickup truck disappeared. The last time he was seen was at Bob’s Grill restaurant in the evening.

Family and police searched for Taylor for months but found no clues. The back door of Taylor’s house was left unlocked for nearly four years, in case he unexpectedly returned.

Taylor left a “will”, writing that he left all his assets to his family including a bank account containing $10,000. In this document, Taylor does not use the word “passed away” but uses the word “leave”.

Taylor grew up in Duncan, British Columbia, Canada and demonstrated a natural ability with machines. In the 8th grade, he dropped out of school to work at a local mechanic shop and by the age of 14 was able to restore a one-cylinder car. At age 17, Taylor overhauled a bulldozer that many seasoned mechanics had deemed unusable.

In 1969, Taylor “revived” a locomotive that had been abandoned near the forest since the Great Depression (a period of global economic depression from 1929 to the end of the 1930s). It is on display at the British Columbia Forest Discovery Center. One of Taylor’s most outstanding achievements was the restoration of a P-40 Kitty Hawk aircraft from the World War II era. In 1981, a collector bought it for $20,000.

“I think he’s a genius,” said Robert Keller, a friend who helped Taylor restore the Kitty Hawk.

But regular planes, ships and cars are not enough to satisfy Taylor’s passion. He informed Keller of his plans to build his own spaceship. Taylor then spent months building a life-sized model of the spacecraft from parts collected from the local landfill.

Nearly a month before he disappeared, Taylor told friend Bob Nielson he had come into contact with aliens. “He said he had telepathy with someone from another galaxy. Taylor couldn’t see them but they spoke to him through his mind.”

“Taylor often dreams of aliens coming to take him away,” Keller said. Taylor seems to believe that aliens have chosen him to carry out a great cause – something far beyond anything Taylor could accomplish on Earth.

In 1986, six years after Taylor disappeared, pickup truck debris and human bones were found at the scene of an explosion at Mount Prevost. The pieces of fabric mixed in among the pile of rotting materials were confirmed by Taylor’s mother to be from her son’s shirt. The pickup truck was also identified by police as Taylor’s car.

The coroner concluded that Taylor was dead, but some people believe that Taylor was actually taken by aliens or kidnapped by the US government to work at Area 51 – the mysterious US base that is the focus. of many conspiracy theories about aliens.

On the night Taylor disappeared, Duncan was hit by a bad storm. Taylor once told Keller that aliens can come when the weather is bad, because doing so gives them cover to avoid the attention of Earth people.

Others believe that Taylor faked her death to start a new life somewhere like South America. However, if he did so, why did he leave his family $10,000?

A more realistic theory is that Granger Taylor committed suicide by using explosives. The family said Taylor had psychological problems and had regularly used the hallucinogenic drug LSD in the months before his disappearance. He also has a lot of experience using explosives.

“Taylor did some great things but he also faced many challenges. He couldn’t face those challenges so he took his own life,” said Joseph, Taylor’s half-brother.

Keller does not believe Taylor committed suicide. He also questioned the authenticity of the evidence. Police say the car was discovered to be blue but Taylor’s car was pink. “It was me and a friend who helped him paint it,” Keller said. “What they found on the mountain was not Taylor’s car. They also didn’t know for sure whether it was Taylor’s bones or not.”

What happened to Granger Taylor that stormy night in the fall of 1980 remains a mystery, but what is clear is that the event was a tragedy for those who loved Taylor. For years, Taylor’s parents kept their son’s bedroom as if he had never left.

“It’s hard for me to believe that Taylor was on a spaceship, but if there was an unidentified flying object out there, Taylor must have been the one connected to it,” Taylor’s father, Jim, said.