He left a note explaining exactly where he was going. Decades later, nobody's entirely sure whether to believe it.
A Childhood Marked by Loss, and an Unusual Gift
Granger Ormond Taylor was born October 7, 1948, in Duncan, a small logging and fishing town on Vancouver Island, British Columbia. His biological father drowned in an accident at the family's cabin when Granger was an infant. His mother, Grace, later remarried a widower named Jim Taylor, and Granger grew up alongside seven siblings, both biological and step.
From early on, it was clear Granger had an unusual mind. He dropped out of school after eighth grade but turned out to be an extraordinarily gifted, entirely self-taught mechanic — restoring old vehicles, hauling an abandoned steam locomotive out of the forest to rebuild it, and even reconstructing a World War II Kittyhawk fighter plane in his backyard, which he eventually sold to a collector. He was big and physically strong, but by most accounts gentle and shy in temperament, and well-liked by neighborhood kids, many of whom he mentored, teaching them the basics of mechanics and machinery. There was never any indication of impropriety in those relationships — friends and family alike describe him as a genuinely trusted, generous presence in his small community, despite being notably reserved with adults.
A Growing Obsession With Space
By the late 1970s, Granger's interests had shifted toward science fiction, UFOs, and the possibility of alien contact. He began telling friends he believed he was in telepathic communication with extraterrestrials. With help from local kids who came to watch him work, he scavenged two satellite dishes from the town dump and built a cylindrical, stilted structure at the edge of his parents' garden — decorated with a lightning-bolt design and a porthole-style window, furnished inside with a wood stove, a couch, and a television. He stocked it with science fiction novels and books on UFOs and spent much of 1979 and 1980 there, reading and thinking.
In October 1980, Granger told two younger friends, Bob Keller and Bob Nielsen, that aliens had invited him on a journey through the Milky Way. He declined to bring either of them along, telling them they had too much to leave behind on Earth. He said the aliens planned to arrive on a stormy night, so their ship wouldn't be seen.
The Night He Vanished
On November 29, 1980, a historic storm — described by local newspapers as the storm of the century — hit the Cowichan Valley, knocking down trees and cutting power across the region. That evening, Granger stopped at Bob's Grill, a diner he frequented, around 6:30 p.m. Sometime after, he drove toward Mount Prevost, a peak overlooking the valley not far from his family's farm.
Around 8 p.m., residents near the base of the mountain reported hearing a loud boom — not quite consistent, some said, with the sound of thunder from the storm.
Granger's family found a note tacked to his bedroom door later that day. It read, in part: "I have gone away to walk aboard an alien spaceship, 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." Attached was a hand-drawn map and instructions for accessing his finances. He had also gone through his own will beforehand and made two specific edits: crossing out the word "funeral" and replacing "death" with "departure."
Granger's father later reported that a significant quantity of dynamite, which the family was licensed to keep on their property for land-clearing work, had gone missing the same night. Granger was experienced and skilled with explosives.
A Search That Found Nothing, for Years
Police and Granger's family searched for months without finding any trace of him. His family kept their porch light on and their gate unlocked for years afterward, hoping he might return. They never held a funeral.
On June 29, 1983 — the date Granger's note had implied he might come back, 42 months after his disappearance — his stepbrother Douglas, who worked for the Canadian Coast Guard, spent half the night on his patrol boat scanning the sky.
What Was Found on the Mountain
In March 1986, nearly six years after Granger disappeared, forestry workers came across an overgrown blast site on a remote service road near Mount Prevost — a crater roughly 600 feet across, with vehicle wreckage, shrapnel embedded high in surrounding trees, and fragments driven deep into the soil.
Police confirmed the vehicle identification number on the wreckage matched Granger's Datsun pickup truck. A search dog recovered fragmented human bones, including a left arm bone, along with a torn piece of fabric Grace Taylor identified as part of a shirt she'd made for her son.
DNA testing wasn't widely available at the time, but pathology analysis attributed the bones to Granger. A coroner's report formally listed his cause of death as massive injuries consistent with an explosion, based on the circumstantial evidence at the scene, and recorded his date of death as November 30, 1980 — the day after he disappeared.
A Mystery That's Never Fully Settled
Despite the coroner's findings, Granger's case has never reached full consensus, even among people close to it. Some have pointed to the timing of his family's request to have him declared legally dead — filed just two months before the crater was discovered — and questioned whether the missing dynamite, only formally reported in 1985, fit cleanly into the official account. Others have floated theories involving government relocation or witness protection, though none of these have any supporting evidence.
The most widely accepted explanation among researchers who've studied the case closely is also the simplest, and the saddest: that Granger, isolated, likely experiencing some combination of depression, possible substance use, and a deep need for purpose and meaning he felt he couldn't find in his own community, came to genuinely believe he had been chosen for something larger than his life in Duncan — and ultimately died in a self-inflicted explosion on that mountainside, framed by a note designed to soften the truth for the people who loved him.
A 2019 CBC documentary, Spaceman, revisited the case in depth, interviewing friends and family and presenting new photographs and material, while deliberately steering clear of the more speculative conspiracy theories that have circulated online over the years.
Granger Taylor would be in his late seventies today. His case remains one of the most enduring unsolved mysteries associated with Vancouver Island — not because of any real doubt about what likely happened, but because of how genuinely strange, and quietly tragic, the full story still is.
Sources
B.C.'s Granger Taylor left a note saying he was boarding an alien spaceship — then he disappeared — CBC Docs POV
https://www.cbc.ca/documentaries/b-c-s-granger-taylor-left-a-note-saying-he-was-boarding-an-alien-spaceship-then-he-disappeared-1.7590847
What happened to Granger Taylor? — Victoria Times Colonist
https://www.timescolonist.com/islander/what-happened-to-granger-taylor-4669648
Granger Taylor: The Spaceman of Vancouver Island — Mysteries of Canada
https://mysteriesofcanada.com/bc/granger-taylor-the-spaceman-of-vancouver-island/
The Man Who Went to Space and Disappeared — Vice
https://www.vice.com/en/article/the-man-who-went-to-space-and-disappeared-the-story-of-granger-taylor/