What happened
Late on 4 October 1967, after a night of odd lights reported by an Air Canada crew over Quebec, a fishing captain off Sambro and callers in Halifax, 17-year-old Laurie Wickens and four friends driving along Highway 3 saw a row of lights flashing in sequence descend and hit the water off the fishing village of Shag Harbour. Other residents described a whistling like a falling bomb, a whoosh and a bang. Wickens phoned the RCMP, who were already taking similar calls. Constables reached the shore within minutes and saw a light floating offshore, drifting with the tide before it sank. Fishermen and a Coast Guard cutter searched and found a wide band of bubbling yellowish foam, but no survivors or wreckage. Rescue Coordination Centre Halifax confirmed no aircraft were missing and, ruling out flares and other known objects, labelled it a UFO report. Royal Canadian Navy divers searched the seabed for several days and reported finding nothing.
The official explanation
No agency ever identified the object. Rescue Coordination Centre Halifax discounted aircraft, flares and floats, and the Navy's dive search found no debris. The Condon Committee took telephone statements from the Maritime Command and RCMP and closed its file without a conclusion. Skeptics have suggested a bright meteor or bolide falling near the coast, or a misjudged aircraft or flare dropped at sea, though none was matched to the time and place.
The anomalous case
This is one of the rare UFO cases where government agencies wrote 'UFO' in their own records at the time. According to CBC, an October 6 memo by Colonel W.W. Turner, director of operations at National Defence headquarters, recorded that rescue authorities had ruled out an aircraft, flares, floats or any other known object. The RCAF's UFO desk recommended an underwater search, and its chief told the Halifax Chronicle-Herald this was one of the few reports where they might get something concrete. RCMP officers, not just civilians, watched a light on the water, and searchers reported a large patch of yellow foam. Researcher Chris Styles notes local weekly papers recorded claims that debris was brought up, despite the Navy's statement that nothing was found.
The strongest argument that this was something genuinely unknown or classified, with each claim attributed to the person who made it.
Documents
- Condon Report, Case 34: Canadian Naval Maritime Command report, files.ncas.org
Sources
- Shag Harbour UFO incident Wikipedia
- The man who phoned in Canada's most famous UFO sighting became the face of the mystery CBC News
- Scientific Study of Unidentified Flying Objects (Condon Report), Case 34 University of Colorado / NCAS online edition
Witness reports elsewhere
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