Canada’s best-documented UFO sighting still intrigues, 50 years on

Last Update: June 20, 2018 at 12:01 pm

Source: Global News
Sept 22, 2017

Canada’s best-documented UFO sighting still intrigues, 50 years on

The first frantic callers to reach the RCMP were clear: something had crashed in the waters off Shag Harbour, N.S.

It was around 11 p.m. on the night of Oct. 4, 1967. Most witnesses thought it was a doomed aircraft.

Among those who saw the string of flashing lights on that clear, moonless night were three RCMP officers, scores of fishermen and airline pilots flying along the province’s rugged southwest coast.

 

But a series of searches turned up nothing. No wreckage. No bodies. No clues as to what really happened that night 50 years ago.

A Halifax-area man later uncovered a trove of government and police records that would make the Shag Harbour incident Canada’s best-documented and most intriguing UFO sighting.

Hundreds of UFO sightings are reported across Canada every year, but none has the paper trail of Shag Harbour.

In a series of RCMP reports and correspondence sent by telex between military officials in Ottawa and Halifax, there are specific references to unidentified flying objects, and no attempts were made to explain away what people were reporting.

 

UFO centre
The Shag Harbour Incident Interpretive Centre is seen in Shag Harbour, N.S. on Saturday, Sept. 16, 2017. On the night of October 4, 1967, Laurie Wickens and four of his friends spotted a large object descending into the waters off the harbour. The object was never officially identified, and was therefore referred to as an unidentified flying object. The 50th anniversary of the event is being marked with a three-day festival.
Andrew Vaughan/ The Canadian Press
LAWRENCE SMITH
Lawrence Smith rests on the wharf in Shag Harbour,N.S. on Wednesday, July 25, 2001. Smith was a 34-year-old fisherman in 1967 when the RCMP called him to help search for what was believed to be an air crash. Residents claim to have seen a mysterious object that glowed orange and landed in the water. The incident has been called one of the most important UFO sightings ever.
Andrew Vaughan/ The Canadian Press

Chris Styles, the UFO researcher who dug up those documents, remains baffled by the case.

“To this day, I don’t know the absolute answer, but we’re still finding things,” says Styles, the author of two books about the Shag Harbour incident.
Next week, on the eve of the 50th anniversary, Styles will be the keynote speaker at the start of the three-day Shag Harbour UFO Festival. After 20-plus years of dogged research, he says he has new evidence to share.

It points to an explanation that hardly seems possible, unless you have a sense of what Styles has uncovered so far.

To be sure, the most compelling evidence comes from eyewitnesses like Laurie Wickens, now a 67-year-old former fisherman.

“There was four (lights) in a row, and they were going on and off,” says Wickens, at the time a 17-year-old driving home to Shag Harbour with a friend and three young women. “One would come on, then two, three and four – and they’d all be off for a second and come back on again.”

Sure he was about to witness an airline disaster, Wickens found a phone booth and called the local RCMP detachment. Questions were asked about his sobriety. But he wasn’t drunk, and he was sure about what he saw.

FULL STORY HERE:  https://globalnews.ca/news/3761270/canadas-best-documented-ufo-sighting-still-intrigues-50-years-on/