The Shag Harbour UFO Incident was the documented impact of an unknown large object into Shag Harbour, Nova Scotia, in October 1967. The impact was investigated by various Canadian government agencies, and at least one underwater search was launched to locate the remains of any associated objects. The Canadian government declared that no known aircraft was involved and the source of the impact remains unknown to this day. It is one of very few cases where governmental agency documents have formally declared an unidentified flying object was involved. Several interviewed military witnesses, including a diver involved in an attempted recovery, have claimed an alien spacecraft was responsible. It was also claimed by several of the witnesses that the U.S. military was involved in recovery attempts. The case was also briefly investigated by the U.S. Condon Committee UFO study, which offered no explanation.

Initial events

On the night of October 4,1967, at about 11:20 p.m. Atlantic Daylight Time, it was reported that something had crashed into the waters near Shag Harbour, on Nova Scotia's South Shore. At least eleven people saw a low-flying lit object head down towards the harbor. Multiple witnesses reported hearing a whistling sound "like a bomb," then a "whoosh," and finally a loud bang. Some reported a flash of light as the object entered the water. Thinking that an airliner or smaller aircraft had crashed into the Sound next to Shag Harbour, some witnesses reported the event to the local Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) detachment.

The unknown flying object was never officially identified, and was therefore referred to as an unidentified flying object (UFO) in Canadian government documents. A Canadian Naval recovery effort immediately followed. The event is sometimes compared to the Roswell UFO incident and Kecksburg UFO incident, two other events alleged to be military crash-recoveries of UFOs.

The initial report was made by Laurie Wickens, a local resident, and four of his friends. Driving through Shag Harbour on Highway 3, they spotted a large object descending into the waters of the harbor.

Attaining a better vantage point, Wickens and his friends saw an object floating 250 to 300 meters out to sea. Visibility was good – clear with no moon. At that time, the object only had a yellow light shining from its top side.

Wickens contacted the RCMP and reported he had seen a large airplane or small airliner crash into the Sound. At first he wasn't believed. However, subsequent calls from other witnesses quickly confirmed Wickens' story. One was from Mary Banks on Maggie Garron's Point reporting similar information. Other residents also called in to report the incident, adding details about loud whistling noises and bangs. Other residents had also seen the descent and agreed the object was about 60 feet long, angled downwards at 45 degrees, and initially displayed four or five flashing and glowing orange lights.

Search and rescue efforts

Assuming an aircraft had crashed, within about 15 minutes, three RCMP officers were at the scene along with multiple other witnesses, and also observed the pale yellow or white light bobbing on the surface of the water. Concerned for survivors, the RCMP contacted the Rescue Coordination Centre (RCC) in Halifax to advise them of the situation, and ask if any aircraft were missing. Before any local effort at rescue could be made, the object started to sink and disappeared from view.

A rescue mission was quickly assembled. Within half an hour of the crash, local fishing boats went out into the Sound to look for survivors. At the location at which the object had sunk, a yellow foam was observed on the surface, about 80 feet wide and half a mile long. No survivors, bodies or debris were located, either by the fishermen or by the Coast Guard vessel, which arrived about an hour later.

By the next morning, the RCC had determined that no planes were missing. Still searching, the captain of the Coast Guard vessel received a message from the RCC that all commercial, private and military aircraft were accounted for along the eastern seaboard from Atlantic Canada down into New England.

The same morning, RCC also sent a Priority Telex to the Canadian military headquarters Air Desk in Ottawa, which handled all civilian and military UFO sightings, informing them of the crash and that all conventional explanations such as aircraft, flares, etc. had been dismissed. Therefore this was labeled a "UFO Report." The head of the Air Desk then sent another Priority Telex to Canadian Maritime Command about the "UFO Report" and recommended an underwater search. Maritime Command in turn sent another Priority Telex tasking the military's Atlantic diving fleet with carrying out the search.

Two days after the crash a team of Navy divers had been assembled, who for the next three days combed the bottom of the harbor looking for the object. One local fisherman said he saw them bringing up aluminum-colored metal, although it was unclear if this had been actual crash debris. The final report said not a trace of the crash object had been found.

Alleged military search near Shelburne

While the official story of the incident ends here, further evidence attributed to various military and civilian witnesses might imply a highly secretive military search involving a small flotilla of U.S. and Canadian ships about 30 miles to the NE of Shag Harbour near Shelburne (see map above), site of a top secret submarine detection base. According to one military witness, he was allegedly briefed that the object had originally been picked up on radar coming out of Siberia. After crashing in Shag Harbour, it traveled underwater up the coast and came to rest on top of the submarine magnetic detection grid near Shelburne, where it was supposedly joined by a second vehicle. Ships were anchored there for a week, according to the witnesses, in an attempt to recover the object. A barge was said to have been brought in from the United States to assist in the recovery, as reported by another military witness. Regional newspaper stories did mention a barge with "atomic furnaces" being brought to Shelburne on October 6 for emergency repair, theorized by some as a cover story to explain its presence there.

One American diver, known only as "Harry" in the book Dark Object by Styles and Ledger, stated that the object wasn't from planet Earth. "Harry" claimed photographs were taken by the divers and some foam-like debris brought up. Another military witness claimed that there were actually two objects, one perhaps trying to assist the other. The naval search was suddenly called off on October 11. That night, a seemingly identical UFO was reported departing the area by witnesses near the original Shag Harbour crash site.

The most recent History Channel documentary about the incident, which aired on August 10, 2006, also reported that one of the divers involved in the Shag Harbour search did come forward during the mid-1990s, refusing to allow his identity to become known publicly. Once the researchers verified that the man in fact had served as a diver during that search, he recounted his version of what had happened at Shag Harbour.

In this recounting, by the time the divers reached Shag Harbour, they already knew that nothing would be found there, because the target had already been located off the coast at Shelburne. He went on to further say that the Canadian military and the United States Navy monitored the "unknown objects" by radar and sonar, and that the objects were underwater. This monitoring continued for at least three days, until a Russian submarine was observed entering allied waters to the north. With that, the navy departed to intercept the submarine, and by the time they had returned, the "unknown objects" had evidently departed.

However, unlike the event at Shag Harbour, no official documentation or confirmation has yet emerged to support witness stories of a second search near Shelburne. There has been nothing to substantiate the diver's claims, with the exception of archived records that indicate a substantial amount of search and monitor activity in the Shelburne area during that 10 day period.

Documents

Today, no known RCMP reports of this sighting remain. However, several other Canadian government documents do mention the event. The first was a "UFO Report" Priority Telex message on the morning of October 5 to CANFORCEHED (Canadian Forces Headquarters) from RCC (Rescue Coordination Center) Halifax, advising that a "UFO" (also referred to as a "dark object") had impacted in Shag Harbour. The report named the RCMP officer in charge as a witness, mentioned six other witnesses, summarized sighting details, and said possible conventional explanations such as aircraft had been ruled out.

This was followed by another Priority message, October 5, "Subject: UFO", was from CANFORCEHED to CANMARCOM (Canadian Maritime Command) and written by the head of the Air Desk. It requested their department investigate the "UFO report" and recommended an underwater search of the area as soon as possible.

CANMARCOM then sent another Priority Telex on October 5 to CANCOMDIVELANT (Fleet Diving Unit Atlantic). It gave instructions for the unit to task out of the Coast Guard station at Shelburne on the cutter HMCS Granby, proceed to Clark's Harbour, and provide a diving officer and 3 divers for a search for the crashed object reported by the RCMP. The latitude and longitude and the approximate distance from the shore were given. The unit was to work with the RCMP officer in charge and be advised by him of the object's likely location. Written in the top right hand corner was the name of the head of the Royal Canadian Air Force Air Desk in Ottawa, then the clearinghouse for all civilian and military UFO reports in Canada. The word "UFO" was printed in capital letters and underlined 3 times.

There is also a less detailed summary of the event from the Canadian Department of National Defence files located in the Canadian National Archives.

Several other RCMP UFO reports from the night of October 4 also turned up. Another RCMP report was filed from a family of a very similar object to the Shag Harbour crash object seen leaving the area exactly 1 week later. The report alludes to the October 4 event and recommends further government interviews with witnesses. This sighting was also reported in the Halifax newspaper.

The Canadian Department of National Defence has officially identified this sighting as unsolved. To some, use of the term "UFO" in the government documents implies "extraterrestrial or extra-dimensional." To others, it merely means official sources don't know or for some reason will not say what the people of Shag Harbour saw. However, two of the government documents do state that conventional explanations had all been ruled before undertaking a search for the object. One from October 6, 1967, by the commander in charge of the search (again labeled "UFO Report"), stated, that the Rescue Coordination Center in Halifax had investigated and "discounted the possibilities that the sighting was produced by an aircraft, flares, floats, or any other known objects." This would suggest that authorities truly did not know what was responsible for the incident and were taking it very seriously.

Condon Committee interest

The Shag Harbour crash happened at the same time that the so-called Condon Committee UFO investigation was underway. A summary of the case was provided in the final report as "Case 34, North Atlantic, Fall 1967." It was stated that their investigation consisted of a few phone calls to sources in the area. The concluding remarks were, "No further investigation by the project was considered justifiable, particularly in view of the immediate and thorough search that had been carried out by the RCMP and the Maritime Command."

After noting that no aircraft had been reported missing, no alternative explanation was offered. The case is therefore considered one of the unsolved ones in the Condon Report.

Press coverage

The Shag Harbour crash got extensive front page coverage in the normally conservative Halifax Chronicle-Herald. The paper ran a headline story on October 7 titled, "Could Be Something Concrete in Shag Harbor UFO — RCAF." (picture above; large image) The article, by Ray MacLeod, included witness descriptions of the object and crash, the search and rescue effort, and the current Navy search, including three more divers being added.

The head of the RCAF Air Desk in Ottawa, Squadron Leader Bain, who recommended the underwater search (see "Documents" above), was also quoted, saying they were “very interested” in the matter. “We get hundreds of reports every week, but the Shag Harbor incident is one of the few where we may get something concrete on it.”

The article also mentioned UFO reports that immediately preceded the crash, including one from a woman in Halifax around 10:00 p.m.

Another of these witnesses was Chris Styles, age 12, who says he came within 100 feet of the object in Halifax. The sighting left a deep impression on Styles, who 26 years later was to resurrect the Shag Harbour case and become its principal investigator. Don Ledger, another Nova Scotia resident and an aviation expert, would later join Styles. Their investigation was recounted in their 2001 book Dark Object: The World's Only Government-Documented UFO Crash.

The Chronicle-Herald ran another story on October 9 titled "UFO Search Called Off," stating that Canadian Forces Maritime Command had ended "an intensive undersea search for the mysterious unidentified flying object that disappeared into the ocean here Wednesday night." As to what was found, Maritime Command stated, "Not a trace... not a clue... not a bit of anything." The story of the search being called off for the "mysterious" "dark object" was also carried by the Canadian Press in some other Canadian newspapers.

On October 12, the Chronicle-Herald ran a story of another sighting of a seemingly identical UFO departing the area the night of October 11, exactly one week after the initial crash. The report came from Lockland Cameron, Woods Harbour, only about one half mile north of the first sighting (see map above). Cameron said that he, his family, and relatives had all witnessed the object. Their attention was initially drawn by interference on the TV screen around 10 p.m. Cameron went outside to investigate and noticed six bright red lights, about 55 to 60 feet length, at an altitude of between 500 to 600 feet, and about three quarters of a mile off shore. It sat in a stationary position for 7 or 8 minutes and then disappeared. When it reappeared, only four orange lights were showing and seemed to be at a 35 degree angle. An hour later, a string of yellow lights appeared rapidly departing to the northeast. The RCMP investigated and found Cameron to be "sober and sincere."

On October 14, the Chronicle-Herald ran a final editorial on the incident. It stated that "numbers of people have described similar objects on at least two occasions. They are agreed upon such essentials as lights, length of the object or objects, and its speed. In the second, there was some physical evidence – that yellowish foam discovered by searchers – which gives yet more credibility to the sightings. Imagination and or natural phenomena seem to be the weakest, not strongest, of explanations. It has been a tough week for skeptics."

Also, the 7th episode of the second season of the TV show Mystery Hunters featured a section on the Shag Harbour incident.

See also

• Kecksburg UFO incident
• Project Magnet
• Roswell UFO incident
• Unidentified flying objects
• UFO sightings in Canada
• List of UFO sightings

References

1. Ledger & Styles, 72-79
2. Ledger & Styles, 120-121, 124; Oct. 12, 1967, Shelburne Coast Guard, headline "U.S. Barge at Shelburne with Atomic Furnaces", stating the barge, destined for Rochester, N.Y., had put in for repair on Oct. 6; Halifax Chronicle-Herald, Oct. 13, 1967, barge photo and caption
3. Ledger & Styles, 67-71
4. Ledger & Styles, 64; Copy #1; copy #2
5. Ledger & Styles, Appendix, 168; Copy #1; copy #2
6. Ledger & Styles, 65; Copy #1; copy #2
7. Canadian National Archives website copy; copy #2
8. Ledger & Styles, Appendix, 165; Halifax RCMP UFO report for Oct. 4, 1967
9. Ledger & Styles, Appendix, 166; RCMP report; Halifax Chronicle-Herald article
10. Copy #1; copy #2
11. Condon Report case summary
12. Halifax Chronicle-Herald, Oct. 7, 1967, "Could Be Something Concrete in Shag Harbor UFO — RCAF."
13. Ledger & Styles, 4-8
14. Halifax Chronicle-Herald, Oct. 9, 1967, "UFO Search Called Off"
15. Winnipeg Free Press, Oct. 9, 1967, "Search for 'Object' Called Off"
16. Halifax Chronicle-Herald, Oct. 12, 1967, "2nd UFO Reported Seen In Shelburne"
17. Halifax Chronicle-Herald, Oct. 14, 1967, Editorial: "Tough For Skeptics"

Further reading

• Don Ledger, Chris Styles, Whitley Strieber, Dark Object: The World's Only Government-Documented UFO Crash, 2001, Dell Publishing, ISBN 0-440-23647-9
• Canada's Unidentified Flying Objects: The Search for the Unknown at Library and Archives Canada

External links

• Further details of this incident by Don Ledger and other reports of UFOs in eastern Canada
• Detailed Canadian government topological maps of Shag Harbour region
• Good map of Shag Harbour/Shelburne area with another UFO sighting from 1968 detailed
• Discussion by original Halifax reporter Ray Macleod how newspaper was pressured by the government to debunk the story
• "That damn UFO and me": Reporter Ray MacLeod's Sept. 2008 blog on how story unfolded; text of his original story