The
Shag Harbour UFO
incident, its name derived from the small Nova Scotia
fishing community of Shag
Harbour, population 400-450, took place shortly before
midnight, October 4, 1967.
A dozen people purportedly witnessed a low flying object enter
the
harbor’s water with a “whoosh,” a bang and a flash of light. Concerned
that an airplane had crashed, some of the witnesses reported the event
to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the general consensus being that
an object approximately 60 feet long, well lit with a number of
flashing amber lights, had impacted the water at an angle of 45
degrees. Three Mounties were quickly dispatched to the scene, arriving
in time to observe a yellow lit object which had been bobbing amongst
the waves slide beneath the surface and disappear from sight.
The
Mounties, concerned about survivors, alerted the Rescue Coordination
Center in Halifax and organized a local rescue effort. No debris or
bodies were found, either by the fishermen or the Coast Guard vessel
which had arrived shortly after being notified. Indeed, the only
physical evidence that anything unusual had occurred was a long foamy
yellow slick a hundred feet wide and a half mile
long.
The following morning the local authorities received word
from the RCC that no commercial or military aircraft had been reported
missing anywhere near the area. The RCC, themselves perplexed, went so
far as to Telex the RCAF's "Air Desk" in Ottawa informing them of
the situation. Ottawa in turn Telexed Canada’s Maritime Command with
orders to further investigate.
For three days navy divers
searched the harbor’s bottom to no avail. The final report stated that
no debris or indeed anything that could concievably be connected to
the object was found. The event was labelled an unknown, the object
unidentified.
The Condon
Committee
involved at the time in investigating
UFO activity also conducted a study albeit cursory and could offer no
explanation.
As
is so often the case in incidents of this type, further information
comes to the fore as the years pass often from unidentified sources,
conspiracy theorists become involved and governments are accused of
secrecy and cover-up.
Witnesses, both military and civilian,
have emerged with stories of Canadian and American naval vessels
gathering near a top secret
underwater detection grid in the waters off Shelburne a nearby town to
which the mysterious object had allegedly
travelled before being joined by a second UFO. Further claims such as
the
objects were not of this Earth, that a large barge was dispatched to
the area to aid in recovery efforts (according to archived newspaper
stories the barge was there for repairs) or that the original object
was observed on radar coming from the direction of Siberia have also
been made but not substantiated. A Russian submarine was also
apparently observed nearby.
Whatever the reason for the
naval gathering, it was apparently called off on October 11
coinciding with the alleged re-emergence and departure of a UFO at Shag
Harbour.
The
UFO incident at Shag Harbour is rather unique in that it is
one of the few that is officialy documented by a western government.
