Shag Harbor UFO Crash 1967: Mystery Still Unsolved After Decades

The Shag Harbor Incident

October 4, 1967 Shag Harbor, Canada

From early evening until 11:30 p.m., numerous independent witnesses observe unexplained aerial activity in Nova Scotia. Near Sambro at 9:00 pm, Capt. Leo Howard Mersey and 20 crewmembers of the MV Nickerson see four brilliant red lights in a rectangular formation that appear to be on or just above the water. Occasionally one flares up so brightly that it causes an afterimage in their eves. The objects are also tracked on ship’s radar. 

They file a report with the Lunenburg CMP office. Between 11:00 and 11:30 pm, northwest of Brier Island, the captain and crew of a fishing vessel see a brilliant white light the size of the moon. As they watch, three brilliant yellow lights emerge and form a triangle around the larger light. The satellite objects then move across the sky and back at high speed. Observations are also made by other vessels. Five miles southwest of Weymouth, a policeman and three game wardens see an orange-colored light just above the tree line moving silently and slowly with spark-like objects emanating. 

At about 11:20 p.m., just west of Shag Harbor, Laurie Wickens and four other teenagers driving in a car along Highway 3 see an object flying low, flashing four lights one after the other, in a straight line. It appears to be slowly descending at a 45° angle. Multiple witnesses hear a whistling sound “like a bomb,” then a “whoosh,” and finally a loud bang. When next seen by the teens, the UFO has hit the water’s surface 820–980 feet offshore. It drifts on the surface, showing a pale-yellow light. 

Wickens contacts the RCMP detachment in Barrington Passage and reports he has seen a large airplane or small airliner crash into the waters off Shag Harbor. Within about 15 minutes, 10 RCMP officers arrive at the scene. Concerned for survivors, the RCMP detachment contacts the Rescue Coordination Centre in Halifax to advise them of the situation and ask if any aircraft were missing. Before any attempt at rescue can be made, the object starts to sink and disappears from view.

A rescue mission is quickly assembled. Within half an hour of the crash, local fishing boats go out to the crash site in the waters of the Gulf of Maine off Shag Harbor to look for survivors. No survivors, bodies, or debris are found, either by the fishermen or by a Canadian Coast Guard search and rescue cutter, which arrives about an hour later from nearby Clark’s Harbor. By the next morning, RCC Halifax has determined that no aircraft are missing. 

The same morning, RCC Halifax also sends a priority telex to the Air Desk at Royal Canadian Air Force headquarters in Ottawa, which handles all civilian and military UFO sightings, informing them of the crash and that all conventional explanations such as aircraft or flares have been dismissed. The head of the Air Desk, Squadron Leader William Bain sends another priority telex to the Royal Canadian Navy headquarters concerning the “UFO report” and recommends an underwater search be mounted. 

The RCN in turn sends another priority telex tasking Fleet Diving Unit Atlantic with carrying out the search. A detachment of RCN divers from Fleet Diving Unit Atlantic is assembled on the HMCS Granby on October 6 and for the next three days they comb the seafloor looking for an object. The final report says no trace of an object is found. In the 1990s, researcher Chris Styles finds evidence that there is a second crash the same night. Witnesses see American naval exercises in Shelburne Harbor 30 miles to the northeast. Speculation is that the original object may have traveled underwater from Shag Harbor to Shelburne. 

Sources: “Shag Harbour’s UFO Mystery,” CBC News Nova Scotia YouTube channel, September 30, 2017;  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wjgwP_N3oM

“Fishermen Are Surprised by a Glittery-Yellow Smelly Foam Left by a UFO,” Quest TV YouTube channel, March 17, 2020; [Segment from Close Encounters series]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vSG_4OBFbr4

Dunning, Brian (4 April 2017). "Skeptoid #565: The Shag Harbour UFO". Skeptoid.

https://skeptoid.com/episodes/4565

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