---
title: "The man who reported Canada's most famous UFO sighting became the face of the mystery"
url: "https://usubjects.com/article/the-man-who-reported-canadas-most-famous-ufo-sighting-became-the-face-of-the-mystery-3197"
updated: "2026-08-02T16:00:54.276Z"
description: "The article looks at the man who made the call reporting Canada’s most famous UFO sighting and how he later became closely associated with the mystery. It explores how that single report turned him into the public face of one of the country’s best-known unexplained events."
sources: ["https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/shag-harbour-ufo-incident-oct-4-1967-laurie-wickens-nova-scotia-9.7292815"]
licence: "All rights reserved"
---

# The man who reported Canada's most famous UFO sighting became the face of the mystery

Published: 2026-08-02  
Source: [Google News](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/shag-harbour-ufo-incident-oct-4-1967-laurie-wickens-nova-scotia-9.7292815)

### Overview

When **Laurie Wickens** pulled over to call the RCMP on the night of Oct. 4, 1967, he could not have known that a routine drive home from a dance would place him at the center of **Canada’s most famous UFO mystery**. The 17-year-old had been travelling with friends along Highway 3 in the isolated coastal region of southwestern Nova Scotia when he saw four lights in the sky flashing in sequence and then all at once. Moments later, he watched the object plunge into the waters off the fishing village of Shag Harbour.

What followed was a report that would define Wickens’ life for decades. He phoned police from a payphone, only to be met with skepticism and even an accusation that he had been drinking. But before the call ended, the phone rang back. “**Mr. Wickens, stay where you’re at. We’ve got officers coming because we’ve just got more phone calls**,” his daughter, Stephanie Wickens, recalled. “**He said, ‘I told you I wasn’t lying.’**”

### A sighting that drew official attention

The Shag Harbour incident quickly escalated from a local curiosity to an event that drew law enforcement, the military and national media attention. According to UFO researcher **Chris Styles**, who has written books on the case, RCMP officers responding to the scene saw a light floating about **800 metres offshore** before it disappeared into the tide. Authorities initially treated the incident as though a plane may have crashed, and officers even commandeered two fishing boats to search for survivors.

Local residents joined the effort, including Wickens himself. Styles said searchers later found a trail of **odd yellow foam** bubbling to the surface, described by some as smelling of sulphur and stretching roughly **24 metres wide and 800 metres long**. Yet despite the extensive response, no aircraft were reported operating in the area at the time, leaving the incident unresolved and fueling decades of debate.

### How Wickens became the face of the mystery

In the years that followed, Wickens became more than just the person who made the original call — he became the **public face** of the Shag Harbour UFO incident. That role grew in part because the case left behind an unusually large body of witness accounts and official documentation, giving the story a permanence that many other unexplained sightings lack. CBC footage from the following day shows Wickens already involved in the search, standing with an RCMP officer near the water as the community continued looking for answers.

Styles said the case’s longevity owes much to Wickens himself. “**I don’t think we’d all be talking about this today to the extent we do if it wasn’t for Laurie Wickens**,” he said. The incident was widely covered at the time, including a front-page newspaper headline asking, “What did fall into ocean?” and noting that navy divers were probing the East Coast mystery.

### Lasting legacy

More than half a century later, the Shag Harbour event remains one of the country’s most enduring unexplained cases, not only because of what witnesses said they saw, but because of the credible public response that followed. It was not just a story of lights in the sky; it was a story of police calls, search boats, naval interest and a teenager whose account helped set the entire episode in motion.

Wickens’ death at **76** closes a chapter on a mystery that has never fully disappeared from Canadian lore. But his role in it remains fixed: the witness whose call transformed a strange night on the Nova Scotia coast into a national UFO legend.

## Provenance

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