Shag Harbour is a small fishing village found along the South Shore of Nova Scotia. It is one of several small villages found in the Municipality of Barrington, Shelburne County. It has a population of roughly 400-450. The main occupations centre around lobster fishing, which takes place from November to May.
Shag Harbour is relatively well-known for its 1967 UFO sighting. On October 4, 1967, a strange sight was reported over the skies near the coastal community of Shag Harbour. Multiple people saw a chain of lights in the sky, which seemed to angle down and impact into the ocean near Shag Harbour. Thinking that an aircraft may have crashed, witnesses called the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. RCMP officers at the scene and other witnesses saw a light bobbing on the surface, which started drifting out to sea and soon went out.
A rescue effort was quickly assembled. A large swath of thick yellow foam was witnessed in the water by fishermen and other rescuers who aided in the search for possible survivors. They were soon joined by a Coast Guard cutter. Government agencies quickly ruled out a plane crash when none were reported missing, and other possibilities were ruled out as well, such as flares. The unknown object was then officially classified as a "UFO". The Royal Canadian Navy soon launched an underwater search for possible debris, but officially nothing was ever found and the object was never identified.