Shag Harbour UFO Festival in Review August 9 - 10, 2008

A rendition of what was witnessed at the impact site at Shag Harbour, by Bill Burt

The festival weekend began with a yard sale at 9am at the Shag Harbour Post Office, where Cindy and Dale Nickerson (the organizers of the festival) are employed. This was followed with the opening of the Shag Harbour Incident Museum at 10am. Following this, at 11am, a bar-b-que hosted by the local firemen at the Post Office which was attended by a young crafter, Jillian Kendrick, who had some of her work entitled "Sea Glass Items" on display in the community.

At 1pm, David M. Cvet, a UFO researcher and diver who specializes in searching for underwater evidence in support of UFO incidents and "cold UFO cases" was on hand at the UFO Centre met with visitors, fielding numerous questions by curious visitors, and who reviewed the Shag Harbour incident with the visitors. Later that afternoon, a group of locals and witnesses along with David gathered at the UFO Rest Stop, adjacent to the area where witnesses originally experienced the incident in October 1967. David continued with fielding questions regarding the incident, as well as Laurie Wickens, one of the witnesses of the 1967 incident. Later that evening, dinner was served at the firehall, providing an opportunity for the visitors to meet with Saturday's speakers, which included Don Ledger, Chris Styles, Carl Feindt, Michael Macdonald and Stanton Friedman.

The lectures on Saturday attended with up to 40 individuals, began with Chris Styles presenting a variety of updates with respect to his work on researching the Shag Harbour Incident. Updates includes his writing a new book on the subject which includes more details and evidence collected since the last book. His lecture was followed with Carl Feindt's presentation on a review of fascinating water-related UFOs, and some of the proposed physics behind the phenomena.

The panel: D.Ledger, P.Kimball, S.Friedman, C.Feindt,C.Styles

Stanton Friendman presented various details on Ufology and the science of Ufology. After lunch, Michael Macdonald presented a film he's working on which presented compelling stories of abductees, and how their lives were changed as a result of their abductions. This was followed by a presentation by Paul Kimball and his film on the ten best UFO cases ever. The last presenter, Don Ledger presented details on the UFO phenomena in Nova Scotia. At the conclusion of the presentations, a panel comprised of the presenters fielded questions from the audience.

The UFO festival was successful in conveying the current and active work being done in Ufology in Canada, and spectators were given the opportunity to discuss this subject with experts in the field. It is hoped that any revenue generated during this festival will facilitate the construction of the Shag Harbour Incident Museum's permanent home.

Shag Harbour Incident Society Museum

Chairperson Cindy Nickerson and associate, Dale Nickerson (un-related) opened the doors to the newly established Shag Harbour Incident Society Museum (UFO Museum) on June 22nd 2007. The pair says that the temporary museum building may be humble but believes the museum has huge potential for the future and the community.

Cindy Nickerson (L), Dale Nickerson (R) and "Errol" (Centre) pose in front of the temporary home of the Shag Harbour UFO Museum.

The Shag Harbour incident has been chronicled in books and on television and has captured the imaginations of UFO enthusiasts and others.

The Nickersons says the society hopes to continually add material about the incident to the museum as funds become available. They plan in the near future to commission interpretative panels at the site.

The museum also includes items and information about the history of Shag Harbour.

The Nickersons says there have also been people interested in joining the society. Dues are $5 annually. Members are welcome to participate in meetings and will receive the SHIS newsletter.

The "UFO Musuem" is the place to stop to learn everything about the Shag Harbour UFO sighting. You can view collected memorabilia, watch TV programs about the incident and perhaps even meet a witness.

The official Canada Post Shag Harbour cancelation stamp (designed by Eric Shand).

There are also souveniers for sale, proceeds collected will aid this non-profit institution and the local community.

Visitors are able to also obtain an official Canada Post cancellation stamp, which will be used for any postcards or letters mailed at the "UFO Museum".

The Shag Harbour Incident Society is putting on an Incident Festival this coming summer, August 8-9th in Shag Harbour. This will include lectures and presentations, including local eye witnesses to the incident from 1967. Contact the museum for details on this interesting event.

The Shag Harbour Incident Society Museum
P.O.Box 53
Shag Harbour
Nova Scotia, B0W 3B0

t: +1 902 723 0174 (Cindy Nickerson)
t: +1 902 723 2385 (Dale Nickerson)

e: shagharbour@gmail.com

Hours: M-F (10:00am - 5:00pm); Sat (noon - 5pm); Sun (1:00 - 5:00pm)

Note: The UFO Museum can be opened during off-hours by appointment only.

Really?

The name is certainly "catchy" enough and may have actually directed you, the interested reader to this blog, however, it may be a valid statement with respect to UFOs or more correctly Unidentified Aerial Objects (UAOs) or Unidentified Submerged Objects (USOs), hence the name of the Canadian UAO-USO Network or CUUN.

So, are they really out there? "Not sure" is the usual answer by most people. The basic problem with the entire field of Ufology is the distinct lack of quantifiable evidence to support the claim that UFOs exist. In truth, people see UFOs every single day, such as a low-flying bird, reflecting the setting sun or early morning sun off it's abdomen, causing a flashing visual phenomena, can indeed be difficult to recognize with an unaided eye, hence, that "thing" is determined to be an unidentified flying object. There are literally hundreds if not thousands of reports from across Canada of strange lights in the sky, most often in the evening, and most frequently during the warmer months of the spring, summer and fall (you think that more people are outdoors during this period, hence, greater frequency of sightings??). Aside from pro and con arguments on nearly every faucet of Ufology, CUUN exists to NOT debunk the claim that extra-terrestrials exist, nor does it outright support that ET's exist and visit our little planet with regular frequency over the ages, but uses whatever resources, skills, expertise, equipment, time, money, energy to examine certain Canadian only incidences, peel the numerous layers of the onion in order to identify the root "truth" with respect to an alleged UFO incident.

Why such a narrow bandwidth? The bottom line, Ufology is mega-huge, and can easily suck every resource available, usually comprised of personal resources at best. CUUN focuses on very few cases, and takes the time and effort to examine each case under a microscope, avoiding the hype caused by the media, and carefully and slowly works each incident until there is no stone unturned. Yes, this could take years, and in fact, it does. However, in the end,the results of the investigation will be undeniable (that is the hope) that either a) some extraordinary unexplained event really did happen there or; b) there is no supporting evidence of any kind that the incident actually happened.

IF "b" turns out to be the most frequent result, this is not necessarily bad. It does mean that as investigators of extraordinary incidences, care must be taken to ensure that whatever results are made, that it is relatively bullet proof, credible and accurate allowing one to "close the book" so to speak allowing the investigators to move on to other possibly more viable extraordinary incidences to investigate!

CUUN is engaged in two projects at this time. The most notable being the UFO incident reported at Shag Harbour, NS, and the second one reported at Ebenezer, PEI. There has been a number of books published on the subject of Shag Harbour, in fact, in Shag Harbour, a Society has been created whose purpose is to educate the public on this significant event that evening on October 4, 1967. We encourage visitors to that part of the country to visit the Shag Harbour Incident Society Museum setup by a pair of lovely local ladies who envision this helping the community raise some much needed funds to keep the little fishing village alive.