Page 23 of 82
Laurie considered calling the Royal Mounted Police detachment back again, but then the anger returned. Maybe he would go back to Shag Harbor and get one of the boats and go out himself and see if he could help. He opened the car door and slid into the driver's seat. As he reached for the ignition key, the pay phone rang. He glanced at his girlfriend, and the phone rang again. "Yeah." "Good, I'm glad you're still there. It's Corporal Werbicki at the Barrington Police Detachment. I'm sorry if I was a little skeptical earlier; however, we've since had several calls reporting lights or an airplane going down in Shag Harbor. I'm dispatching two constables to that location and I'm heading over there myself right now, so would you go back to the Moss plant and wait for me?" Initially Laurie had been inclined to think it was the lights of an airliner, but now, when he recalled the image of the glow on the water, he was filled with doubt. "At first I thought I did, but now I'm not so sure." There was a lull for the moment, so Werbicki took the opportunity to make a radio call to the only two officers in the area still on duty - constables Ron O'Brien and Ron Pond. Pond and O'Brien had been working the area southwest of Shag Harbor because of illegal poaching activity that had been reported in that area. Now they were making their way back east, on Highway 3, going right through Shag Harbor at just about the time of the occurrence. They were about four miles east of the area when they received the radio call from Corporal Werbicki ordering them to return to the detachment ASAP. They were tired after a long day and an even longer evening, but nevertheless they proceeded to report in at the Barrington detachment. For them that night was going to get even longer. When he had finished telling them to meet him and Wickens at the Irish Moss plant, Werbicki hung up and immediately made a call to the RCMP Subdivision in Halifax and reported his concerns to the duty NCO who picked up the phone there. Halifax in turn passed the information on to the national headquarters in Ottawa. From there a UFO report was made to the air force in the same city and it was that agency that called the Rescue Coordination Center, or RCC for short, in Halifax, Nova Scotia. These were the men who would attempt to rescue passengers from a downed plane, if there really was one. When Werbicki raised the duty NCO at the Halifax Subdivision, he expressed concern about the possibility of an airplane crash in his vicinity and requested a check as to whether they had any missing aircraft - military, commercial, or private. The NCO replied that he would look into it. Werbicki said he was heading to the site and would call later to find out what they had discovered. The phones seemed to have settled down for the moment, so he locked the office and went out to his cruiser. Laurie got out of the car, catching it on the third ring. "Hello?" "That you, Laurie?" a male voice asked. Laurie agreed to do so. "There's four other people here with me. They'll be coming along." "Sure, fine." The corporal paused for a moment, then asked him, "Do you have any idea what it is?" He got back in his car and headed for Shag Harbor.