Page Content (OCR)
Constables Pond and O'Brien arrived at the station in time to find Corporal Werbicki in the parking lot standing next to a radio car, pulling on his jacket. He informed them with some degree of concern that there was the possibility that an airplane, possibly an airliner, had crashed into the sound adjacent to the southern approach into Shag Harbor. The two constables expressed surprise, as they had just passed through the area and noticed nothing unusual. They had probably passed Laurie Wickens while he was waiting at the phone booth for Werbicki to call him back. At about the same time that Laurie Wickens spotted the UFO, Norm Smith and Dave Kendricks were returning home in Dave's 1962 Chevy from a date with their girlfriends on Cape Sable Island, fifteen miles northeast of Shag Harbor. At the time they were seventeen and eighteen years old, and since Wednesday was a school night, they had to make sure their girlfriends were home early. They were proceeding westward through the woods on Highway 3, about three miles east of Shag Harbor. They were talking about their girlfriends and about girls in general. In fact, some years later Dave would marry his girlfriend, but for now there was no talk of anything like that. Highway 3 was, and still is, a relatively deserted stretch of narrow paved highway. It is bordered on both sides by stunted spruce trees and alders that are twisted by the relentless southwest winds that frequently blow onshore off the tempestuous North Atlantic. The road climbs and dips like a poorly designed roller coaster. The fog had rolled in, and the headlights glanced off vague, twisted shapes. In the early hours before dawn this road can be a very spooky place. When there is no moon, you can't see your hand in front of your face. Dave Kendricks was steering the Chevy deftly over the small hills and around the curves, as he had many times before. His friend Norm Smith was on the opposite seat, next to the window. They were still talking about girls when Norm spotted the lights of an object over the trees toward Shag Harbor. What he assumed were lighted windows were pointed at a forty-five-degree angle to the ground. As many as five lights were glowing steadily, from a dull red to an orange color. What he found most strange was the fact that they did not appear to be moving. He brought them to Dave's attention, and tat , Norm remarked that it looked like the four lights were heading downward into Shag Harbor, a couple of miles ahead of them. His first guess was that the lights were on an airliner but that it was awfully low. And it didn't look quite right. At this point he knew instinctively that there was something about this craft that wasn't normal. Norm was experiencing that special instinct reserved for those who have a UFO sighting. All of his past experiences with aerial phenomena flashed through his memory, as he attempted to find something that would explain what he was seeing. But nothing popped up. Dave, Norm, and the residents of the area were not strangers to aircraft sightings. Since the village of Shag Harbor was only about twelve miles from the radar base at Baccaro, it was not unusual for air force pilots (Canadian or American) to try to penetrate the radar web and test its defenses using planes with supersonic capability. Most of these staged attacks would come from the sea, day or night, in an attempt to get under the radar. As Norm explained, sometimes you would be out on your boat pulling traps or running out trawl lines and one of these things would come out of nowhere and "scare the living shit out of you" when it went over only twenty feet above the boat. Once or twice they even came down the Clyde River at treetop level. But he was sure this was something different. He encouraged Dave to keep it in sight. Then the lights dropped behind the trees, and it seemed they had finally lost sight of it. They speculated on what they Dave spotted them too.