When it came to sharing the story of Shag Harbour’s October 4, 1967, UFO incident, Laurie Wickens believed in going big or going home.
Chris Styles paused while on the phone and recalled when he first started travelling the road to the small Nova Scotian fishing community on the southern tip of the province. It was 1992, and at the goading of his partner at the time, he started researching the incident that has since captivated Canadians’ and the world’s imaginations.
“In terms of it as being a very successful local project, reviving that memory and joining the Shag Harbour incident to the community, clearly Laurie spearheaded that,” he said.
Wickens, the president and co-founder of the Shag Harbour UFO Incident Society, died July 19 at the age of 76.
He was the driving force behind elevating awareness of the incident, both within Canada and abroad, and one of the key figures behind the Shag Harbour UFO Incident Society, started in 2006, as well as the steward of the UFO Centre on Nova Scotia Trunk 3.
“It wasn’t him who started the Shag Harbour UFO Incident Society, but his involvement with it was still a big splash because, unlike previous people that had sat at the helm of it, his attitude toward the whole thing was that he wanted to know a lot,” Styles said.
Styles spoke at length with Wickens about how there were conferences around the world talking about the very cases of strange lights, crashing UAPs and a whole community left shaken by the experience that threw them into the mix of the Cold War.
When it comes to his life before Shag Harbour, Heather Doucette said he always had a sense of community. She grew up in the same town as Wickens, a mere two kilometres from where the incident occurred.
“He lived on one side of Bear Point and I lived on the other, but it didn’t matter,” she recalled. “All the kids were always outside anyway. We were raised basically by the community.”
And part of that community was returning the favour of being raised by the village and helping to support the elderly. That explains his connection with the Shag Harbour community and his dedication to the UFO centre.
The incident, Doucette said, changed him.
“He thought it was actually an airplane going down and he was the first to call the station down here in Barrington,” the 65-year-old recalled. “They thought he was a little boozy, even though he wasn’t.”
Indeed, Wickens called the Barrington Passage detachment where RCMP Cpl. Victor Werbicki was on hand. According to Styles, in his book Impact to Contact, the corporal gave Wickens a stern warning about false reports, but after more calls came in Werbicki dispatched Constable Ron Pond. Clearly Wickens was not drunk.
Doucette has been involved with the society as well. Her ties to the UFO community come from being an experiencer, as she has had visitations from extraterrestrials since she was five years old.
“He just had the fascination,” she said. “It kept him in the loop when it came to UFOs and he knew he’d seen something special that night.
“It wasn’t until Chris Styles came in the 1990s and Don Ledger that it started to evolve into what it is today.”
Wickens is survived by his children, Shawn, Shavonne (Craig), Stephanie (Lawrence) and Jim; his grandchildren, Mikaela, Courtney, Kylie, Kaiden, Jacob, Riley and Wrenn, as well as great-grandchildren. A celebration of his life was held on July 26 at Barrington Lions Hall.
His absence from the Shag Harbour UFO XPO will be felt, but Styles plans to fill the role of manager and emcee for the time being.
“I’m going to have to fill some of his positions,” he admitted. “I’m going to have to get on the bus where Laurie would be when they do the tour, and the whole thing always closes in Shelburne.”
The UFO XPO takes place October 2 to 4 in Yarmouth, Nova Scotia.
Photo courtesy of Shag Harbour UFO Incident Society