The Canadian government has issued a limited edition glow-in-the-dark coin to commemorate one of Canada’s most important historical events: a UFO crash.
The Royal Canadian Mint has produced 4000 coins commemorating an event where the townspeople and fishermen of Shag Harbour witnessed a large luminous object crash into the water just off the coast of Nova Scotia, Canada.
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Local RCMP officers were alerted by residents during the night of October 4, 1967 that an airplane had crashed into the waters just outside the town’s harbor. Witnesses told the local press at the time that a large bright object was seen flying over the town for nearly an hour until it fell out of the sky into the water. Fearing the worst, the RCMP officers and the local fishermen immediately launched a search and rescue operation.
“The RCMP commandeered fishing boats to facilitate a ‘rescue’ of what they thought was an aircraft that had crashed, but when they reached the site, a strange patch of glowing yellow foam was found floating on the surface,” author Chris Rutkowski told Motherboard.
Rutkowski, an author of several books on UFOs has studied the Shag Harbour case at length.
“It’s another case where there are official documents that testify to the reality that something occurred. RCMP investigated at the time, and their report is available for examination. Further, the large number of witnesses, some of whom are still alive today and can still vividly recall the incident, support the case that a brightly illuminated object flew over Shag Harbour and then a ‘dark object’ was observed floating on the surface of the ocean,” Rutkowski said.
“The Canadian Navy was asked to send in divers to retrieve whatever was under the water, but the official story is that nothing was ever located,” Rutkowski said. “Nevertheless, rumors abound, and locals insist, that the US Navy—which had ships not far away—sent in its own divers and did indeed find and retrieve something from the floor of the ocean.”
The colorful coin depicts three fishermen aboard a boat in rough water pointing to four eerie orange lights hovering in the sky. The coin comes with a black-light flashlight that, when shone on the coin, causes a large shadowy flying saucer to appear over the fisherman’s heads as it crashes into the water.
The pure silver rectangular coins went on sale for $129.95 each on Tuesday morning. Within hours, the Mint had already sold 95 percent of their stock.
Last year, the Royal Canadian Mint released a coin to commemorate the Falcon Lake UFO Incident. Much like the Shag Harbour coin, it sold out quickly.
According to Rutkowski, this second coin “seems to suggest the Canadian government recognizes the importance and popular interest in the UFO phenomenon. It will be interesting to see if more in the series are struck in years to come.”
Does this mean that the Canadian government is following the lead of its neighbour to the south, the United States, by openly admitting that unidentified flying objects are real phenomena?
Jordan Bonaparte is the host of the paranormal-focused “Nighttime Podcast” and a resident of Halifax, Nova Scotia, roughly two hours away from tiny Shag Harbour. He admits that UFO researchers have long sought more answers to the Shag Harbour mystery.
“The years worth of UFO festivals, books, and documentaries may not have compelled Prime Minister Justin Trudeau or his dad to open the curtains of secrecy. But it did convince the Royal Canadian Mint to put some fisherman pointing at a UFO on a rectangle glow-in-the-dark coin, and to me, that’s pretty damn neat,” Bonaparte told Motherboard.
While the Canadian government has remained relatively quiet on the UFO matter compared to the United States, Bonaparte is pleased with the renewed attention this coin may bring to Shag Harbour.
“Nova Scotia has always been marketed as a mecca of scenic look offs, lighthouses, and lobster traps,” Bonaparte said. “If that’s what tourists want, great, there is also plenty of drying paint to watch, but as a local, I’m proud to say I live next door to the world’s most compelling UFO event.”
