MAGONIA Extra

Some of the "best" UFO cases continue to attract attention over the years, Roswell being the most notorious example, kept alive by constant arguments and investigations. The more credulous enthusiasts are kept entertained by the activities of ufology's hack writers and lecture-circuit liars.

Most of these cases also attract the attention of the sceptics, who are rarely short of explanations which are usually plausible and often almost certainly the correct ones.

However, one case in particular seems to stand out from the rest. The Shag Harbour incident of 4 October 1967 is remarkable in having quite a number of independent witnesses, singly or in groups, giving consistent testimony

The only detailed treatment of this case that I have been able to find is the book by Don Ledger and Chris Styles (Dark Object: The world's only government-documented UFO crash, Dell Publishing, New York, 2001). The authors began their investigations in 1995 and, considering the limited resources available to them, their results are a considerable achievement.

I have searched in vain for a sceptical treatment of the case by the "skeptibunkers" but have found that most sceptics take care not to mention it. Thus I should like to know if anyone has devised a mundane, non-ETH explanation of the Shag Harbour affair which makes sense.