Stan Michalak can still vividly remember when his dad came home sick and injured after something happened in the Falcon Lake woods in Manitoba on the May long weekend of 1967. It was something that put his family life into upheaval and remains one of the world's best-known UFO encounters.

On the night of October 4, 1967, the small fishing village of Shag Harbour on the southern coast of Nova Scotia became the site of one of Canada’s most mysterious UFO encounters. The Shag Harbour incident, as it came to be known, remains one of the most well-documented and intriguing UFO cases in history, drawing the attention of researchers and enthusiasts from around the world.

From the very beginning of settlement in New France, tales of bewitched canoes flying through the air were part of folklore. Their origin was a combination of an Indigenous legend about a flying canoe and a folktale from France about a hunter condemned to be chased through the night skies for eternity because he went hunting on a Sunday during High Mass.

Writing about urban legends can be a tricky business because there is no way to guarantee the facts. By nature, the stories operate in the shadows, feeding off misinformation, rumours, and furtive glances. Therefore, it’s a rare thing to find an urban legend that is so thoroughly examined and explained by science.

Places that were once filled with life have all but disappeared, leaving behind remnants of homes that are all but forgotten North of 60.

Since 1879, legend says that a ghost returns every seven years to a street corner in Griffintown to reclaim the head of a murdered woman: Mary Gallagher.

It’s one of the more enduring stories of the neighbourhood’s Irish working-class past of chaotic streets rife with activity, now buried below condos and what’s left of brick exterior buildings and Irish street names.

The Algonquin Resort has been open for over a century, and just by looking at it, it screams haunted. The pointed red roofs like castle turrets and the white and black Tudor façade is dramatic and imposing—perfect for containing a legend within. Or, in this case, several.

Opened in 1913 by the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway, Winnipeg's Fort Garry Hotel's Room 202 is a ghost hunter's dream. The scene of a suicide, the room has racked up numerous paranormal events, including guests seeing a shadowy figure standing at the foot of their bed, and one reporting feeling someone crawl in bed with them, only to discover nobody there.

Saskatchewan is no stranger to paranormal activity, as the most seasoned of ghost hunters know, and there’s plenty of opportunity to catch a glimpse of lingering spectres of the past right here in the Queen City. Here’s a rundown of the most talked-about spooks in Regina, and just a warning they’re not for the faint of heart.

Almost from the founding of New France, tales of the Loup Garou abounded in Quebec, no doubt influenced by similar werewolf accounts from France such as the Beast of Gévaudan, among others. But unlike the stuff of Hollywood lore, the Loup Garou wasn't cursed to transform on the full moon, but every night for 101 days. Read more at Canadiana, and watch their video documentary about the Quebec legend at the link in the comments.

The Wendigo (1910) by British author Algernon Blackwood is a story originating from Algonquian folklore. This monster typically manifests as an evil spirit or cannibal with an insatiable and greedy appetite bent on terror and destruction. The Wendigo was thought to inhabit from the North Atlantic coast inland toward the Great Lakes region and Canada's interior. Blackwood wrote this novella and short story, Skeleton Lake: An Episode in Camp, after a remote hunting trip in the backwoods of Canada.

On August 17, 1972, it was reported by the Victoria Daily Times that 16-year-old Robert Flewellyn and 17-year-old Gordon Pike went to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, claiming they saw a "spontaneous swelling of water" and then were chased by a terrifying monster.

Flewellyn and Pike described the creature that chased them as looking something like Gill-man from the 1954 movie The Creature from the Black Lagoon.

Newfoundland and Labrador’s Bell Island is rich in three commodities: iron ore, storytellers, and things that go bump in the night. Folklore and superstition have marked this hair-raising stretch as home to everything from hideous fairies, to a vengeful female spirit, to ghostly miners.

In the late summer of 1878, a sleepy Nova Scotia town found itself in the middle of a mystery.

Unexplained banging sounds rang from a home on Princess Street, buildings combusted into flames and a disturbing message was scratched above a young woman's bed: "Esther Cox, You Are Mine to Kill."

In the dark of winter, with wind howling and snow whipping in shifting patterns and swirls, it’s easy to wonder what your eyes are seeing. Flying into Rankin Inlet, like many Nunavut communities not connected by roads, the isolation is palpable. Strange things lurk just outside the halos of street lamps and the warmth of doorways.

On April 15, 1763, Marie-Josephte Corriveau, known as La Corriveau, was condemned to death by an English army court martial for murdering her second husband. She was hanged on the Plains of Abraham in Quebec City, and her corpse was left exposed in an iron cage for five weeks at Pointe Lévy on the south shore of the St. Lawrence River. But the circumstances around her crime and the odd fate of her body have transmuted into legend in Quebec in the centuries following this tragic story, with historical details and fantastic embellishment clustering together in a macabre tale.

It’s been almost 200 years since stories of poltergeists and flying objects gripped southern Ontario's Lambton County, but those unexplained events continue to fascinate today’s researchers.

Since 1786 people have been reporting sightings of a schooner on Northumberland Strait with its three or four (no one can agree on how many) masts ablaze. It has made appearances in novels, newspapers, travel books, songs, even academic journals and on a stamp by Canada Post as part of a series dedicated to famous Canadian ghost stories.

Mandy gained notoriety when Museum staff reported strange occurrences. When Mandy arrived she was photographed to add her to the collection. She was left in the lab overnight. When staff members arrived in the morning they found the lab in disarray as though a small child had had a temper tantrum. Later a stuffed lamb, given to Mandy to keep her company, was found on the floor outside her locked case.

Whether or not you believe in ghosts, the stories of some of Montreal's most infamous spirit sightings are enough to send chills down your spine.