The Shag Harbour Incident Society UFO Interpretative Centre was broken into and vandalized some time between Friday evening and Saturday morning, the chairman of the society confirmed Sunday.

Laurie Wickens said he left the non-profit centre Friday around 5 p.m. and when he came back Saturday morning, he noticed a smashed window.

"There were two cash registers that were upside on the floor and a bunch of pop cans and mugs had been thrown all over the place, so I just went back out and locked the door and called the RCMP," Wickens said.

RCMP confirmed to CBC News Sunday the centre was broken into and that it was reported Saturday morning.

Wickens said when police arrived, more smashed windows were discovered. It appeared someone had thrown objects from the museum — rocks painted like UFOs and aliens — through the windows where they were discovered on the ground outside, he said.

A file photo of Laurie Wickens from 2017. He was the first person to call the police after people saw lights in the sky off Shag Harbour on Oct. 4, 1967. (Steve Berry/CBC)

Whoever broke into the building also set off a fire extinguisher, Wickens said.

"It looks like a lot of damage," he said. It's not yet known how much money was taken and how much it will cost to repair the damage, he said.

He thinks vandalism was the primary aim.

"I don't think it was somebody breaking in looking for money. There was some cash there. But they would have just taken the cash and left, they wouldn't have destroyed the place," Wickens said.

Wickens said in the three to four years he's worked at the centre, no one has ever tried to damage the property in this way.

The centre is expected to reopen by Wednesday at the latest, Wickens said.

About the UFO centre

According to its website, the Shag Harbour Incident Society believes the report of a UFO sighting in 1967 should be recognized in the community.

The society was formed in 2006 with the goal of setting up a permanent place to "display the accumulating information collected on the mysterious UFO that landed in the harbour decades early," the website says.

The centre first opened in a temporary location in 2007, but moved to its permanent home in 2009.