In the coastal Newfoundland town of Harbour Mille, the cozy type of place where everybody knows everybody and phone numbers only ever differ by a few digits, questions and theories abound.
What were those three objects that two local women saw shoot through the sky Monday evening? What caused the fire behind them? And what left a trail of smoke?
"Everybody's saying the same thing - it looks like a missile," says Emmy Pardy, 47, the tiny community's postmaster and one of the two women who witnessed the trio of objects that were visible for several minutes. Her neighbour, Darlene Stewart, snapped a photo of one with an "ordinary" camera, Ms. Pardy says.
"What I saw through those binoculars was like a humongous bullet, grey or silver in colour, and had fire coming out."
The photo has sparked national interest, as well as speculation.
"That's a missile. Of course it's a missile. The question is, whose missile?" said Robert Huebert, associate director of the Centre for Military and Strategic Studies at the University of Calgary, adding: "Obviously, it's something, but God knows these days."
While he doesn't believe it appeared to be a missile fired from a Canadian naval vessel, Dr. Huebert speculated it could have been a misfiring intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) or a submarine- or sea-launched ballistic missile (SLBM), which veered badly off course and travelled slowly enough to linger over the Newfoundland skyline for minutes. France, Russia and England are all testing new models of those missiles, he said.
"Generally they're so fast, so high, you'd never see it," Mr. Huebert said. "Unless it was having a malfunction… There could be something going wrong with it that wasn't allowing it to go supersonic."
As speculation ran wild Thursday, governments provided more denials than answers. In the absence of a clear explanation, word spread of a French ballistic missile test - the firing of a sophisticated M51 rocket from a nuclear submarine, the ominously named "Le Terrible," in sitting across the Atlantic.
The revelation turned suspicious heads to nearby Saint-
Pierre and Miquelon, islands held by the French off the south coast of Newfoundland and close to Harbour Mille. France quickly denied any plans to attack the village.
"In response to reports circulating in the press, we confirm that no French military activity took place at the time of the incident in the region of Newfoundland and Saint-Pierre and Miquelon," a French embassy statement said.
"There was never a rocket launched," added Dimitri Soudas, the exasperated spokesman for Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who was fielding calls in Switzerland, where his boss addressed the World Economic Forum.
Ms. Pardy rejected the denials, saying, "It seems like there's a cover-up of something."
However, Billy Allan, an associate professor of mechanical engineering at Canada's Royal Military College, quickly poked a few holes in any missile theory after viewing the photo.
The object looked to be subsonic (too slow) and much smaller than the M51 or any large missile. Missile tests rarely take place near communities, he said.
Dr. Allan called it "a subsonic something or other," that may well be a hoax.
Nevertheless, locals and one MP want an explanation.
"The objective here should be to dispel rumours and conspiracy theories," Gerry Byrne, the Liberal MP for Humber-St. Barbe-Baie Verte, told The Canadian Press yesterday.
"It's not making any sense and nobody's providing any real answers, so questions are mounting."
The Canadian military is not worried about a potential invasion.
"We have confirmed that there were no planned exercises off the Eastern Seaboard," a Defence department spokesman said yesterday. "We did not see a threat to the security of Canada."