In July 1955, a US Air Force aircraft was flying near Newfoundland, Canada. Its crew reported seeing something in the sky. At the same time, ground radar picked up a contact.
Radar detects objects at a distance using radio waves. In this case, there were two reports at once: one from people looking out of an aircraft, and one from a device on the ground. An Air Force board investigated the case but could not explain the two reports together.
What Did the Crew and Radar Describe?
The short answer is that the record doesn’t say. It doesn’t specify what the crew saw or exactly what the radar picked up. All that is known is that the aircraft was a KC-97 and that the sighting and radar contact occurred at the same time.
That detail was central to the investigation. The board considered not just a report of something in the sky, but also the radar contact detected at the same time. Yet the record offers no detailed description of the sighting or radar return that would allow the two to be compared.
A Comparison That Didn’t Solve the Case
The board examined whether the reported characteristics matched known military systems used by the United States, Canada, or the Soviet Union. It concluded that they did not.
That examination still didn’t explain what happened. The board could not account for the radar contact or the sighting reported by the crew. The two reports from the same time remained unexplained, with no explanation connecting them.
What Remains Unknown
It is unknown exactly what the crew saw, what the radar picked up, or whether the two reports referred to the same thing. The document notes that experimental aircraft with a round shape could be mistaken for unfamiliar objects, but it does not link any such aircraft to this incident.
Something was seen in the sky, and a contact appeared on the radar screen. The board examined both but couldn’t connect them.
