The Bethune Encounter: US Navy Flight 125 off Newfoundland

February 1951. A US Navy R5D, the Navy's C-54 Skymaster, was flying from Keflavík, Iceland, to Argentia, Newfoundland. Flight 125. Squadron VR-1, out of Patuxent River, Maryland. More than 25 pilots, navigators and flight engineers were on board.

It was 0055Z on 10 February. For the men aboard, it was still the evening of 9 February. The plane held 10,000 feet on a true course of 230 degrees, about 200 miles northeast of Argentia.

Lt. Fred W. Kingdon saw it first. "A glowing light beneath a thin layer of strato-form clouds beneath us." It seemed to sit on the surface, throwing a yellowish orange glare through the cloud deck. The official report said it looked like the lights of a city. Kingdon and Lt. Graham E. Bethune watched it for four or five minutes, then called the crew.

Then it moved. "The object suddenly started ascending through the cloud layer and it then became quite bright," Kingdon wrote. It climbed at tremendous speed, on what looked like a collision course. Bethune saw something "definitely circular and reddish orange on its perimeter," at least 300 feet across. LTJG A. L. Jones saw "a huge fiery orange disc on its edge."

It came within about 5 miles. Then it turned about 180 degrees. "It reverse[d] its course and tripled its speed until it was last seen disappearing over the horizon," Bethune wrote. The crew's last view was a small ball. By the documents, the whole encounter lasted seven or eight minutes.

Northeast Air Command debriefed the crew on landing, and five officers filed reports: Kingdon, Bethune, Jones, Lt. N. G. S. Koger and Lt. J. M. Mayer. The intelligence report, IR-4-51, was signed by Lt Col Hugh D. Maxwell Jr. The observers judged the object grew "at least 100 times larger." Gander air traffic control confirmed the R5D was the only aircraft in the area. Crew members later recalled: "We were told not to discuss this."

The file reached Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. On 14 February 1951, a radio note relayed the view of an astronomer attached to the AMC Graduate Center. A meteor or fireball was possible, but the crew had more likely seen "an unusual 'Northern Lights' display." The Project Blue Book record card agreed: "Believed to be Aurora Display by consulting astronomer." Bethune said he first saw that verdict in 1990.

Critics were unconvinced, arguing that an aurora does not rise from below an aircraft, form a sharp-edged disc or reverse course. NICAP analyst Don Ledger compared the explanation to "mistaking a pillow for a bobby-pin." A meteor, others argued, cannot be seen for minutes, climb and turn. Philip J. Klass is credited with suggesting the Moon or its reflection. Ledger replied that the crescent was "narrow and insignificant."

Radar is still unsettled. The 1951 documents record no radar contact. Donald Keyhoe later wrote that Gander tower had "something on the scope." NICAP's chronology says the object was tracked at Goose Bay, Labrador. A 2002 update by R. J. Durant admitted: "we never saw documentation supporting that statement."

Keyhoe retold the story in Flying Saucers: Top Secret in 1960, behind pseudonyms. Then, on 9 May 2001, Bethune, by then a retired Navy Commander, spoke for the Disclosure Project at the National Press Club. His account had grown. He described "Hundreds of circles of white lights on the water," and a dome with a coronal discharge. He said compasses were "spinning wildly," that crew and passengers collided with each other, and promised: "I will testify under oath before Congress that everything I have said is true."