Goose Bay AFB radar-visual sightings, 1952

Goose Bay Air Force Base sat in Labrador, then part of Newfoundland, which had joined Canada in 1949. The USAF and the RCAF shared the field, and F-94B Starfire interceptors of the 59th Fighter-Interceptor Squadron flew from its runways. Strange radar tracks were nothing new here. In 1948, tower radar men had tracked unknown objects on three nights, one of them making 600 m.p.h. Donald Keyhoe would call the next event "the fourth to date."

June 19, 1952. 2:37 a.m. Radar operators picked up a track. Outside, 2nd Lt. A'Gostino and others saw "a strange, red-lighted object come in over the field."

On the scope, the blip suddenly enlarged, "as if the device has banked, exposing a larger surface to the radar beam." The airmen watched the red light wobble or flutter. Then it turned white and quickly disappeared. They concluded the craft had gone into a steep climb. It was over in about a minute.

Keyhoe, writing in True that December, added a detail. The light held a southwest course and hovered briefly at 4,000 feet. As it turned white, the blip "brightened." Brad Sparks later summarised the radar record as a stationary target that "suddenly enlarged then returned to previous size."

November 26, 1952. 5:56 p.m. An F-94B of the 59th Fighter-Interceptor Squadron chased a maneuverable object for about 15 minutes. It changed colour from white to red and headed south or southwest. The fighter got a brief radar lock-on.

December 15, 1952. 7:15 p.m. Ground Control Approach radar directed an F-94B and a T-33 jet trainer toward a bright red and white light. Capt. E. T. Johnson flew the F-94B, with Lt. H. S. Norris as radar observer. The object had "no definite size or shape." It made "gentle banks and turns and shallow descents and ascents." At 375 knots the jets could not close. After about 25 minutes it faded and disappeared. The F-94B's radar operator had only a momentary lock-on. Ground Control Intercept radar had no contacts.

Project Blue Book listed June 19 as an Unknown. NICAP's Fran Ridge noted a catch. Keyhoe assumed the radar and visual sightings were simultaneous, but Blue Book records indicate they were separate events.

For December 15, Blue Book's answer was Venus, with radar malfunction. The Condon Committee's final report, in Gordon Thayer's Case 104-B, found that "essentially correct." It added a refinement. A superior mirage distorting the setting Venus could explain the smeared look and the missing shape. Losing the mirage, or cloud, could explain the fade.

Not everyone accepted it. Martin Shough, in RADCAT, a NARCAP technical report, argued against Venus and radar malfunction. Sceptic Tim Printy, writing in SUNlite, went another way. Venus fits November 26, he argued. It set in the southwest just as that chase ended. December 15 fits the bright star Altair better. Because the Blue Book record card dates from 1963, he suggested the two cases may have been merged when the identification was assigned.

No photograph or film exists of any of the three events. What survives is radar, paperwork and the words of the airmen who were there. The December 15 report was among 41 formerly classified ATIC reports cleared for release to Keyhoe. And June 19 remains an Unknown in Sparks' Blue Book Unknowns Catalogue, Case 625.