The Harbour Mille Missile Sightings, Newfoundland

Harbour Mille is a fishing community of about 150 people on Newfoundland's south coast, on the Burin Peninsula. The French islands of Saint-Pierre and Miquelon lie close by. That detail would matter.

Monday, January 25, 2010. Early evening. Darlene Stewart was outside taking pictures of the sunset when she saw something fly overhead. "Even with the camera, I couldn't make it out until I put it on the computer," she said. "I knew then it wasn't an airplane."

Her photo showed a long, round object, much like a missile, seemingly rising from the ocean, with smoke or flames shooting out the back end. Stewart, her husband and neighbours saw more objects minutes apart. One up close. Others farther off in the distance. They made no noise. Accounts count three or four in all, visible for several minutes, leaving a trail of smoke with fire behind them.

Her neighbour Emmy Pardy, 47, the postmaster, watched through binoculars. The object was "like a humongous bullet, grey or silver in colour, and had fire coming out." Stewart was shaken. "I really did get sick to my stomach, I was shaking when I seen it."

Calls to the RCMP and Public Safety Canada were passed to the Prime Minister's Office. The Canadian Press called it "a confusing dance" between agencies. The Department of National Defence said it was not aware of any missile testing in the area. RCMP spokesperson Helen Cleary-Escott said there was no debris or other evidence to investigate. NORAD reported no known rocket launch. Dimitri Soudas, spokesman for Prime Minister Stephen Harper, wrote: "There is no indication that there was ever a rocket launch." France said no French military activity took place in the region.

Officials suggested model rocket hobbyists used the area. "Yeah right," Pardy said. "I don't believe that for one minute." Everyone in the community knows everyone, she said, and she had never heard of anyone launching homemade rockets. She believed the truth was being covered up.

In May 2010, CBC reported on DND documents. The Directorate of Scientific and Technical Intelligence had studied Stewart's images. "The object is not a ballistic missile, not a cruise missile in boost phase nor a cruise missile in-flight phase. It is also not a licensed model rocket launcher." The flame was longer than the body. Its shape was atypical of a missile launch. The analysts said what it was not. They never said what it was. The RCMP called it an unexplained sighting.

Theories filled the gap. Radio station VOCM linked the sighting to a French M51 missile test from the submarine Le Terrible. France denied any activity in the region. Robert Huebert of the University of Calgary suggested a malfunctioning ballistic missile, flying too slowly to go supersonic. Billy Allan of the Royal Military College called it "a subsonic something or other" and raised the possibility of a hoax. No hoax was ever shown.

The leading mundane answer came first from a Finnish researcher, then from Mick West of Contrail Science. A short contrail, seen nearly head-on and lit by the setting sun, can look like a solid body trailing flame. It fits the sunset and the silence. That explanation did not satisfy witnesses.

Officially, Harbour Mille remains unexplained. West set it beside the November 2010 "mystery missile" filmed off Los Angeles. In Newfoundland it joins a long line of strange skies, from Gander in 1951 to Outer Cove in 1970.