a “plate,” flying through the sky and giving off a greenish smoke. It kept a constant course as it headed south across the desert and out of sight. That year, UFOs were reported in many towns across Algeria and Oran, including Lamorciere, Mostaganem, Algiers and Marrakech, but also far to the south in the Belgian Congo near its uranium mines.
On June 19, 1952, yet another radar and visual saucer-sighting occurred at Goose Bay AFB. It was described in a number of sources with slightly differing details, but the substance of the case remains interesting throughout the varying citations.
At 2:37 a.m. that morning, Second Lieutenant Agostino and an unidentified radar operator saw a red light that turned white and seemed to wobble. Radar tracked a stationary target that quickly grew then returned to its previous size, possibly a disc rotating to present a wider reflective surface.
DID YOU KNOW?
The United States Air Force began using the term UFO instead of Flying Saucer in 1952, because they didn’t want people to assume that aliens were piloting the craft.
Journalist Donald Keyhoe had his own version of the story:
On the night of June 19, 1952, Goose Bay Air Force Base, in Labrador, came in for a brief observation. Just as radar men picked up a UFO track, ground men outside saw a strange, red-lighted object come in over the field. The radar blip suddenly enlarged, as if the device had banked, exposing a larger surface to the radar beam. At the same moment the watching airmen saw the red light wobble or flutter. After a moment the light turned white and quickly disappeared. Apparently the unknown craft had gone into a steep climb ...
Keyhoe noted his source was a USAF intelligence report, although which one is unclear. He commented on this case again in an article in True Magazine:
On June 19, 1952, a new incident occurred at Goose Bay Air Force Base — the fourth to date. Just after midnight, a weird red light appeared, holding a southwest course. At the same time, tower radar men caught it on their scope. After hovering briefly at 4,000 feet, the light suddenly turned white. At about this instant, the blip on the scope “brightened.” This effect, familiar to operators, is seen when a plane banks, the larger surface exposed to the radar beam causing a sharper return.
There are some obvious inconsistencies in the stories, however. Was the radar blip stationary or moving? If it was stationary, it could not have been the red object that “came in” over the airfield.
However, this meagre information perhaps does not give justice to what actually happened. In a fascinating account published on the Internet, a former radar operator related the situation in a fascinating narrative style, his memory vague about the date but full of details surrounding the incident. He posted the information on a website devoted to military reminiscences, hoping to find answers to some of his questions from more than half a century ago.
Bob Jones was stationed at Goose Bay AFB during 1952–53, and was the radar maintenance technician on duty at the American radar site when the encounter occurred. He said that in late December 1952 or early January 1953, a severe winter storm was raging and winds were gusting up to 110 kilometres per hour. The storm was so intense that all of the F-94 jet interceptors were tied down to prevent them from being damaged by the high winds. No air traffic had been detected by the radar through the storm, which brought heavy snow and reduced visibility to less than 23 metres. Jones noted the radar at Goose Bay was manufactured during the Second World War and could not cancel out ground clutter, preventing the accurate tracking of objects within about 32 to 64 kilometres from the antenna.
Around 11:00 p.m. a target appeared on the radar screen, about 145 kilometres to the north and approaching the base at about 145 kilometres per hour, and the radar could not determine its altitude. Jones noted that “the fact that the target was approaching from due north (0 degrees on the radar screen) was very unusual since no military or civilian airfields were located in that direction. Its slow speed of travel was equally strange. Most aircraft that approached Goose Bay from a northerly direction were flights coming in from Thule, Greenland, where the United States was building an air base and radar site.”
The object proceeded south at a constant speed and heading and was classified “Unknown.” Despite the weather, the F-94 interceptors were ordered to scramble. Because they were all tied down, it took 45 minutes to get airborne and by that time the object had entered the ground clutter and tracking was lost.
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