The August 1950 file from Ernest Harmon Air Force Base contains two different kinds of report: an unexplained radar return and civilian observations of a dark, balloon-like object near the surface of St George’s Bay. They occurred in the same general region and reached the same military reporting system, but the surviving documents do not establish that a single object caused them. Treating their different times, descriptions and assessments separately is essential to understanding the record.
The radar report
A Military Air Transport Service intelligence report dated 7 September relays a message about a ground-controlled approach radar observation on 30 August. The return was said to move at an estimated forty to sixty miles per hour, at an estimated height of four to six thousand feet. On reaching the five-mile range ring, it reportedly paused for thirty seconds. A second scope also picked it up, after which the reported heading changed and the return disappeared at about nine miles.
The echo was initially faint and became brighter and more distinct at closer range, resembling a small aircraft. The report says no aircraft were in the approach-control area and no weather or radiosonde balloon had been released during the relevant period. Two airmen were described as qualified and reliable. That supports the existence of an operationally reported radar anomaly, but neither reliability nor a changing echo supplies a visual identification.
The file’s summary classifies this component as possible atmospheric phenomena or weather returns. The detailed message gives an initial course of 120 degrees, while the card includes a 140-degree course. It also presents a time difference: the relayed message gives 05:45 Zulu and the card prints 04:54 Zulu. These discrepancies should not be silently corrected into a reconstructed precise flight path. No radar plot or photographic recording accompanies the account.
Additional events in the same message
The relayed message also describes offshore radar returns on 2 September, with inquiries producing negative results. It then mentions an airman suffering a gunshot wound after seeing a person’s silhouette near a runway. The writer suggests a possible connection while explicitly acknowledging that the information was sketchy. The file does not identify the silhouette as a non-human figure or demonstrate that the shooting and radar reports had a common source.
That speculation has a narrower evidential status than an established link. A reported injury should not become an alien encounter through its inclusion in an unusual-aerial-object message. This article therefore records that the suggestion existed without presenting the separate incident as corroboration of a craft. The released documents do not supply a completed investigation of the proposed relationship.
Three employees on St George’s Bay
A second intelligence report, dated 27 September, provides substantially more detail about visual observations on 30 August. Three Newfoundland employees of Harmon’s water transportation section were near Indian Head and Sandy Point on St George’s Bay. The preparing officer recorded a position for the observers and a separate approximate position for the object, rather than simply placing everything over the base.
All three described a round, dark object, roughly barrel-sized and resembling a large balloon. At first they considered whether only part of an aircraft was visible. As it moved, they thought it might instead be a balloon or something released from an aircraft. These were the witnesses’ attempted identifications. The record does not provide a close view, a measured diameter or an optical enlargement that established its construction.
The men said the object rose to an estimated fifteen to twenty feet above the water, descended almost to the surface and repeated this motion three times. Each rise-and-fall cycle was estimated at forty to sixty seconds. It then ascended until it disappeared. The report gives about three to four minutes near the water but also records an overall clock interval of approximately 16:30–16:50 Zulu. Those statements leave an unresolved timing difference; a later summary gives a much shorter final ascent.
The water transportation officer described the employees as truthful and reliable. This is an assessment by someone who knew them at work, rather than independent confirmation of the object’s identity. The report contains their descriptions as relayed through the intelligence channel. There are no photographs or recovered remains, and the image accompanying this article is the official summary card, not a picture taken on the bay.
The Kippens fishing-party account
Later that day, a report reached the Kippens receiving site of something offshore thought to resemble a submarine. A helicopter was sent to reconnoitre the area from the base towards Port au Port, and Indian Head was also checked. The searches produced no identification. A negative search narrows what was found afterwards; it does not show what had been present earlier.
Questioning that evening produced another description from three people fishing in a dory near Kippens. They estimated that a large, target-balloon-like object was some distance from them, fifteen to twenty feet above the water, with a pole extending towards the waterline. One called it black, while the others gave a brownish-yellow colour. It reportedly travelled north-northeast at three to five miles per hour and passed from view after about five minutes.
These witnesses had seen aerial target practice during the war and associated the appearance with a target balloon. They left for shore because they thought gunnery might follow, rather than approaching to inspect it. The report records no smoke, exhaust sound or markings. Their account and the employees’ account share a broad resemblance, but differ in the described movement and appendage. No continuous observation proves they concerned the same object.
Weather and aircraft checks
Weather personnel considered whether a balloon had descended into the area. They said the locally released balloons were unlikely to account for it. The radiosonde released at 15:00 Zulu was white and approximately seven to eight feet across; both it and ceiling balloons had travelled northeast until lost from sight. That is a rejection of a specific local explanation, not a complete inventory of all possible objects or materials on the water.
The visual report supplies weather sequences around the sighting period, with fifteen-mile visibility, cloud bases at a few thousand feet and light northwesterly winds. Tower and operations personnel reported no aircraft in the relevant area at the time. Other aircraft had been tracked across the approach radar before the unidentified observation. The file contains actual checks rather than only an unsupported statement that the object could not have been conventional.
Assessment and map reference
The outcome for the combined historical file is insufficient evidence. The visual component remained unidentified, while atmospheric effects were proposed for the radar return. Neither component provides a demonstrated extraordinary object, and the reviewed material does not establish a causal connection between them. A possible radar explanation does not settle the separate reports over the bay, just as an unidentified visual object does not validate every event included in the packet.
The map is an approximate St George’s Bay sighting-area reference. The detailed report estimates the visual object’s position at 48°27′N, 58°33′W, represented here as 48.45, −58.55. It is not a surveyed object position, a private address, the precise radar return or a current visitor venue. The incident year is 1950; the later summary-card form and archive upload are not substituted for it.
The principal source is the six-page released Project Blue Book file, including the separate cards and September intelligence reports. All pages were compared, with the visual report and its coordinates checked against the scan. For a later Newfoundland case with a different balloon inquiry, see Pepperrell, 1953.