The KC-97 off Newfoundland

A tanker and a ground radar

Everything known about this incident comes from ten pages of Headquarters USAF intelligence papers from July and August 1955. None of them is blacked out. The fullest account is in an Air Staff Summary Sheet of 28 July:

“On 6 July the crew of a KC-97 tanker reported the sighting of an unidentified airborne object in the Newfoundland area (4910N/5950W). At the time of the sighting a GCI radar in the same area obtained a radar return of an object which apparently was identical to the one the KC-97 crew had under visual observation.”

GCI is ground-controlled interception: the radar was on the ground. The evaluation calls what happened “simultaneous ground radar returns and aircrew visual sightings”. That is the whole description. The papers give no time of day, and they say nothing about what the crew saw: no shape, colour, movement or duration.

The position is given as 4910N/5950W, which is 49°10′ north and 59°50′ west. The map pin stands on that point. By our reading of map data it lies over the Gulf of St Lawrence, about 80 km off the west coast of Newfoundland; the papers themselves say only “the Newfoundland area”.

Unable to explain, tentatively explained

A memorandum for record of 11 July 1955, prepared by Colonel MacDuff of the Directorate of Intelligence, sets out the evaluation. A committee within the directorate was told on 8 July to evaluate the sightings and radar returns “as summarized and detailed in CAF IN 15592, dtd 6 July 55 and CAF IN 90703 dtd 7 July 55”:

“In arriving at the following conclusions the committee reviewed reports summarizing the incident, the crew interrogations and the NEAC evaluation of the incident. In addition certain new U.S. and Canadian developments in high performance unconventional aircraft were considered.”

NEAC is Northeast Air Command. The conclusions pull two ways:

“4. It was concluded that no intelligence is available to support or deny the existence of unconventional Soviet aircraft comparable to those under consideration in the US and Canada and providing performance such as reported.

5. The committee was unable to explain the simultaneous ground radar returns and aircrew visual sightings, and tentatively accepts the NEAC evaluation attributing the incident to electrical phenomenon on the one hand and misinterpretation of the sightings by aircrew members on the other.

6. It was further concluded that this incident should be classified as UFOB.”

So the committee accepted an explanation tentatively and, in the same memorandum, classified the incident as unidentified. It also marked the item “not considered suitable for inclusion in D/I Policy Book or the Daily Staff Digest.”

Fighters without delay

The same memorandum ends with two recommendations:

“8. Due to the serious technological threat should unfriendly nations succeed in developing high performance unconventional aircraft increased effort should be made by all collection agencies to penetrate the Soviet Research and Development establishments and programs in order to give the U.S. adequate warning of any developments in this area.

9. It is further recommended that in the event of future incidents of this nature fighter scrambles be effected without delay.”

On 15 July Colonel George E. Schneider asked for a letter to the Deputy Chief of Staff, Operations, for General Samford’s signature, “containing the recommendation of paragraph 9”. A handwritten note records that after a telephone call with him on 18 July “an Air Staff Summary sheet is submitted rather than a letter”. That sheet, dated 28 July, is headed “Request NEAC for Immediate Fighter Scramble Against Flying Objects”. Its first paragraph adds that the committee “discussed the possibility that the object might have been an high performance unconventional aircraft”, and that the directorate considered such an aircraft in unfriendly hands “a serious technological threat to the United States, and therefore every effort must be made to identify sightings in the future.” It goes on:

“the committee concluded that the method possessing the most likelihood of success would be interception of the object by fighter aircraft and recommended that in the event of future incidents of this nature fighters within range be scrambled without delay. 3. Attached as Tab A is a proposed message to the Commander NEACOM, directing the scramble of fighters as recommended by the committee.”

The sheet went to Operations, and its signature line carries the stamp “SIGNED” with the date 8 August 1955 and the name stamp of Major General … E. Briggs, Assistant Deputy Chief of Staff, Operations. The proposed message is not in the file. Beside the entry for it, “Proposed Msg to Cdr NEAC”, someone wrote “Incl not rec’d in M+R.” The file therefore does not show whether a message directing fighter scrambles ever went to Northeast Air Command.

Passed to the Royal Canadian Air Force

Schneider also asked for a paper for the Royal Canadian Air Force containing the first six paragraphs of the memorandum. A memorandum for record of 3 August explains that the directorate’s committee had evaluated two incidents, and on 9 August Colonel C. U. True signed the letter to the Chief of Staff of the RCAF, for the attention of its Director of Air Intelligence:

“a. A series of sightings by B-47 aircraft crews over the Canadian Archipelago between 1 and 8 June 1955. (TAB A)

b. 6 July 1955 sightings of Unidentified Object in the Newfoundland area by Kc-97 aircraft. (TAB B)”

The first incident is a different one, and the papers disagree on the aircraft: the covering letter says B-47, the summary it encloses says RB-47. That summary concludes that visual sightings on 3 and 8 June over the Canadian Archipelago “were aircraft of unknown nationality”, that the radar scope presentations “cannot be evaluated”, and that “There is no firm evidence that Soviet aircraft were flying in the area in question during the time of these incidents.”

The summary on the KC-97, Tab B, gives the committee’s findings in the words quoted as the official evaluation above, and ends: “That this incident be classified as an Unidentified Flying Object.”

What the file does not hold

• The two messages the committee worked from, CAF IN 15592 of 6 July and CAF IN 90703 of 7 July 1955.
• The crew interrogations and Northeast Air Command’s evaluation, both of which the committee reviewed.
• Any radar record: the station, the track, the range, the height or the time.
• The proposed message to Northeast Air Command.

We found no other mention of the incident in the text layers of the released files; 38 of those files have no text layer. The same released file also holds papers of 1954 and 1955 on an Avro Canada saucer project. The papers on the KC-97 do not name it, and neither do we connect them.

Why this scores where it does

Witnesses score 2. The crew were military aircrew, but they are not named or counted, and not one of their accounts is in the file; the interrogations were made and reviewed, and are missing.

Radar scores 2. Headquarters USAF states the ground radar return as a fact, and as simultaneous with the sightings, but gives no data, and the match to the object the crew saw is only “apparently”.

Optics and physical trace score 0.

Multi-channel scores 2: the crew’s eyes and a ground radar, two channels the committee calls simultaneous. Nothing in the file lets that be checked.

Documentation scores 3: a dated, unredacted run of papers from the intelligence directorate over five weeks, through to the letter to Canada, but without the messages, interrogations and evaluation it rests on, and without a single description of the object. Anomaly scores 2: the committee could not explain the coincidence of radar and sighting and took it seriously enough to recommend fighter scrambles, but the file records no performance, shape or behaviour. Data today scores 1.

That puts the case at 1.5 overall, class D, testimony only, with the status insufficient data.

What would settle it

Messages CAF IN 15592 and CAF IN 90703. The committee evaluated the incident “as summarized and detailed” in them.

The crew interrogations and the Northeast Air Command evaluation. Both were reviewed by the committee, and they are the only accounts of what the crew saw.

The GCI radar record. Which station, what track, at what time, and how the return was matched to the object the crew were watching.

The proposed message to Northeast Air Command. Whether an order to scramble fighters against such objects was ever sent.