GANDER, Newfoundland, February 1958February 1958

On the night of February 25, 1958, a former Canadian Air Force serviceman living near Glenwood, Newfoundland, called military authorities to report a glowing disc falling from the sky. Later that same day, he claimed to have found a clearing 1,400 feet long and a quarter mile wide at the landing site, with trees freshly uprooted and snow pushed aside in a perfect rectangular pattern. He reported no tracks, no metal debris, and no melted snow.

Two women from Glenwood also reported seeing a red streak across the sky at midnight that same night, moving east toward Gander. At around the same time, radar operators at a nearby military air station observed an unidentified object on their scope moving erratically, though the operators later suggested it was probably a bright star appearing to change colors due to atmospheric conditions.

Military investigators launched a ground search to find and photograph the clearing. On February 27, they set out with the original witness but were unable to locate it, despite a full day of searching. When investigators later interviewed two people from the local Bowaters Woods Department who knew the witness well, they learned he had a reputation for exaggeration. During the search, the witness had repeatedly asked whether the incident would receive publicity in newspapers and radio. When officials indicated it would not, his confidence in finding the clearing again became noticeably less insistent. Investigators suggested the clearing might have been an old wood yard made by a bulldozer before the snowfall.

The original witness could not be pinpointed as reliable. The red light seen by the two women was likely a snowplow working the nearby Trans-Canada Highway. The radar contact remained unexplained, though the operator believed it was a star. The Air Force concluded the case as unknown, though the file indicates investigators suspected the witness had fabricated or greatly exaggerated his account. The full case file, a 12-page document, is reproduced below as held by the National Archives.