Glenwood, Newfoundland, February 1958February 1958

On the evening of February 25, 1958, a man named Mr. Colbourne in Glenwood, Newfoundland reported seeing a disc-shaped object fall from the sky with a bright fire. He said it landed in a clearing in the woods. Later that same day, he visited the reported landing site and described finding a clearing roughly a quarter-mile by 1,000 feet with trees freshly broken and uprooted. He said the snow had been cleared away in a perfect triangular pattern, with snow pushed up and compressed at one end, but he found no signs of heat or tracks.

Around midnight on February 25, a woman named Mrs. Sennett and her daughter in Glenwood reported seeing a long red streak shooting across the sky toward the east, heading in the direction of Gander Air Force Base. The daughter, who was interviewed, described it as a red light traveling east toward Gander. An Air Force investigator later learned that a snowplow had been clearing roads in the area after two days of heavy snow, and suspected that the red light might have been from the snowplow rather than an unknown object.

During the investigation, Flight Officer Miller from the radar control center at Gander reported that he and two other men had tracked an object on radar that moved in an erratic course before disappearing. However, Miller later stated that in his opinion the radar target was actually a bright star that appeared to change colors because of atmospheric conditions at the time.

An Air Force ground party set out on February 27 to find the clearing that Colbourne had described. They searched with no success. Investigators also learned that Colbourne had made several inquiries during the search about whether the incident would receive any publicity in the news. When he was told it probably would not become public, he became less willing to help locate the clearing. Because the clearing could not be found and Colbourne could not provide additional details, the Air Force could not determine what had been sighted. The full case file, consisting of 7 pages, is reproduced below as held by the National Archives.