Hebron, NFLD, July 1954July 1954

On July 9, 1954, a missionary named Grubb at Hebron, Newfoundland and Labrador, reported seeing a strange light in the sky. The object appeared as a circular light with yellow on top and red on the bottom. Grubb watched it through a telescope as it moved slowly toward the west, about seven miles southwest of Hebron.

The light behaved oddly. It seemed to drop suddenly behind a mountain, then came down slightly and disappeared extremely quickly while Grubb was watching it through his telescope. He noted that the tail part of the object looked blurry when he first spotted it. The distance was impossible to judge, though from Grubb's vantage point at an elevation of 2,299 feet, the object appeared to be at least 13,935 feet high. A second report from the Hebron radio station also noted an object hovering over the Hebron area, with colors that varied between red, yellow, and white, and no appreciable movement.

The U.S. Air Force investigated the sighting and evaluated it as astronomical phenomena, possibly the planet Mars. The case file notes that the star Spica was setting at the reported time of observation, and the star Antares was located at 205 degrees azimuth at 16 degrees elevation. An initial evaluation in the report also considered Mars, which was in the south at 20 degrees elevation.

The full case file, containing 11 pages as held by the National Archives, is reproduced below.