Case file · Sighting
Clarenville, Newfoundland
Twelve people, including an RCMP constable, watched an oval object hover over the water near Random Island for an hour or more.
1978 CE · 48.16, -53.96 · status: unexplained
The account
On 26 October 1978 Constable James Blackwood was dispatched after calls and saw the object hovering about 30 m above the water before it vanished. The Royal Canadian Mint depicted the case on a coin in 2020.
The researched reading
Credible witnesses, including a police officer, saw something they could not identify. The long, stationary behaviour fits a light low over the water, but no one checked the sky that night, so a share stays open.
| Explanation | Weight | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Something known, misidentified | 40% | A bright light that hung over the bay for one to two hours before fading as cloud thickened is typical of a planet or bright star low over water, or of a lit vessel; binoculars magnify the shimmer rather than solve it. |
| Genuinely anomalous | 23% | An experienced constable who looked through a scope and still could not identify it keeps the case open; we have no astronomical check of the exact bearing. |
| A known natural phenomenon | 12% | Autumn air over cold Newfoundland water favours refraction and mirages that make distant lights appear to sit low over the sea and change shape. |
| Perception, memory or mind | 8% | Once a police officer arrived, expectation shaped later descriptions; the constable’s cigar sketch differs from the “oval” in other accounts. |
| A poorly understood natural phenomenon | 6% | A stationary luminous body near water could in principle be a poorly understood atmospheric light, but nothing was measured. |
| Undetermined | 5% | The share a generic explanation had beyond what has been shown for this case: it fits many cases like this one, but has not been demonstrated for this one. |
| Secret human technology | 4% | A hovering secret craft over a Newfoundland bay for two hours is improbable. |
| A hoax or fabrication | 2% | Twelve witnesses including an RCMP constable make invention unlikely. |
Official position: The RCMP recorded the report; no explanation was published, and the case was later commemorated on a Royal Canadian Mint coin.