General Discussion

Study of an Unusual Phenomenon Observed by BOAC Aircrew over Labrador, Newfoundland

June 29, 1954
Martin Shough

This classic observation was made by crew and passengers of a 4-engine Boeing Stratocruiser3 of the British Overseas Airways Corporation. Flight 510-196 was a luxury flight bound for London on the "champagne and caviar run", departing New York at 1703 local (2103 GMT) on June 29, 1954 with 51 passengers aboard. Four hours later at sunset, 19,000ft over Labrador en route for Goose Bay, an apparently huge shape-changing UAP and a swarm of small attendant objects was seen against the bright sky off the left wing. The strange display persisted for 18 minutes.

After a refuelling stop at Goose where they were met and questioned by US Air Force intelligence officers the crew proceeded to London, where the story rapidly appeared in national papers and magazines. Capt James R. Howard was filmed for BBC TV and cinema newsreels. It became big news and went around the world within days via the Associated Press syndicated wire. The standing of the witnesses, in particular 33-year-old Capt. Howard, a highly respected former RAF Squadron Leader with 7500 hours commercial flying on 256 Atlantic crossings to his credit at the time of the sighting, has never been called in question. They were convinced that their airliner was followed for 80 miles by a formation of solid flying objects under intelligent control. To this day the case is still hailed by many ufologists as one of the most significant unexplained cases.

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The report

Here is Capt Howard's first person account4 from the December 11, 1954, edition of the
British magazine Everybody's Weekly:

WE WERE SHADOWED FROM OUTER SPACE

Maybe it wasn't exactly a flying saucer. What I saw, on a recent New York to London flight, was more of a flying arrow, I guess you'd have called it at one stage. It seemed to keep changing its shape as it flew beside me, very much like a jellyfish assumes varying patterns as it swims through the water. Or maybe the apparent changes in shape were due to the different angles we viewed it from as it banked and turned about five miles off.

Whatever it was - a giant flying wing, jellyfish or saucer - of these things I'm quite certain: It wasn't a trick of light or a figment of the imagination. It wasn't any sort of electrical, magnetic or natural phenomenon. And it certainly wasn't a mirage.

No, it was something real and substantial; something that kept station with me for eighty miles and only sheered off when I got a radio call from the Sabre-jet fighter which had been sent up from Goose Bay to intercept the thing. It was something - the idea gives me slight goose-pimples when I think of it - which was keeping my Boeing Stratocruiser, Centaurus, under observation.
The date was June 29 this year. Just before sunset. Over Labrador. The sky was crystal-clear.

Snip...

I counted, re-counted, counted again. Six. Always six. Sometimes there were three stretched out in front of the main thing and three behind. Sometimes five stretched out in line ahead and only one behind. I had the impression that just before I got round to counting them there were more than six, which ties in with Lee Boyd's idea that they were flying in and out of the large central object like aircraft entering and leaving a flight hangar.

Lee said, as though he didn't believe it himself: "There's a lot of Air Force traffic in and out of Goose Bay some days. Maybe it's a formation of fighters way out in the distance. Want me to call up Goose and check?".

Continues... PDF:

http://www.martinshough.com/aerialphenomena/BOAC%20aircrew%20sighting.pdf

In truth, must have been a real shocker, if not scary as all get out — both then and now.