The following article was written by John Carnell, related by Captain James Howard and the flight crew of the British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC) Boeing Stratocruiser, Centaurus.
‘They were definitely not ordinary aircraft of any type — or imagination.’
The following is an extract from the Voyage Report of Captain James Howard in command of the aircraft. Captain Howard is a former bomber squadron leader with over 7,500 flying hours recorded in his log. This was his 265th Atlantic crossing.
“At 0105 G.M.T. today (June 30) about 150 nautical miles southwest of Goose Bay, height 19,000 feet, flying in clear weather above a layer of low stratus cloud, I noticed on our port beam a number of dark objects at approximately the same altitude as our aircraft. I drew the attention of the First Officer (Lee Boyd), to them. He said he had just noticed them also. I jokingly said that they reminded me of flack bursts. He agreed. (Sketch 1).
“It then became apparent that they were moving along on a track roughly parallel to ours and keeping station with us. The First Officer then called Goose approach to ask if there were any aircraft in our area (0107 G.M.T). They said No. During this time the shape of the large object changed slightly — also the positions of the smaller ones relative to the big ones. Some moved ahead, some behind. The First Officer then told Goose what we were watching and they said they would send a fighter to investigate. At this time the objects resembled Sketch II.
BOAC Captain James Howard's UFO Sketches
Sketches show how objects changed shape and relative positions.
“The shape of the large one continually changed but its position relative to us did not — always about 90 degrees to port. The distance from us appeared not less than five miles, possibly very much more. During this time both engineers, both navigators, the radio officer, two stewards and the stewardess watched it and all of us agreed on its shape. The number of small objects accompanied it (usually six were visible), and all were agreed that we had never seen anything like it before. At about 0120 the fighter reported that he was approaching us. The objects immediately began to grow indistinct until only one was visible. This grew smaller and finally disappeared (0123 G.M.T.) still at the same bearing to us. I reported to the fighter which direction to head for and then commenced descent to Goose, landing at 0145 G.M.T. As we taxied in another fighter was despatched to take over from the first.
“A U.S. Air Force Intelligence Officer met us and we gave him the story. I spoke to Fighter Control and he said he picked us up at 0113 G.M.T. (when we had the object in sight), but had nothing else on his screen but us.
“All who watched the objects are sure that the large one at any rate was no sort of winged aircraft. The small ones were just dots. They left no vapor trails. No lights were seen, just black silhouettes. The visibility at this altitude was unlimited with no cloud other than low overcast. The sun had just set. A large flock of birds might explain it if they were birds that could fly at a true airspeed of 238 knots at 19,000 feet formating on a Boeing for about 80 miles.”
Captain Howard added that another company’s aircraft had gone the same way about 25 minutes earlier but had seen nothing.
The release of this sensational report sent London reporters hurrying for interviews with the Captain and crew. The passengers apparently had dispersed by the time the Press arrived as no statements from them are recorded.
A News Chronicle reporter who interviewed Captain Howard at his home in Bristol quotes him as saying, “The formation of objects appeared suddenly and they were obviously not aircraft as we know them. All appeared black. I’ll swear they were solid. They were between five and 50 miles distant. There was a big central object which appeared to keep changing shape — sometimes it was wedge-shaped, sometimes like a dumb-bell, sometimes like a sphere with a projection. The six smaller objects dodged about either in front or behind the ‘parent'. They all faded away rapidly when the Sabre jet fighter contacted us.”
First Officer Lee Boyd, another former wartime squadron leader also living at Bristol, was quoted by a Daily Express reporter: “It was the greatest thrill of my life. I am willing to swear that what we saw was something solid, something maneuverable, and something that was being controlled intelligently.”
The same newspaper quoted the 31-year-old navigator George Allen: “I am absolutely convinced that the objects we saw were a base ship of some kind with a number of satellites linked with it.”
Meanwhile, the Daily Sketch approached the subject from a more feminine angle and quoted the 28-year-old air hostess Daphne Webster of Hounslow, Middlesex. “It was the most exciting sight I've ever seen,” she said, “but a little creepy. I was making tea when I saw the objects. The big one was constantly changing its size and shape — one minute like a cigar, then an orange, then a mushroom. The smaller ones kept changing formation but not their shape. Every one of us was far too intrigued to be afraid.”The Daily Mail added an additional statement of Miss Webster's: “The objects appeared to be not less than five miles away. It was difficult to assess their size because there was nothing in the sky at the time to measure them against. We are quite certain that the machines were in flight and were something solid.”
The best news coverage of the day was reserved for the Bristol Evening Post whose reporter found the pilot, first officer and navigator more expansive when relaxed in their homes than they had been facing the battery of newspapermen at London airport. Under a banner heading of FLYING OBJECTS “AS BIG AS A BLOCK OF FLATS” the Evening Post quotes Captain Howard, “They were definitely not ordinary aircraft of any type — or imagination. I've never seen anything which remotely resembled them before. They were not saucers — they never looked discshaped or flat. The size was impossible to estimate because we didn't know how far away they were. If they were 20 miles away the big object must have been the size of a block of flats; if five miles perhaps the size of a house.
“By comparison, if the big one was the size of the Queen Mary, the small ones were about the size of the tugs towing her out of harbor. The small ones were no more than bright dots — I couldn't distinguish any shape. They flew sometimes ahead or behind the large one, but never above or below." Discussing his radio call to Goose Bay and the dispatch of a Sabre jet fighter, Captain Howard continued, “The fighter was closing in within a minute or two. He signalled, ‘I am now 20 miles from you. What do they look like now?’ And in that moment I suddenly found I couldn’t see the small ones and the large one was beginning to get smaller. Within two or three minutes it had diminished and finally was just a speck, and then it was gone. It didn't go forward or back, just got smaller until it disappeared.”
Captain Howard went on to say that it was possible the object was flying directly away from him at great speed and that the changing shape may have been caused as it banked or turned, but at no time did it do anything suddenly. “I have never believed seriously in flying saucers,” he concluded, “I am not sure that I do now. All I know is that I saw something extremely odd which was not an airplane.”
Not made known immediately was the fact that Captain Howard and his crew were interviewed by high-ranking Air Force intelligence officers after they landed at London Airport. Quoted by the Daily Sketch the Captain said: “The RAF are obviously very interested. No one took pictures — I wish now I had had my camera. But we all saw the same.”
Thanks to the team at BBC, we can hear Capt. Howard detail his experience:
A sister ship of Centaurus: among the most comfortable and civilized airliners ever. Here the aircraft is described by pilots, recorded via KeyAero.
An amazing pilot, crew, ship, experience and report, recorded for history through the work of journalists from more than seven decades ago.
And Now a Contemporary Shape-Shifting Sky Show
Recently, a shape-shifting unidentified object was videotaped as it hovered over Green Cove Springs, Florida. Click here for a report with video.
Pulp is Pure Gold for Ufology
Thanks to a relatively small number of publications, “pulp magazines,” we have access to a large number of historic and significant UFO reports that might have been lost to history long ago. While uneven in reporting, if not in truth-to-conjecture ratio, the pulps serve to remind us of the “Who, What, Where and When.” One of the most important of these publications is Fate magazine.
Considered the "longest-running magazine devoted to the paranormal, Fate magazine was founded to report news on UFOs and paranormal phenomena in 1948 by Raymond A. Palmer (editor of the Science Fiction magazine, Amazing Stories) and Curtis Fuller.
Currently, Fate is published and edited by Ms. Phyllis Galde. Personally, I think the world of her and Fate magazine: Ms. Galde and her predecessor editors and writers, have served to share truth about our amazing universe. Truth is how we build for our tomorrows a better fate.
