Incident #203 Sighting Report — Peace River, Alberta, Canada, 17 November 1948

On 17 November 1948, at 1413 Z, a crew consisting of 1st Lt. James Toomey and S/Sgt Onno C. Blink observed an unidentified aerial object near Peace River, Alberta, Canada. The crew was flying at 7,000 feet MSL on the first leg of a flight from Edmonton, Alberta, to Kittigazuit, N.W.T. The object was described as a bright, flaming orange, egg-shaped entity with a tail that tapered to a point. It was estimated to be approximately 50 feet in diameter and was sighted at an altitude of roughly 18,000 feet. The object appeared to be in a shallow dive, moving in a southwest direction. The observation was momentary, and the object produced no sound, though it did momentarily illuminate the sky behind it as it passed. Weather conditions at the time were reported as overcast with tops at approximately 4,500 feet MSL and a high deck of thin, broken stratus clouds at approximately 12,000 feet. The incident was formally documented by the 1701st Air Transport Wing and forwarded to the Air Materiel Command at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. Subsequent analysis within the Project Grudge framework concluded that the object was certainly a fireball, noting that the description fit this classification very closely. Internal notes regarding the incident further dismissed the possibility of a weather balloon, as the last scheduled release had occurred over five hours prior to the sighting.