New cases, old cases

A few recent cases:

On August 26, 2011, at about 8:30 pm ("in the afternoon"?) some UBC students were driving in Vancouver when they saw a glowing orange/red object over Burrard Inlet. They didn't think it was a plane, but it "floated" up and out of sight over Grouse Mountain. they saw two other similar lights as they watched the sky for several minutes at the first one disappeared. (UFO Clearinghouse)

On August 30, 2011, during the evening over Geary, NB, a Canadian Army witness and his wife saw a "bright light travelling across the sky, with no sound or strobing lights like most aircraft."

As for an old case, I found in the National Archives files a report from October 5, 1970. At about 5:10 am local, radar control operators at Shearwater, NS, had been hearing radio reports of UFOs seen in the area. They were surprised to find a "good radar return" of a stationary object southeast of their position. their "precision radar" painted the UFO at 2500 feet and was observed for 10 minutes. Why did the observation end? Because "the controller discontinued surveillance to prepare for an aircraft recovery," and he also "did not take his sighting seriously." Yes, the military radar operator detected an unidentified target but didn't think it was worth bothering about. Only after he heard about "similar sightings" on commercial civilian radio did he file his official report.

Beyond the radar operator's personal view, a note at the bottom of the official report notes: "A barium rocket was fired from a rocket range in W. Virginia on Oct. 5/70 at 09:00Z." Thus, according to the NRC, the radar return was unexplained.

Except that a barium cloud 150 miles up in the atmosphere wouldn't give a "good radar return" of 2500 feet. Visually, sure, that would explain the UFOs, but not the radar observation, unless we assume that a "precision" instrument that routinely vectored military aircraft safely could be so badly miscalibrated or misread.