Four cases from February 1951, headlined by the Bethune Incident over the North Atlantic and the Mount Kilimanjaro cigar-shaped UFO photograph.
1951: February
UFO|UAP & Entity Sightings Archive
February 1951 is anchored by the famous Bethune Incident — a U.S. Navy co-pilot’s near-collision with a huge, glowing object over the North Atlantic that was serious enough to draw a personal debriefing by Air Technical Intelligence officers at Wright-Patterson AFB — documented in full via the standalone report linked below. Remarkably, it was not the only close encounter on that same Iceland-to-Newfoundland ferry route this month: two more similar sightings, on the 8th and the 21st, suggest something was genuinely active along that stretch of ocean in February 1951. The month also brought a widely reproduced photograph of a cigar-shaped object over Mount Kilimanjaro, Tanzania, also documented in full below.
Date: February 1951
Location: Unmatjera, central Australia
Time: Unknown
Summary: A group of Aboriginal witnesses observed a shiny, circular object land near a similar craft, about 12 meters in diameter. Several minutes later, a dwarf-sized figure dressed in a shiny suit with a “round shiny head” emerged from one craft and entered the other; both then took off with a buzzing sound.
Source: Frank Edwards
Date: February 1 or 2, 1951 (BBU 886)
Location: Johnson AFB, Japan
Time: 5:10 p.m.
Summary: The pilot and radar operator of an F-82 night fighter saw an amber light make three or four 360-degree turns to the right, reverse toward the F-82, then climb out of sight.
Source: Berliner
Date: February 4, 1951
Location: Sussex, England
Time: Evening
Summary: A young girl playing in her garden saw a hovering, disc-shaped object with a transparent cupola on top. Inside, she could see three figures wearing shiny, silvery outfits, apparently looking down at her. No other information survives.
Source: GEPUC
Date: February 8, 1951
Location: Between Iceland and Newfoundland
Time: Unknown
Summary: The pilot and crew of a Navy R5D four-engine transport aircraft observed a translucent or metallic, saucer-shaped craft with a purple-red, fiery ring around its perimeter and a frosted white glow surrounding the entire object — a glow the crew compared to the light seen around the commutator of an automobile generator when observed at night. The crew was interrogated and the case investigated by U.S. Air Force intelligence officers. This is the first of three closely related sightings along the same North Atlantic ferry route this month — compare the Bethune Incident of February 10 and the further encounter of February 21, below.
Source: Unknown
Date: February 10, 1951
Location: Approximately 90 miles west of Gander, Newfoundland, Canada, over the North Atlantic
Time: Night
Summary: U.S. Naval Reserve Lt. Graham Bethune, co-pilot of a Navy R5D transport (Flight 125, out of Keflavik, Iceland, bound for Gander), first sighted a glow below the horizon roughly 1,000-1,500 feet above the water. The object — at least 300 feet in diameter by Bethune’s estimate — closed on a near-collision course before veering off, described as orange and circular, appearing to “almost literally fly circles around” the aircraft before departing. Bethune and his crew were later interviewed at length by Air Technical Intelligence Center officers at Wright-Patterson AFB, though none of the Navy or Air Force personnel involved, nor a government scientist reportedly present, would answer further questions about the case afterward. One of the best-documented and most widely cited North Atlantic UFO cases of the era. See the Full Report.
Source: Lt. Graham Bethune, official Navy report; NICAP; Wikipedia “UFO sightings in Canada”
Date: February 14, 1951
Location: Alamogordo, New Mexico
Time: Unknown
Summary: Two Air Force pilots, while watching a large balloon, saw a flat, round, white object hovering at high altitude.
Source: Unknown
Date: February 15, 1951
Location: Los Angeles, California
Time: 11:00 a.m.
Summary: The witness, eight years old at the time, was at her grandmother’s house when her mother sent her out to fetch an item from the car. Opening the trunk, she felt she was being watched; seeing no one, she retrieved the sweater and, for no apparent reason, looked up to see a round object hovering at roughly 1,500 feet, with a cone-shaped bottom and what looked like six rings around the cone, with visible movement at the outer edge of the airframe. The craft then shot upward at extremely high speed and vanished. The witness reported losing 55 minutes of time.
Source: NUFORC
Date: February 15, 1951
Location: Sea of Japan, off the coast of South Korea
Time: Early afternoon
Summary: A Navy patrol plane using AN/APS-15B radar made five separate contacts with high-speed objects, tracked at estimated speeds ranging from 12,600 to 14,400 mph. The radar equipment was reported to be functioning normally throughout. This is the third Korea-theater radar case documented in this archive within roughly two months, following the December 1950 USS Gardiners Bay near-miss and the January 26, 1951 USS Passumpsic escort case.
Source: Jan Aldrich; Dan Wilson
Date: February 19, 1951
Location: Mount Kilimanjaro, Tanzania (then Tanganyika)
Time: Unknown
Summary: Capt. Jack Bicknell, a pilot for East African Airways, photographed a large, cigar-shaped object hovering motionless near Mount Kilimanjaro from his aircraft. After remaining stationary for a considerable time, the object suddenly climbed away and vanished. The developed film reportedly showed a clear, large image of the object; the sighting was described in detail by Bicknell in the Nairobi Sunday Post of February 25, 1951. One of the earliest and most widely reproduced African UFO photographic cases. See the Full Report.
Source: Capt. Jack Bicknell, Nairobi Sunday Post, February 25, 1951; Natal Mercury
Date: February 19, 1951 (BBU)
Location: Rodeo, New Mexico
Time: Unknown
Summary: A USAF C-54 pilot saw a green flare or fireball pass his plane.
Source: Project 1947; FUFOR Index
Date: February 21 or 26, 1951 (BBU 896)
Location: Durban, South Africa
Time: 4:55 a.m.
Summary: Three men in a truck, along with several other unnamed persons, saw a dark red, torpedo-shaped object with a darker center fly straight and level.
Source: Berliner; FUFOR Index
Date: February 21, 1951
Location: Between Newfoundland and Iceland, over the North Atlantic
Time: 3:00 a.m.
Summary: Lt. George Williams was piloting a Navy Fleet Logistics aircraft cruising at 10,000 feet when he first took the object for a ship and called his co-pilot forward. Nine witnesses aboard watched the object approach at a terrific closing rate before veering to the aircraft’s port side and hovering momentarily, then rising away at extremely rapid speed and disappearing off the port quarter. Its size was estimated at roughly 200 feet in diameter, flat and elliptical or cigar-shaped in side profile, producing a ring of red-orange exhaust along its edge; the nearly full moon was visible throughout, providing useful lighting for the observation. Documented as “Incident #26” in a formal investigation, this case is explicitly distinguished in the original source material from Lt. Bethune’s better-known February 10 sighting eleven days earlier — the two crews’ accounts were independently obtained, supporting the conclusion that this was a separate encounter along the same North Atlantic route rather than a retelling of the Bethune case. Some researchers consider this the likely basis for the “Cmdr. Benton” case described in Donald Keyhoe’s writing.
Source: Jan Aldrich; Project Interloper report
Date: February 25 or 26, 1951 (BBU 897)
Location: Ladd AFB, Alaska
Time: 7:10 a.m.
Summary: USAF Sgt. J. B. Sells saw a dull grey, metallic object, roughly 120 feet long and 10-12 feet thick, hover, puff smoke, and speed away.
Source: Berliner
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
A Busy Month Over the North Atlantic Ferry Route
February 1951’s most striking pattern isn’t any single case — it’s the cluster of three separate, similar sightings along the Iceland-to-Newfoundland Navy transport route within about two weeks: a translucent, ring-glowing craft on the 8th, Lt. Graham Bethune’s now-famous near-collision on the 10th (documented in full via its standalone report), and a further close approach witnessed by nine crew members on the 21st. Cross-checked against Don Berliner’s authoritative Project Blue Book Unknowns compilation, this month’s three official BBU cases (Johnson AFB Japan, Durban South Africa, and Ladd AFB Alaska) represent the complete official record for February 1951 — nothing appears to be missing from that specific ledger. The month’s other standout is the Mount Kilimanjaro photograph, one of the earliest and most widely reproduced African UFO images of the era.
“I observed a glow of light below the horizon about 1,000 to 1,500 feet above the water.”
— Lt. Graham Bethune, on the February 10, 1951 encounter over the North Atlantic
