Project Blue Book Case #787. On August 24, 1950, an anomalous target was tracked on radar at the air defense facility in Bermuda — likely Kindley Air Force Base (now L.F. Wade International Airport), the U.S. military installation on the island. Bermuda's mid-Atlantic position made it a critical waypoint for military and civilian trans-Atlantic flights and a node in the Navy's Atlantic anti-submarine network.
Kindley AFB served as a staging base for patrol aircraft monitoring the western Atlantic for Soviet submarine activity. The base's radar systems provided early warning coverage over hundreds of miles of open ocean — an environment where conventional air traffic was well-documented and any anomalous return was immediately suspicious.
The radar operators at Bermuda were experienced in distinguishing between aircraft returns, weather phenomena, anomalous propagation, and genuine unknowns. Their training in the maritime radar environment — where conditions were often challenging — made their assessment of the contact as anomalous particularly credible.
August 1950 was during the Korean War, and Atlantic maritime patrol operations were intensifying in response to the growing Soviet submarine fleet. Any unidentified contact in the western Atlantic raised concerns about enemy reconnaissance.
No identification could be made. The case was classified "Unknown."