The Constable's 'Jelly-fish' over Grand Falls

Constable Eric Kearsey of the Newfoundland Constabulary got home from duty at about 23:30 on 9 July 1947. His wife, his mother-in-law and a family friend, John Jackman of St. John's, told him that four round objects had just passed overhead side by side at terrific speed, heading east. They looked up again. This time Kearsey, his wife and Jackman saw a single object "like a huge jelly-fish" flash across the sky. It was round and about the size of a barrel head, with a glow like phosphorus, and it flew with a rocking motion. It was gone too quickly for them to judge its height or speed. They watched for another half hour and saw nothing more.

What is on the record

Kearsey's own report, dated at Grand Falls on 13 July 1947, sits in serial 130 of the FBI's flying-disc file 62-HQ-83894. The Air Force's list of 1947 incident summaries carries the same account as Incident 39. It times the sighting between 11:15 and 11:40, which the constable's homecoming places at night. The Fourth Air Force also listed it as incident 14 in its study of flying-disc reports dated 25 August 1947, with the time as 2330. The Department of War released both files in 2026. Neither offers a conclusion.

Grand Falls is now Grand Falls-Windsor. In 1947 it lay in the Dominion of Newfoundland, which did not join Canada until 1949. Outside the government files Eberhart records the sighting, citing the St. John's Evening Telegram of July 1947 and Loren Gross. The Hatch database files it as a "Flying Barrelhead" with four saucers.

Why it sits where it does

L4 · OFFICIAL RECORD: a released government record names who saw it. Kearsey and Jackman have names in the file. The constable's wife and mother-in-law saw the objects too, but they go unnamed. Nobody outside the files has added to the account in the archive. The tier weighs where a report comes from, not whether it is right. What rocked across the sky over Grand Falls is not resolved here.