Kinross UFO Incident — The 1968 Lake Superior Wreckage Discovery

Kinross UFO Incident — The 1968 Lake Superior Wreckage Discovery

Overview

Fifteen years after the Kinross incident, in late October 1968, a brief and ultimately inconclusive discovery revived interest in the case. Prospectors exploring Cozens Cove*** on the eastern shore of Lake Superior — in Ontario, Canada — came across aircraft wreckage that was subsequently examined by both Canadian provincial police and American military personnel.

The Discovery

Detail	Information
Location	Cozens Cove, eastern shore of Lake Superior; Ontario, Canada
Date discovered	Late October 1968
Discovered by	Prospectors
Distance from 1953 search area	Approximately 200 miles from the area where the 1953 five-day search was conducted
Primary piece	A stabilizer (tail section component)
Material assessment	Heavy metal consistent with a high-performance military aircraft designed to withstand heat from high-speed flight
Ontario Provincial Police	Attended the scene; recovered the stabilizer; confirmed military construction
USAF assessment	Major J.H. Parker of USAF Kincheloe Air Base (formerly Kinross AFB) confirmed the stabilizer belonged to a military jet; identified it as from a high-performance aircraft
Initial conjecture	The piece might be from Moncla's F-89 Scorpion
Subsequent determination	"Earlier there was some conjecture it could have been wreckage from an F-89 Scorpion interceptor downed in 1953 but this later appeared unlikely"***
Official identity	Never published; identity of the wreckage remains officially unknown
Current location of wreckage	Unknown

Anomalies in the Discovery

Several aspects of the 1968 wreckage discovery are puzzling:

• The piece was found approximately 200 miles from the search area*** where the 1953 five-day search was concentrated. This enormous distance from the last known radar position is difficult to explain if the aircraft crashed at the location where radar contact was lost.

• A US Air Force officer confirmed the piece was from a military jet, but the identity was never published. The article describing the discovery ends with the statement that it "appeared unlikely" to be from the 1953 F-89 — but provides no explanation for why.

• Canadian authorities subsequently stated they had no information about the discovery. This mirrors the broader pattern of Canadian authorities having no record of events that American sources documented.

• The wreckage has apparently been lost — no record of its current location exists in publicly available sources.

What the Discovery Leaves Open

The 1968 wreckage cannot definitively connect to Moncla's F-89 based on available information. However, its characteristics — military construction, high-performance materials, Lake Superior shoreline location, proximity (even at 200 miles) to the general area — mean it cannot be definitively ruled out either. The failure to publish the identity of the wreckage is itself an anomaly in standard military accident investigation procedure.