In 1998 my father-in-law had a simple 35 mile range Raytheon radar (sorry don't have the model
available) that had an old style CRT for a display and just simple controls such as range, wave
return adjustment, frequency adjust, brightness, etc. etc.. and nothing fancy like collision
detection or DSP. The radar antenna was of the waveguide type.

He was over 20 nm from shore off the coast of British Columbia, Canada one day and had his radar
operating. Visibility was unlimited and he could see the distant shore in the east on his radar
display. Out towards the open Pacific Ocean at approx the 30 mile mark on his 12 inch display was a
perfect square about the size of an eraser found on the end of a typical pencil. The return was
stationary and changed aspect whenever he manouvered his vessel. The "square" was hollow in
appearance. Adjusting the range showed that it was something at about the 30 mile mark and did not
appear on the closer range settings. Tuning adjustments did nothing to alter it. His C-Map and
paper charts showed nothing in that location and examining the area from the roof of his boat with a
pair of binoculars didn't reveal anything. Eventually, near the end of his day, he turned back for
shore to anchor for the night. The radar return drifted off the edge of his screen as he left the
area.

Anyone have any idea what it may have been? He had that radar for 3 years previous and still has it
today and has never seen anything like that appear on his display before or since. I thought
perhaps it may be the wave height buoys the CCG has planted in various places in the general
vicinity but posing the question to some coast guard techs I am friends with say as far as they know
they don't register returns like that. The Soviet "trawlers" left the waters years ago thanks to
glasnost! heheh! so I can't see it being that. Perhaps something military was in the area playing
"games". ????

I'm curious to know if anyone else has had an experience like this.