by Mack Maloney
This report was just one of many from Allied aircrews who’d spotted “rockets” while flying through Europe’s war-ravaged skies. And for a time, “rockets” became one of the catchall phrases used by Allied intelligence to categorize all the mysterious flying objects being seen during combat. It was a safe word used in an attempt to “de-sci-fi” their reports to higher-ups.
But what this particular Mosquito crew encountered was no “rocket,” at least not in the 1944 sense of the word. The same was true for all those other “rockets” Allied aircrews were reporting.
Just what they were, beyond simply another type of foo fighter, still remains a mystery. But how foo fighters became labeled as “rockets” at least for a while is an interesting story.
* * *
The Germans were working with rocket technology throughout the war; this was evidenced by the V-1 and V-2 vengeance weapons that would make their presence known by mid-1944.
But at no point did the Nazi war machine ever have a rocket that could find an aerial target in the night sky, fly up to it, get on a parallel course with it and make turns to stay with it, as many of these “rockets” were seen to do.
That kind of technology would require at the very least an elaborate guidance system (either internal or ground- or air-based), complex steering mechanisms built into the rocket fins and a massive fuel tank to allow such a “smart” object to stay airborne for long periods of time. Plus, if it had been some kind of German weapon, why didn’t these “rockets” fulfill their missions and destroy Allied warplanes instead of just riding alongside them?
The Nazis did have an unusual rocketlike weapon called the Hs-293. It was basically a small, unmanned airplane powered by a liquid fuel motor with a warhead in its nose and a crude radio receiver as its guidance system. The weapon would be dropped from a specially adapted Heinkel He-111 bomber. By using a radio-control joystick, a weapons operator aboard the Heinkel would guide the Hs-293 to its target, usually Allied shipping.
The Allies were aware of this weapon, so when aircrews started seeing “rockets” approach their aircraft, turning to get on their tails or taking up positions alongside, for a while Allied intelligence considered they might be Hs-293s, or something similar.
But there was a problem with this theory. Just because the Hs-293 was a new technology, that didn’t mean it was a workable technology. In fact, the weapon was difficult to handle, difficult to fire, and especially difficult to steer, and so it was essentially a case of eyeballing it several thousand feet down to its target.
And the Hs-293 couldn’t fly on the level, turn sharply, fly in formation with another aircraft — or speed away at fantastic velocities, which was exactly what Allied aircrews encountering “rockets” were reporting.
But again, in the military-think of the time, these mystery objects had to be explained in some way. So one British intelligence group decided that what allied aircrews were seeing were indeed Hs-293-type devices either launched from an aircraft or dropped by parachute.
But how could these mystery rockets turn and maneuver so fantastically? The British came up with at least one head-scratching explanation: Defects in the rockets themselves were causing “erratic behavior.”
Thus the extent to which some in Allied intelligence went to explain away the unexplainable.
* * *
A related incident halfway around the world lends a measure of credibility that something out of the ordinary was going on over war-torn Europe.
It happened in 1943, though the exact date is unknown. A military training plane stationed at Long Beach, California, took off and climbed to 5,000 feet. Suddenly an unidentified aerial object appeared off in the distance. It was bright orange and was shaped like the fuselage of a typical aircraft, but without wings or propellers.
The object approached the training plane at high speed, made a radical turn and was very quickly flying in formation with it. The object stayed on this parallel course for about a half minute, astonishing the pilot and his student, before accelerating up to 5,000 miles per hour and disappearing.
Whether the Allied air commands in Europe had been made aware of this sighting is also unknown — but one thing is clear: The object seen that day off Long Beach was extremely similar in description to the “rockets” being reported over Europe.
Which presents a baffling question: If the aerial phenomena being seen by Allied airmen over Europe were being excused away as German “rockets,” then how could almost the exact same kind of unidentified aerial object be seen off the coast of California?
Return of the Scareships?
By February 1944, RAF Bomber Command was pummeling Germany mercilessly.
On the night of February 19 alone, six major cities — including Munich, Stuttgart and Düsseldorf — were being bombed by waves of RAF aircraft.
In among the bomber streams coming and going in this brutal nighttime pounding, RAF crews saw many unidentified aerial objects.
During a raid on the Berlin area, two aircrews witnessed a glowing ball that came up from behind their airplanes at high speed, flying a steady horizontal course. In both cases the mystery object flew parallel to the aircraft before disappearing. The odd thing was that one crew saw this ball as orange red and the other saw it as pure white, meaning these crews must have seen two separate mystery objects.
But this was not the strangest thing to happen that night. Two RAF bomber crew, one taking part in a raid on Aachen, another near Coblenz, saw an object that both described as being silver and resembling an airship.
In one instance, this object flew a parallel course with the RAF bomber, same altitude, same heading, off its starboard wing. At one point this object fell behind the airplane, adjusted its course and then moved from the starboard side of the plane to the port side — an indication of some kind of intelligent control.
* * *
Five days later, on February 24, 1944, U.S. bombers were on their way to attack another heavily defended target: the city of Schweinfurt. Located in northern Bavaria, like Stuttgart, Schweinfurt was a crucial place for the Nazis because nearly all of the ball bearings for Germany’s airplanes, ships, U-boats and tanks were made there.
The city had been bombed before, most notably on August 17, 1943, and then again on October 14. Combined, these raids cost the U.S. Eighth Air Force more than one hundred B-17s, enough to put an end to U.S. deep penetration raids for nearly six months.
Things had changed by February 1944, though. Where the raids of 1943 were conducted without fighter escort, leaving the big bombers very vulnerable to German fighters, by 1944, long-range P-51 Mustangs were able to stay with the bombers all the way to the target and all the way back, holding off those German fighters and significantly increasing the survival rate of U.S. bomber crews.
But during the February 24 bombing raid another strange incident took place. Three large silver objects were spotted below the main force of bombers. The U.S. crews who’d seen them were convinced they were zeppelins, even though the objects seemed to be moving in unison and not at the mercy of the wind.
If anyone made the connection between these weird aircraft and the scareships of 1909, it was not reported publicly.
But a larger question remains: It’s extremely unlikely the Germans would send up three of their antique war blimps when they knew a huge allied bombing raid was on its way.
So, if they weren’t zeppelins, what were they?
The Normandy Sightings
The Allies’ massive invasion of Nazi-occupied France, famously known as D-Day, took place on June 6, 1944.
While the landings were costly in terms of lives lost and casualties suffered, they were ultimately successful. German forces were unable to push the Allied armies back into the sea or prevent them from establishing a permanent beachhead on the coast of Normandy. This foothold would be expanded gradually and serve as the starting point for the liberation of France and the Low Countries and the occupation of western Germany.
One of these ships was the SS George E. Badger. A Liberty-type cargo vessel, it was positioned just off Omaha Beach, the scene of the worst fighting. Crewman Ed Breckel served as a gunner aboard the ship and had a front-row seat for the immense battle. Yet in the midst of all the confusion and gunfire, Breckel saw something very strange: a dark object, long and tubular, flying along just 15 feet above the water. Breckel said it was traveling on a steady circular course and in plain view. He could see no appendages on it, things an aircraft would have. But it was moving much too fast to be a blimp or a balloon.
Breckel had it in sight for at least three minutes before it finally got lost in the tumult of the battle onshore.
His would be the first of two unusual sightings over the Normandy battlefield.
* * *
The second came about a month and a half later.
Breaking out of Normandy had been no quick thing. The rough hedgerow-dominated terrain played in the Germans’ favor, so the fighting just inland from the beaches was fierce for many weeks. It was late July before the Allies were finally able to push eastward into more open territory and battle the Germans on better terms.
George Todt, a columnist for the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner, was attached to a U.S. Army unit taking part in this breakout. One night Todt saw something streaking over Omaha Beach. He described the object as a pulsating red fireball. It was flying about a half mile high and made no noise.
Because the Germans had started launching their V-1 revenge rockets at England around mid-June, just after the D-Day landings, Todt at first assumed what he was looking at was a “buzz bomb.”
There was a problem, though. The object was heading west to east, toward German lines. If it were a German weapon, it would have been going the other way.
Now with other people watching, including a lieutenant colonel, the object, which appeared to be several times larger than the largest star in the sky, slowed and came to a stop right above the nearby German-American lines.
And there it stayed, without moving, for almost fifteen minutes, before suddenly flying away again.
Both Sides Shooting…
Strangely, there was an incident similar to the Todt sighting that same summer. But this one happened in Italy — and it wasn’t so peaceful.
The Allies had invaded Italy in September 1943, their first assault on Hitler’s Fortress Europe coming nine months before the D-Day landings in France. The Italian campaign had been a tough slog, however, as the Germans fought a brilliant defensive withdrawal, giving ground to the Allies only one inch at a time.
By June 1944, though, the Allied lines were well north of Rome, and approximately half of Italy was under their control.
One morning, near the battle lines close to Loreto, Italy, an egg-shaped object suddenly appeared in the sky. It was described as metallic and glistening and reportedly went into a motionless hover over the front.
Allied antiaircraft batteries opened up on it right away, but then something even stranger happened: Nearby German batteries began shooting at it as well,
After a while, the Allied guns stopped firing because their shells were having no effect on the object. But the German gunners continued to pound away at it, even though it was unaffected by their AA fire, too.
Eventually the Germans ceased firing as well. The object stayed hanging in midair for a short while longer, then rocketed off at high speed and was gone.
The “Old Crow” Incident
The B-17 Flying Fortress was probably the most well-known bomber of World War II.
It was aptly named. Able to carry more than 8,000 pounds of bombs, it also boasted up to thirteen .50-caliber machine guns sticking out of both sides of the fuselage and its nose and tail, plus in turrets located on its belly and on top just behind the cockpit.
Enemy fighters would have to think twice about approaching such a heavily armed plane, especially when it was flying in the vast formations the U.S. Army Air Forces (USAAF) were able to send over Germany as the war progressed. When the U.S. military reached the point where it could routinely muster 500 B-17s for a bombing raid, that meant the Luftwaffe fighter pilots would have to contend with more than 6,000 machine guns while trying to shoot those bombers down. For the Americans, there was safety and firepower in numbers.
But some B-17s were called on for another kind of mission. Labeled a harassment raid, the USAAF would send up a single B-17 at night to drop its bombs on some unsuspecting German target; “unsuspecting” because in nearly all cases, B-17s only flew missions during the day.
These “Lone Wolf” raids were intended to keep the Germans off balance. So it was on this particular night in November 1944. Bad weather in the past few weeks had forced the vast armadas of B-17s, and those of its cousin, the B-24 Liberator, from bombing most of Nazi-occupied Europe. But in an effort to keep the pressure on, the USAAF was sending up Lone Wolf planes to bomb selected targets.
One crew, belonging to a B-17 nicknamed “Old Crow,” had been given one of these solitary missions. Flying out of an airfield in Italy, their orders were to bomb a railway yard in Salzburg, Austria. According to the plane’s pilot, Captain Bill Leet, he and his crew were briefed on their target preflight and told of what kind of German defenses they could expect — including AA guns on the ground and possibly some new German jet-powered night fighters in the air.
The “Old Crow” took off but quickly developed an engine problem that would prevent it from reaching its maximum bombing altitude of 30,000 feet. Instead, the plane could only get up to 18,000 feet.
This and other factors caused Leet and his crew to think it best not to bomb their primary target at Salzburg. Instead, they decided to go to their secondary objective, another railroad yard, this one located at Klagenfurt, Austria.
They reached the target area and were prepared for German resistance there, too, but then things got strange. Just as Leet was about to drop his bombs, his plane was suddenly bathed in a very strong light. This light was so intense the entire crew could feel its heat.
Assuming they’d been caught in German searchlights, Leet had no choice but to continue the bombing run. Once the bombs were gone, he hit his throttles, determined to get out of the area as quickly as possible.
What was so surprising was that Leet thought for sure they’d been spotted by the Germans — that’s why they’d been bathed in the especially warm searchlights. But no AA fire was being shot at them. There were no night fighters around, either.
What they’d done had been almost too easy.
In any case, Leet turned the B-17 back toward Italy and headed for home.
But then a huge amber light suddenly appeared off their left wing. No one on the plane saw it coming — one moment, the sky was empty, and the next, it was there.
Leet described the object as being a perfect circle, almost too perfect. And it was luminous, he said, almost too luminous. Judging the size of objects at night is hard, especially at more than three miles high. But Leet guessed the perfectly round circle was about 10 feet in diameter.
Leet’s crew wanted to shoot at it, but he ordered them not to. This thing wasn’t showing any hostility, so he thought it was best that they appear nonhostile as well.
So they flew on, heading for home, their strange company flying right alongside them — for almost the next hour.
As Leet said later, the object’s position never changed; its shape never altered. Its luminescence never lost its intensity.
As a result, Leet was able to study it clearly for a long time. He concluded that he could see no exhaust coming from it. And neither was this thing caused by an illusion or lights or exhaust from another airplane nearby. Leet became convinced the object was real but not man-made.
About
fifty minutes after its appearance, the strange perfect circle suddenly blinked out.
Leet described it like someone flipping a switch. Just as before, one moment it was there, and the next it was gone.
* * *
The Old Crow finally landed and Leet was debriefed.
As was the case by now, whenever an intelligence officer heard that a crew had seen something strange in the sky, he tried to find an acceptable earthly explanation for it.
So as Leet said, when he first mentioned the luminous perfect circle, his intelligence officer replied it must have been a new secret German fighter.
When Leet disagreed, saying the object never shot at them or showed any hostility, the intelligence officer opined it was probably some kind of secret Nazi instrument that was sending back information on the B-17’s position to German AA forces. But the mission had gone perfectly in that respect, too, Leet told the intelligence officer. There had been no German AA fire.
At that moment, Leet knew the intelligence officer had run out of the typical excuses for foo fighters.
So they were left with no explanation at all.
6
The Other Side of the World
The mystery of the foo fighters was not confined to the conflict in Europe.
During the war years, strange unidentified flying things were seen over the Indian Ocean, over China, up near the Aleutian Islands and most importantly, all across the vast watery battleground of the South Pacific.
And while only a couple dozen unexplained sightings were officially reported during the Pacific war, author Keith Chester thinks the numbers are misleading. “The problem is, because of pressure from the Army Air Force to explain away these things, many sightings were identified by different names and placed under conventional categories,” Chester told us. “Real unknown observations were mixed into categories of things that ‘made sense,’ like seeing a bright star, or a new secret Japanese weapon. Plus, many reports filed by the U.S. Navy have not been located yet.” Chester’s conclusion: “I feel there were probably just as many foo fighter observations reported in the Pacific as in the European theater.”