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Manchuria, China, in 1940:

Case number:

ACUFO-1940-00-00-MANCHURIA-3

Summary:

In their 1983 book "UFOs Over Modern China, Wendelle Stevens and Paul Dong published this image:

They said it was talen in 1940 in Manchuria, China, in the morning, and is an "official" photo of a UFO watching over Mitsubishi Type 97 bombers warming up for a mission.

They gave no source about this.

In 1997, erudite Italian ufologist Gieseppe Stilo commented this photo and other similar photos, explaining that in the mid-1950s, one Yusuke Matsumura, in Japan, distributed mimeographed bulletins in English on behalf of a small group of enthusiasts called the "Flying Saucer Research Group"; that in 1958, in Yokohama, he created the "CBA International (Cosmic Brotherhood Association)" with the administrator in Japan of the American contactee George Adamski, Hachiro Kubota, and launched the small magazine "Flying Saucer News". Matsumura then claimed to have met the "Space Brothers" himself, who took him into their spaceship (etc.). From 1957 on, Matsumura released dozens of photos of unusual clouds, claiming that they were spaceships that he had photographed himself. He ended up setting up a real apocalyptic sect and practicing fraud, having money paid to him by his disciples whom his extraterrestrial friends were supposed to save from the soon to come end of the world - which did not happen. He continued to publish alleged photos of UFOs, faked by him.

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Sources:

[Ref. wsd1:] WENDELLE STEVENS AND PAUL DONG:

[Ref. gso1:] GIUSEPPE STILO:

This Italian UFO researcher discusses alleged “Foo-Fighter“ photos which would come from Japanese aviation during the Second World War, which were published in numerous books giving no source. He explains that ufologists specializing in «Foo-Fighter« are not aware of any well-documented reports that would be linked to these photos, and that consultations with these ufologists revealed that they have a unique and very questionable source.

The source, dating from 1963 and 1964, was the Japanese “contactee” group “Cosmic Brotherhood Association”, led by Yusuke J. Matsumura. They had published numerous photos, none of which had a source from Western ufology.

A first series was published by the CBA in the second issue of the 1963 newsletter Flying Saucer News.

The image below, Stilo said, shows about ten twin-engine planes on the ground with a bright spot on the left, in the clear sky.

Stilo adds that according to Wendelle Stevens and Paul Dong in their book UFOs Over Modern China, Aztec, 1983, page 15, Stevens locates the alleged episode "in Manchuria in 1940" and talks about Mitsubishi 97 bombers.

Stilo explains that in the mid-1950s, Yusuke Matsumura distributed mimeographed bulletins in English on behalf of a small group of enthusiasts called the "Flying Saucer Research Group"; that in 1958, in Yokohama, he created the "CBA International (Cosmic Brotherhood Association)" with the administrator in Japan of the American contactee George Adamski, Hachiro Kubota, and launched the small magazine "Flying Saucer News". Matsumura then claimed to have met the "Space Brothers" himself, who took him into their spaceship (etc.). From 1957 on, Matsumura released dozens of photos of unusual clouds, claiming that they were spaceships that he had photographed himself. He ended up setting up a real apocalyptic sect and practicing fraud, having money paid to him by his disciples whom his extraterrestrial friends were supposed to save from the soon to come end of the world, which did not happen. He continued to publish alleged photos of UFOs, faked by him.

Aircraft information:

The planes in the photo are so indistinct that they may have been several of the Japanese twin-engine bombers; for example the Mitsubishi Ki-21, "Type 97", put into service in 1938, or the Nakajima J1N1 Gekko, put into service in 1941, or the Mitsubishi Ki-67 "Peggy", put into service in October 1944.

Discussion:

Because there is no real "report" attached to this photo, it is in no way certain that there was even one pilot witnessing anything.

What Wendelle Stevens and Paul dong wrote about the photo seems to be made up, it sounds just like anything one would infer by looking at it. Of course there are plane, of course it could be in the morning, of course someone must have taken the picture, of course it takes place on a military strip so the photo must be "official", etc.

Of course, the photo has no credibility and no strangeness.

I searched in vain for a better version of this photo. The so-called "Foo-Fighter" is so pale that it can barely be seen, and it may in fact have been the Sun behind a cloud-covered sky. Or, if the photo was taken early in the morning, it may have been the Moon.

I was never convinced that Yusuke Matsumura "faked" any of the dozen photos of alleged Japanese "Foo-Fighters" photo. He would certainly have "made" a better UFO than this. My conjecture is that he found some Japanese book about Japanese air forces in WWII and picked up any photo with anything "odd" enough so he could believe or claim it was a "UFO". When I found the excellent article by Giuseppe Stilo, I became even more convinced of that, as Stilo explained that Yusuke Matsumura later collected "weird clouds" photo and also claimed they show UFOs. This suggests even more that he was not (yet) crafted and/or equipped enough to fake a photo.

Evaluation:

BLURFO, Sun behind clouds or moon for example.

Sources references:

* = Source is available to me.
? = Source I am told about but could not get so far. Help needed.

• [fsn1] ? "Contactee" bulletin Flying Saucer News, by Yusuke Matsumura, "Cosmic Brotherhood Association", Japan, 1963 or 1964.
• [wds1] * "UFOs Over Modern China>, book by Wendelle Stevens and Paul Dong, UFO Photo Archives publishers, page 15, USA, 1983.
• [gso1] * "Il ritorno di foo fighters, article by Giuseppe Stilo, in the ufology magazine Rivista UFO, Centro Italiano Studi Ufologici (CISU), Italy, No. 20, pp 7-8, December 1997.

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This page was last updated on July 14, 2024.