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Germany, in 1944:

Case number:

ACUFO-1944-00-00-GERMANY-5

Summary:

In his June 1998 UFO Historical Revue historical ufology bulletin, U.S. ufologist Barry Greenwood explained that he hound out in the U.S. National Archive that some “Foo Fighter-Type” reports by airmen of the U.S. Army Air Forces during WWII had been put in a special “Phenomena” file.

Greenwood provided several examples, including this one:

SECRET

6535 (R) Phenomena

GERMANY

Phenomena. Reference Consolidated F.L.O. Report No. 192 page 1, last para.

Investigation by technical authorities suggests that the object described as “about the size of a Thunderbolt aircraft” was probably a jet-propelled fighter.

Erratum. Reference Consolidated F.L.O. report No. 201. Phenomena, para 2. It has now be determined after further interrogation of aircrew that the “pale blue streamers, 40 ft. in length” had no connection with the “two particularly large bursts”. The latter are thought to have been possibly “scarecrow” flares, while the “streamers”, which were seen a considerable time later, may have been smoke trails from ground fired “rockets”.

SOURCE: MA London - 66205 - 2 March 1944 - filed 9815 Spec. Binder.

Data:

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Sources:

[Ref. bgd1:] BARRY GREENWOOD - "UFO HISTORICAL REVUE":

Aircraft information:

There is no information available for now about the planes involved in this case, except that they were U.S. Army Air Forces military planes.

Discussion:

German “Scarecrow” flares

Allied airmen, during raids over Germany, saw phenomena looking like flares, sometimes exploding, and thought that the Germans were using special flares designed to look like aircraft falling in flames and distract aircrews of the attacking force. These flares were nicknames “Scarecrow” by the Allied.

After World War II, it was established that the so-called “Scarecrow flares” did not exist. The explosions were actually Allied aircraft being shot down by German night fighters. In many cases, the belief in the scarecrow flare was genuine, and some Historians claim that the “Scarecrow flares” interpretation was perpetuated to reassure aircrews rather than acknowledge the number of aircraft being lost.

German ground-to-air rockets

Some “skeptic” ufologists claim that the German has used during WWII a guided supersonic surface-to-air missile called “Wasserfall”. Some “skeptic” explained one of the other so-called “Foo-Fighter photograph” of WWI as photo of this missile in operation.

Whereas the “Wasserfall Ferngelenkte FlaRakete” (“Waterfall remote-controlled anti-aircraft rocket”) was indeed a German project of remote-controlled ground-to-air anti-aircraft rocket, by the Flak-Versuchskommando Nord, at the Peenemünde base, development was not completed before the end of the war and it was not used operationally.

Other ground-to-air German guided missiles were:

• Enzian (Gentian): this project, was plagued by organisational problems, was cancelled before becoming operational. Rheintochter (Rhine Daughter), In August 1943, 82 test firings from ramps were made, but the project, including its air-to-air variant, was cancelled on February 6, 1945.
• Henschel Hs 117 Schmetterling (Butterfly): this was a radio-controlled round to air rocket, with an air-to-air variant also planned. The operators were using a joystick to guide it by radio waves, with a telescopic sight to observe the trajectory, and it was supposed to explode near the Allied planes, detonated by acoustic and photoelectric proximity fuses. In May 1944, 59 of them were tested, over half the trials failed. Mass production was ordered in December 1944, with deployment to start in March 1945. In January 1945, a prototype for mass production was completed, and production of 3.000 missiles per month was anticipated, but on February, 6, 1945, the whole production was cancelled.

• Feuerlilie (Fire Lily) F-25 and F-55: The project for this solid-fuel ground-to-air rocket started in 1940 but was shelved because of problems with the controller and the drive section at the end of January 1945 in favour of the other projects. There was a test in July 1943 was tested in the Leba test facility on the Baltic Sea, by mid-1944, at least four F-25s had been fired; but these tests were not conclusive and this rocket was never used in operations.

Lastly, there was also one air-to-air guided German missile project, the Ruhrstahl Ru 344 X-4 or Ruhrstahl-Kramer RK 344. It was a wire-guided air-to-air missile. But it did not see operational service.

The case:

It is totally impossible to me to assess either the “pale blue stramers, 40 ft. in length”, or the “two particularly large bursts”, or the object “about the size of a Thunderbolt aircraft” because the information in the report is totally insufficient.

There is no detailed description, no duration, we do not know whether this was by way or night, we do not know when and where it happened.

Obviously, the available report is an evaluation of data from previous reports which are not available so far; it they become available, maybe all this will be explainable one way or another.

Evaluation:

Totally insufficient information.

Sources references:

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

• [aaf1] ? "Phenomena" in the Consolidated Flak Liaison Officer Report No. 201.
• [bgd1] * UFO Historical Revue, historical ufology bulletin, Barry Greenwood editor, USA, No. 1, page 9, June 1998.

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