ACUFO-1940-00-00-JAPAN-6
In the years 2000 - 2020, the image below is distributed on the Web, most often without any explanation but as an illustration of articles on the “Foo-Fighters” of the Second World War, sometimes with the mention that it comes from Japan, sometimes with doubts about its authenticity or the nature of what it shows:
|
To me, theses “UFOs” are merely liquid stains on the photo paper at development, with someone having tried to wipe them out.
In 1997, the erudite Italian UFO researcher Giuseppe Stilo wrote about the series of alleged “Foo-Fighter“ photos which allegedly came from Japanese aviation during WWII He explained that ufologists specializing in «Foo-Fighter« were 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, dating from 1963 and 1964: the Japanese “contactee” group “Cosmic Brotherhood Association”, led by Yusuke J. Matsumura who published this photo and other photos in the second issue of their 1963 newsletter Flying Saucer News.
Stilo said that this photo shows a Japanese Nate plane with landing gear extended while four black spheres followed by a white trail are visible just above the fuselage, and that these are clearly defects in the photographic emulsions used at the time.
Stilo explained 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”. 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.
I also found in the Flying Saucer News bullein of the “Cosmic Brotherhood Association” (CBA) of February - March 1963, in a first series of these photos of alleged “Foo-Fighters” published by the CBA, that they told they found these photos in a University, and that the second series at least were taken by the Ichikoku Army Air Corps during World War II.
The photo in question here was published in a second series of the Flying Saucer News photos series, in the August 1964 issue:
I also identified the plane in the photo as a Nakajima Ki-27 “Type 97”, whose Allied code name is was “Nate”.
| Date: | Between 1967 and 1945 |
|---|---|
| Time: | Day. |
| Duration: | ? |
| First known report date: | The 1970's |
| Reporting delay: | Immediate, decades. |
| Country: | |
|---|---|
| State/Department: | |
| City or place: | Japan, or China, or the Pacific. |
| Number of alleged witnesses: | ? |
|---|---|
| Number of known witnesses: | 0 |
| Number of named witnesses: | 0 |
| Reporting channel: | The Web. |
|---|---|
| Visibility conditions: | Day. |
| UFO observed: | ? |
| UFO arrival observed: | ? |
| UFO departure observed: | ? |
| UFO action: | ? |
| Witnesses action: | ? |
| Photographs: | Yes. |
| Sketch(s) by witness(es): | No. |
| Sketch(es) approved by witness(es): | No. |
| Witness(es) feelings: | ? |
| Witnesses interpretation: | ? |
| Sensors: |
[ ] Visual:
[ ] Airborne radar: [ ] Directional ground radar: [ ] Height finder ground radar: [X] Photo: 1. [ ] Film/video: [ ] EM Effects: [ ] Failures: [ ] Damages: |
|---|---|
| Hynek: | DD |
| Armed / unarmed: | Armed, 2 7,7 mm machine guns. |
| Reliability 1-3: | 1 |
| Strangeness 1-3: | 1 |
| ACUFO: | Stains on photograph. |
[Ref. fsn1:] "FLYING SAUCER NEWS" - CBA:
|
In the ufology bulletin Flying Saucer News, of the “Cosmic Brotherhood Association” (CBA) of February - March 1963, a first series of these photos above of alleged “Foo-Fighters” was published by the CBA; which was the origin of the photo discussed here.
In the brief explanatory text in Japanese which accompanied them, the CBA stated:
As we already reported in detail in last month's issue, during World War II, the astonishing incident in which Boeing B-17 “Superfortresses” collided with a disk occurred not only in Europe but also in the eastern airspace. The CBA Scientific Research Department studied the University's records and finally obtained various valuable data. All photographs shown here were taken by the Ichikoku Army Air Corps during World War II.
[Ref. fsn2:] "FLYING SAUCER NEWS" - CBA:
|
In the ufology bulletin Flying Saucer News, of the “Cosmic Brotherhood Association” (CBA) of August 1964, a second series of these photos above of alleged “Foo-Fighters” was published by the CBA; the one dealt with in this file was numbered "4".
In the brief explanatory text in Japanese which accompanied them, the CBA stated:
Special Feature: Direct recording of Foo Fighter (Part 2) (Japanese Army Air Corps) As detailed in the main article, the appearance of groups of UFOs called foofighters during the war was also observed by pilots of the Japanese Air Force, and the Scientific Research Department of the CBA obtained these real images, in part already published exactly a year ago in this magazine (Vol. 6. No. 2), and they have become very popular both at home and abroad, and the photos published here are the second series.
[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.
|
Stilo commented the above picture:
Photo 11 - a Japanese Nate flies with the landing gear extended while four black spheres followed by a white trail are visible just above the fuselage. These are clearly defects in the photographic emulsions used at the time;
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.
[Ref. www1:] ON THE WEB:
|
|
The photo never has any relevant caption; it appears on the Web in the 2010 - 2020, mostly on social networks, with titles claiming it is a photo of “Foo-Fighters”.
One publication has the silly caption: “Many US Pilots mentioned Foo Fighters in their Books on World War II”.
[Ref. gfn1:] WEBSITE "GREY FALCON":
|
The photo caption ready:
This photo is of a World War II Japanese fighter, perhaps an early version of the Zero, with non retractable landing gear. The photo has been in public view since the 1960's. The dots behind the plane are supposed UFOs.
[Ref. gfz1:] GILLES FERNANDEZ:
|
Note that some of the formats of these photographs are “bastard” (that is to say, they are not standard photographic formats). Possible cropping could therefore have been carried out in order to make the expected effect (consciously or not) on the original photos more stunning.
For example, the seventh photo seems interesting, but it is clear that it is not an original, since an “arrow” has been added (the black dots too?). I would be curious to have the original, to know if it was cropped or not, because, as suggested elsewhere, it could be aircraft in combat or navigation formation (“black dots”) with their trails of condensation. It's a shame not to be able to see or know (whether the photo was cropped or not) whether or not the plane in the foreground was producing a trail. In fact, this hypothesis was not the right one, see below.
[Photo.]
Yes, contrary to popular belief, aircraft with atmospheric engines like those of WWII can also produce trails of condensation or smoke like modern “jets” (with jet engines).
|
Added 01/24/2015:
In fact, this hypothesis of planes in formation and their trails is not the correct one.
Following the publication of this article, Wim van Utrecht contacted me regarding this photo. He provides me with the “color” photo gleaned from the documents that Marc Hallet made available to him, without however remembering where it came from (probably from a magazine or book more than twenty years ago). We can clearly see that there is a “ball” in front of the plane with a trail, so it cannot be planes in formation with their condensation trails:
[Photo.]
With this scan, another capture was attached to me, the source of which is FRITSCHE, Kurt, Das grosse Foto Fehler Buch, VEB Fotokinoverslag, Leipzig, Germany, 1969, p. 114. and it is caused by a well-identified photographic defect:
[Photo.]
Marks from the film feed device on the negative strip (due, for example, to malfunction when manually rewinding the silver film).
Note that this is a negative: in positive, the balls[s] would be “black” and the “trails” would be “white” as in our photograph of “foo-fighters” (and the following), except the second on the right, where the “trails” would be “black” like “the balls”. This defect is attributable to holes in the negative, and the resulting streaks (developer surging through the holes). This type of defect is commonly called surge marks. The similarity with the “objects” in the “foo-fighter” photo is disturbing, even obvious...
[Ref. jsn1:] JEAN-CLAUDE SIDOUN:
This author publishes a cropped version of the image (below), and says that it shows “Opaque balls flying in a straight line very close to a reconnoissance plane of the Allied in May 1945”; he gives as source the “American National Archives, Washington D.C.”
|
The plane on the image is not “perhaps an early version of the Zero” as per [gfn1], but a Nakajima Ki-27 “Type 97” fighter, Allied nickname was “Nate” (photo below). It was the main fighter aircraft used by the Imperial Japanese Army Air Service up until 1940. It operated mainly on the China, Mongolia, Burma and India theaters.
|
The first flight was in October 1936, it went into service in 1937. Though obsolete at the end of WWII, it was still used as modern Japanese fighters numbers were shrinking.
It was normally armed of 2 7.7 mm Type 89 machine guns, and on later versions with 2 12.7 mm Ho-103 machine guns.
It was not absurd a priori to consider that the so-called “UFOs” in this image were traces of a negative drive mechanism.
But I do not think this is the right explanation because the distance between the supposed marks is not constant.
First, counting the pixels on a magnified copy, I observe that the distance between trace 1 and 2 appears as half the distance between trace 2 and trace 3 - from top to bottom.
There is also an offset of the axes between traces 1 and 2 and traces 3 and 4. There is also the fact that it is trace 3 which is the least marked whereas since there was 4 traces, the contact would have been least marked on traces 1 and/or 4, at the ends of the contact.
As happened for other UFO photos (example), I rather think that the 4 traces occurred not on the negative but on the photo paper just after the developing bath. Out of the bath, the paper would have received four drops of some liquid. The streaks are simply due to an attempt to wipe away these drops, resulting in fading of the coloring from the photo, showing the white background of the paper, this before the fixing bath.
“Surge marks” is not the appropriate terminology: this refers to over-agitation of the film by the developer so that the bromide “surges” through the sprocket holes of the film, and cause “lines” starting at the sprocket holes. Of course, they are always at the edges of the film where the sprocket holes are located, never in the middle of the image. Example below:
|
As with the other photos of alleged “foo-fighters” near Japanese WWII planes, it seems likely that this too came from a publication by a Japanese group of UFO and aliens buffs, the “Cosmic Brotherhood Association” (C.B.A).
According to the American ufologist Jan Aldrich, a Japanese ufologist familiar with these photos, Jun-Tchi Takanashi, indicated that all the photographs of “Foo-fighters” of the C.B.A. were “false”, “without origin or pedigree.”
The origin I suspected above is now confirmed, with my new sources [fsn1], [fsn2] and [gso1].
I had not yet pointed out the following thing about this photo: one could imagine "Foo-Fighters" in the background of the plane, but if one checks out the lowest one, it is cearly "in front" of the plane; which, to me, shows that these are stains on the photo.
|
Unless these were "tiny Foo-Fighters", of course...
Stains on photograph.
* = Source is available to me.
? = Source I am told about but could not get so far. Help needed.
| Main author: | Patrick Gross |
|---|---|
| Contributors: | None |
| Reviewers: | None |
| Editor: | Patrick Gross |
| Version: | Create/changed by: | Date: | Description: |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0.1 | Patrick Gross | April 21, 2024 | Creation, [www1], [gfn1], [gfz1]. |
| 1.0 | Patrick Gross | April 21, 2024 | First published. |
| 1.1 | Patrick Gross | June 10, 2024 | Addition [jsn1]. |
| 1.2 | Patrick Gross | July 21, 2024 | Additions [fsn2], [gso1]. In the Summary, addition of the information from [fsn2] and [gso1]. |
