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Peenemünde, Germany, in the Autumn of 1943:

Case number:

ACUFO-1943-00-00-PEENEMUNDE-1

Summary:

In their 2002 book "Out of the Shadows", Dr. David Clarke and Andy Roberts explained that by the end of 1943, the British Air Ministry's intelligence officers were totally perplexed both by the sheer number of foo-fighter reports being received and the apparent lack of aggression displayed by the phenomena.

They tell that Michael Bentine, Intelligence officer of in the Royal Air Force Bomber Command in the winter of 1943-1944, said in a 1992 interview that he had debriefed a Polish bomber unit based in England, who claimed that silver-blue balls appeared near their wing on six missions in the autumn of 1943, tailing the planes as they raided the Nazi secret weapons base at Peenemunde.

The crews told Bentine it must be a new weapon, and Bentine enquired, "But what did it do to you?", to which the crews replied "Nothing,", so, Bentine pointed out: "Well, it was not a very effective weapon, was it?"

Data:

Temporal data:

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Ufology data:

Classifications:

Sources:

[Ref. dcr1:] DR. DAVID CLARKE AND ANDY ROBERTS:

The authors explain that "by now" [end of 1943] the British Air Ministry's intelligence officers were totally perplexed both by the sheer number of foo-fighter reports being received and the apparent lack of aggression displayed by the phenomena.

They tell that Michael Bentine summed up the situation, saying:

"When I was an intelligence officer in Bomber Command in the winter of 1943-44, I debriefed several crews about some lights that had attacked them when they were over the Baltic. They fired at the lights, which didn't shoot back. These lights didn't seem to do anything, just pulse and go round. We put it down to fatigue, but later, after I had sent the reports in, an American G2 intelligence officer told us that their day bombers saw lights in the sky - "foo-fighters" he called them."

The authors say that in another interview, in 1992, Bentine told that he debriefed a Polish bomber unit based in England, who claimed that silver-blue balls appeared near their wing on six missions in the autumn of 1943, tailing the planes as they raided the Nazi secret weapons base at Peenemunde.

The crews told Bentine it must be a new weapon, and Bentine enquired, "But what did it do to you?" The crews replied "Nothing,", so, Bentine pointed out: "Well, it was not a very effective weapon, was it?"

[Ref. nrr1:] NICK REDFERN AND ANDY ROBERTS:

[Ref. dce1:] DR. DAVID CLARKE:

The author says that the late "Goon Show" star Michael Bentine, who served as an intelligence officer in RAF Bomber Command during 1943-1944, said in a 1992 interview that he had been debriefing several crews who had seen unidentified lights in the sky during raids on the Baltic coast. Bentine said that they fired at the lights but the lights did not shoot back. He said the lights did not seem to do anything, just pulse and go round, so that the intelligence discard them as caused by "fatigue". But later, after Bentine had sent the reports in, an American G2 Intelligence Officer told that their bombers also saw lights in the sky and called then "foo-fighters".

The author says that Bentine also told how he debriefed a Polish bomber unit based in England, who claimed that silver-blue balls appeared near their wing on six missions during the autumn of 1943; the balls tailed the planes as they raided the Nazi V-weapons base at Peenemunde. The crews told Bentine it must be a new weapon. 'But what did it do to you?' Bentine inquired. 'Nothing,' they replied. Bentine then pointed out: 'Well it was not a very effective weapon, was it?'.

Dr. Clarke comments that "Bentine's last statement accurately sums up the conclusions reached by the Air Ministry and USAAF during their study of these phenomena. Whatever the foo-fighters were, they did not appear to pose a threat to aircraft."

[Ref. get1:] GEORGE M. EBERHART:

Aircraft information:

The nature of the mission implies that the aircraft involved must have been British night bombers, the possibilities being the Avro Lancaster Mk. I and III, the Handley Page Halifax Mk. III, the Vickers Wellington.

Discussion:

"Wikipedia" sources list 1 bombing mission against Peenemünde in 1943: on August 18, 1943. But beware: this is not exactly true; this was only the date of "Operation Hydra" against Peenemünde, and many raids were to follow after this date, the whole operation being called "Operation Crossbow."

The raids were combined between British Royal Air Force (RAF) and Eighth US Army Air Force. Usually, the RAF conducted the night mission, anf the USAAF were arriving the next day to follow with a daytime attack. The mission was mostly successful at destroying the German research facility, delaying their progress on developing their rockets, but not stopping it entirely of course.

This means that this sighting was probably a nocturnal one.

Over 8000 Polish airmen served in the RAF in WWII. I listed several Polish squadrons in the RAF Bomber command that were active in 1943: 300 301 304 305:

No. 300 Polish Bomber Squadron "Masovia" RAF Faldingworth (Avro Lancaster Mk. I and III)
No. 301 Polish Bomber Squadron "Pomerania" RAF Faldingworth (Handley Page Halifax Mk. III)
No. 305 Polish Bomber Squadron "Greater Poland" Lasham (de Havilland Mosquito F.B. Mk VI) (Peenemünde certainly out of range)
No. 304 Polish Bomber Squadron "Silesia" RAF Chivenor (Vickers Wellington Mk. XIV)

Unfortunately, I have not yet succeeded in proving or disproving that a Polish Bomber Squadron was involved in a bombing raid on Peenemünde in the autumn of 1943.

Michael Bentine (1922-1996) (photo below) descended from a prominent Peruvian family and was educated at Eton. He had originally intended to become an engineer and scientist, but when World War II intervened, Bentine requested specifically Bomber Command, served as an officer in the RAF operations section of British Intelligence at Wickenby. After the war, he abandoned science and engineering in favor of comedy and script-writing, forming the madcap comedy duo "Sherwood and Forest" with his friend Tony Sherwood. (See goonshow.org)

Peenemünde was the German military secret base to test new weapons such as the Messerschmitt Me-163 Komet, the V1 then V2 rockets, etc. The allies "operation Crossbow" aimed at bombing the facilities.

None of the German weapons developed there fits a description such as "silver-blue balls" appearing near the bombers wings, "tailing" the bombers.

However, the data is insufficient and it cannot be excluded that officer Bentine, in 1992, did not exactly separate one incident he heard of from other incidents in the description he gave. Therefore it would not be very sensible to claim that these discs were this or that.

Evaluation:

Insufficient information.

Sources references:

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

• [dcr1] * "Out of the Shadows", book by Dr. David Clarke and Andy Roberts, Piatkus publishers, U-K., page 17, 2002.
• [dcr1] * ""The Foo Fighters: The RAF Experience", article by Dr. David Clarke and Andy Roberts, on their Website The Real UFO Project, U-K., January 2003, at http://www.uk-ufo.org/condign/histfoo2.htm
• [nrr1] * "Strange Secrets: Real Government Files on the Unknown", book by Nick Redfern and Andy Roberts, Pocket Books publishers, U-K., page 49, 2003.
• [dce1] * "The UFO Files - The Inside Story of Real-Life Sightings", book by Dr. David Clarke, The National Archives publishers, U-K. pp 25-28, 2009.
• [get1] * "UFOs and Intelligence: A Timeline", electronic document compiled by George M. Eberhart, 2022.

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This page was last updated on November 14, 2023.