ACUFO index ▶ Home ☰

Cette page en français

ACUFO:

◀ Previous case Next case ▶

France or Germany, in 1944:

Case number:

ACUFO-1944-00-00-FRANCEGERMANY-2

Summary:

British ufologist Gordon Creighton, in the ufology magazine Flying Saucer Review of which he was the editor, published an article about the WWII “Foo-Fighters”, in Volume 8, No. 2 of March - April 1962.

He indicated that in the 1954 book “Flying Saucers on the Moon” by Harold T. Wilkins, the author told:

“It was in the war year, 1944, when both British and American pilots had singular experiences; but not a word of it has appeared in any British newspaper. In that year, censorship was stringent; but though other mysteries have been revealed since, this one has never had the veil of silence removed from it, so far as Britain is concerned. It is not my business to advance any reason for this silence.”

“I happen to know that two British war pilots reported to Intelligence Officers, after a flight, that strange balls of fire had suddenly appeared while their own planes were on high altitude flights. These mysterious balls had seemed to indulge in a sort of aerial ballet dance and had, so to speak, pirouetted on the wing tips of the planes. When the planes went into a power dive, these balls followed them down and outdistanced them, despite the fact that the planes were biting into the air with a strident scream at the vertiginous speed they were making. Other pilots reported that they had seen strange balls of blazing light flying in precise formation. The crew of one British bomber reported that fifteen or twenty of these balls had followed their bomber at a distance.”

Data:

Temporal data:

Geographical data:

Witnesses data:

Ufology data:

Classifications:

Sources:

[Ref. gcn11:] GORDON CREIGHTON:

[Ref. ara1:] ANTONIO RIBERA:

This Spanish ufologist reported in 1976 that during World War II, pilots had seen unidentified flying objects.

He gave as an example that the crew of an English bomber had reported that around twenty mysterious spheres had followed them at a certain distance, each emitting a strange light that kept turning on and off.

Aircraft information:

The only information so far is that the planes were Royal Air Force military planes, in one instance it was a bomber.

Discussion:

The cases mentioned by Wilkins are strange, but very summarily described. I need to put things in the context of the time.

Harold Tom Wilkins (1891 - 1960) (photo above) was a British journalist who wrote books about treasure hunting, mysterious ship losses, claims about Atlantis and South America, alleged sea monsters, and other mysteries. When the question of the “flying saucers” was becoming a popular topic, he wrote three books about it:

Flying Saucers on the Attack, 1954;
Flying Saucers from the Moon, 1954;
Flying Saucers Uncensored, 1955.

Wilkins was of course widely considered a crank by serious historians because of his claims about Atlantis, lost civilizations, etc., which he often picked up in the occult literature.

However, I can say that his books “Flying Saucers on the Attack” and “Flying Saucers Uncensored” cannot be dismissed lightly: the reported cases are often very summarily described, looking like hearsay stories, but in the next decades, these cases were generally confirmed in the fact that they did occur. Wilkins had not just invented flying saucers stories from scratch. Of course, he was generally unable to understand that many cases were misinterpretations of even hoaxes.

In those early years, “flying saucers” reports were generally not investigated per se, but just reported in books and a few magazines. Now, we can be shocked and disappointed that the cases were not deeply verified and investigated, but this was how things were then. The cases were merely reported, from direct hearing of witnesses of by quotes from the Press.

The claims he made about British “Foo-Fighters” went quite unnoticed in the next decades. In the 1980 - 2000, ufologists became aware that U.S. Army Air Forces airmen had reported various strange phenomena, which became known as “Foo-Fighters”, but British similar reports were not known.

However, in the 1990 - 2020, British “skeptical” ufologists such as David Clarke and Andy Roberts, exploring the British military archive, found out that indeed, the Royal Air Force airmen too had encountered odd phenomena during World War II.

In my opinion, Wilkins probably really heard Royal Air Force airmen report what he told about. Unfortunately, the lack of names, dates, places, units, prevents us to link the stories to existing or yet to discover official reports and flight logs.

Evaluation:

High strangeness, insufficient information.

Sources references:

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

• [hws1] ? "Flying Saucers on the Moon", book by Harold T. Wilkins, Peter Owen publisher, U-K., 1954.
• [gcn1] * "Foo-Fighters", article by Gordon Creighton, in the ufology magazine Flying Saucer Review (FSR), U-K., Volume 8, Nr. 2, page 11, March - April 1962.
• [ara1] * "Ces Mystérieux OVNI, book by Antonio Ribera, De Vecchi publisher, France, page 40, 1976.

File history:

Authoring:

Changes history:

Feedback  |  Top  |  Back  |  Forward  |  Map  |  List |  Home

This page was last updated on June 5, 2024.