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The Pacific, 1944 or 1945:

Case number:

ACUFO-1944-00-00-PACIFIC-1

Summary:

In the Sightings TV show first aired on the Sci-Fi Channel in the USA on April 9, 1996, there was a video interview of “Bob Leroy, a member of the 11th Airborne in New Guinea”, who remembered a sighting of a “mysterious craft.”

Robert LeRoy told that he suddenly he saw a thing, about 3-feet in diameter, following a Japanese Betty bomber, and starting to change colors. He thought he had seen a new secret weapon, and so did all the other men with him.

Data:

Temporal data:

Geographical data:

Witnesses data:

Ufology data:

Classifications:

Sources:

[Ref. rly1:] ROBERT LEROY:

Aircraft information:

We can understand that the plane in which the witnesses were must have been a Curtiss C-46 “Commando” transport plane, or a Douglas C-47 “Skytrain” transport plane, or a Waco CG-4A glider.

In all cases, these were unarmed aircraft.

Discussion:

The interview was part of the TV show Sightings, it was first aired on the Sci-Fi Channel, USA, on April 9, 1996. It told nothing more about this testimony; except that the host introduced it by telling:

“Bob Leroy, a member of the 11th Airborne in New Guinea, remembers his first sighting of the mysterious craft.”

The 11th Airborne Division of the U.S. Army was activated on February 25, 1943. It also operated in the Pacific Theater, pioneering Air Assault tactics, techniques and procedures as the 11th Air Assault Division (Test).

They used C-46 or C-47 “Skytrain” transport aircraft and Waco CG-4A gliders, based on several airfields in the Carolinas Islands. They moved to Milne Bay, Papua New Guinea, between May 25, 1944, and June 11, 1944. The moved to Leyte in the Philippines on November 18, 1944, where they operated as classical infantry only, but using large numbers of Piper Cub aircraft to drop food and ammunition. In June 1945, they were transported by 54 C-47s and 13 C-46s aircraft, and 6 Waco CG-4A gliders to attack the Japanese airfield on Cagayan Island.

Thus, there is no was to tell where and when exactly the sighting occurred. As the sightings host mentioned New Guinea, it may have occurred there, and this would have been May 25, 1944, and June 11, 1944.

In the Sightings show, the impression is given that Robert Leroy was a fighter pilot, because computer-generated images of fighter planes are shown.

But in Historical sources, I found that Robert Leroy wrote a book, “From My Foxhole to Tokyo: Bob Leroy”, that he was an infantry man, a paratrooper with 3/511 PIR of the 11th Airborne Division. From his book, we know he started in New Guinea, and that he fought on Leyte and Luzon.

However, it is very plausible that he experienced the sighting from a U.S. airplane, as he stated that the “ball of fire” was following a Japanese Betty bomber.

He also referred to “all“ the “other guys”; this could only confirm that he was in a glider or transport plane in flight among paratroopers.

It is quite common in “UFO documentaries” that the viewer gets a distorted idea of a reported sighting. A careful viewer would guess that LeRoy was a paratrooper from the “11th Airborne” mention, but the video illustration suggested he was a fighter pilot.

A possibility is that the “ball of fire” was a Japanese plane on fire seen in the nigh; but it seems unlikely to me that Leroy and all the other men, as he reported, would interpret this as “a new secret weapon”.

At the end of WWI, the “Betty” was used as “mothership” to the “Baka” rocket-propelled, piloted, suicide flying bomb, as shown on this picture:

There is thus a possibility that the UFO here was a “Baka”:

On October 25, 1944, the Japanese launched a “Kamikaze” attack from their Mabalacat base on Luzon island; but they did not uses the “Baka”, they used Mitsubishi A6M “Zero” classic fighter planes, each carrying a 500 kg bomb. They all operated by day, and I found no trace whatsoever that “Baka” rocket planes were used on Luzon. Basically all “Baka” attacks started on April 1, 1945, targeting the U.S. Navy ships around Okinawa.

Ee do not know whether this occurred by day or night, or what the visibility conditions were. It is this possible that the “UFO” was not following the “Baka”, but had just been dropped by the “Baka”, and appeared as a “ball of fire” because the aircraft itself was not visible. But the 11th Airborne Division only came to Okinawa on August 9, 1945, a few days before the Japanese surrender, and no “Baka” attacks occurred then.

In the end, I cannot assess with any certainty what Leroy and the other men saw. The “strangeness” of the event depends too much on whether this occurred by day or night, and we know nothing about this.

Evaluation:

Unidentified.

Sources references:

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

• [rly1] * Documentary of the Sightings TV shows series, first aired on the Sci-Fi Channel (Now SYFY channel), USA, Season 5, Episode 11, first aired April 9, 1996.

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This page was last updated on June 23, 2024.