ACUFO:

WW2 UFO REPORTED TO NICAP BY AIR FORCE RESERVE MAJOR

Three official UFO sightings, one in WW2, have just been revealed to NICAP by a veteran Air Force pilot with combat service In Europe and Korea. An Air Force Reserve major with the Distinguished Flying Cross, four Air Medals and Five other decorations, this pilot has offered to help NICAP and soon may let his name be published.

“In December 1944,” he reports, “my B-17 and my crew and I were kept company by a Foo Fighter - a small amber disc - all the way from Klagenfurt, Austria, to the Adriatic Sea. This occurred on a 'lone wolf' mission in the 15th Air Force 5th Wing, 2nd Bomb Group.

”The Intelligence officer who debriefed us stated that it was a new German fighter but could not explain why it did not fire at us or-if it was reporting our heading, altitude and air speed-why we did not receive anti-aircraft fire.”

The other two sightings - in 1952 and 1957 - will be covered in a later bulletin or magazine. Both occurred during AF missions and were officially logged.

“As a crusader for truth,” the pilot told NICAP's Director, “I understand the difficulties under which you and your associates are and I offer my services.”

From his impressive record in the Air Force and in private life, we believe his offer of aid will lead to important developments - probably on Capitol Hill. Our members will be kept informed.

The nationwide Air Force debunking campaign, launched in December to avoid Congressional hearings on UFOs, now has backfired severely on AF headquarters and its official UFO spokesman, Lt. Col. Lawrence Tacker.

[...]

This report not intended personal attack on Col. Tacker. For over four years, he has been the AF's chief UFO spokesman, assigned to explain away UFOs. Undoubtedly he was directed to write the official AF-UFO book and to spearhead the debunking campaign. Perhaps his tactics also were ordered, and not his own choice.

Regardless, the spokesman's claims and the official book prove determination hide the facts. Typical excerpts from “Flying Saucers and the U.S. Air Force” follow:

p 12. Re: World War and Korean cases: “Our flying personnel jokingly referred these strange objects or sightings as 'foo-fighters' or 'gremlins'.”

AF explanation the UFOs: Static electricity. (Reports by B-29 C.O. Capt. Alvah Reida, B-17 C.O. Maj. Leet, and other WWII AF pilots show fear the obviously controlled objects, which appeared singly or in formation, pacing or making high-speed passes at planes. Some AF reports describe firing at UFOs.)

In opposition official UFO censorship, growing number of Air Force members - active, reserve and retired - have gone record supporting NICAP policies. Included are pilots, Intelligence and operations officers, radar experts, etc., most whom have joined NICAP the hope reducing the secrecy.

Some the names follow:

[... Other names...]

Former AF Maj. William Leet, with three sightings as a bomber pilot, 1944 to 1957. Agrees evidence indicates UFOs are interplanetary; also states AF secrecy wrong and dangerous.

[... Other names...]

Date & Location	Witnesses	Description
12-44 Austria	Maj. William D. Leet, B-17 pilot	Bomber paced by amber-colored disc.

In December, 1944, a Major Leet, a bomber pilot, watched a disk follow the plane's maneuvers at Klagenfurt, Austria, at night.

[... other cases...]

But observations of this type are not very conclusive; enormous orange lights can be caused by reflections or even by phenomena of atmospheric distortion, as Dr. Menzel has pointed out.

[... other case...]

The lights seen at night by pilots during the war have been called “foo-fighters.” As we have seen, they were merely balls of light, red or orange, without details or structure. They do not seem to have been detected on radar. Seen at night or during the day, they followed the planes even into the clouds. But these reports have to be considered with caution, for the behavior of the objects is very often that of a distorted image of the aircraft itself or a reflection of some ground object. The wartime conditions, the birth of a new technology involving rockets, electronic guidance and the ever-present fear of “secret weapons” make the sightings of that period difficult to analyze.

One December night, the same year [1944], a Major Leet, a bomber pilot, saw a luminous disc follow his plane and its maneuvres, while flying over Klagenfurt, Austria. 3

MAJOR WILLAM D. LEET
UNITED STATES AIR FORCE
Reserve
Rt. 1, Lexington, Ky

11 March 1958

Major Donald E. Keyhoe, director
National Investigating Committee
on Aerial Phenomena
Washington, D. C.

Dear Major Keyhoe:

Long before your book, “Flying Saucers Are Real”, was published, my B-17 and my crew and I were kept company by a “Foo Fighter”, a small amber disc, all the way from Klagenfurt Austria to the Adriatic Sea. This occurred on a “lone wolf” mission at night, as I recall, in December, 1944 in the 15th Air Force, 5th Wing, 2nd Bomb Group. The intelligence officer who debriefed us stated that it was a new German fighter but could not explain why it did not fire at us or, if it was reporting our heading, altitude and airspeed, why we did not receive anti-aircraft fire.

On about 13 October 1952, while I was copilot on a C-54 Troop Carrier mission out of Tachikawa and heading South toward Oshima at dusk, I noticed in the strato-cumulus formation Westward what appeared to be a perfectly round cloud. After watching it for about a minute, and deciding it wasn't a cloud, I called it to the attention of the pilot and engineer. The pilot was intent upon his flight plan but the engineer got several good glimpses of the object. Seven minutes after I first saw it, it took an elliptical shape and sped off to the West, disappearing within a few seconds, toward Mount Fuji.

While stationed at McLelland AFB near Sacramento, California from July, 1955 to December, 1957, I noticed a tremendous number of luminous blue-green object transcending the sky from horizon to horizon in an instant. On an AOC mission one night off the California Coast I had the radio operator report such an observation. He, and a day or two later one of our intelligence officers, told me that the same object was reported by an airline pilot.

As a crusader for truth I believe that I understand the difficulties under which you and your associates labor, and I would like to offer my services. I am coming to Washington soon for an appointment with Senator Cooper and if it is not inconvenient would like an appointment with you. I am enclosing a copy or Form 57 for your information.

Sincerely,

[Signature.]

Major William D. Leet of Lexington,Kentucky, is one of the few men who observed foo fighters in both Europe and Japan. In December 1944, while on a "lone wolf" mission in a B-17, an amber ball kept company with his plane and crew all the way from Klagenfurt, Austria, to the Adriatic Sea. He notes that during the entire flight no anti-aircraft fire was encountered.

Then in October, 1952, while on a C-54 Troop Carrier on ission betwen Tachikawa and Oshima a dusk, he and his crew saw what appeared to be a small, perfectly round cloud. After seven minutes the appearance assumed an elliptical shape and sped off to the west, disappearing "within a few seconds."

Sixteen years after the armistice, The Nashville Banner, on February 15, 1961, published an interview with a veteran whose “flying saucer” talk at a local club had touched off a new round of discussion and speculation.

The veteran, Joe Thompson, then an agent for Northwestern Mutual Insurance Co., was described by the Banner as a college graduate, a family man and a responsible civic leader whose “interest in flying saucers stems from his World War II experiences in air reconnaissance work over Germany.”

The story said: “Reconnaissance crews kept seeing 'strange circular objects over the Rhine Valley,' he recalled. They flew in formation and could not be overtaken by American planes. 'We thought they were some sort of German aircraft device,' he said, 'until after the war when we discovered the Germans thought they were ours.'”

Thompson's statement indicated that reconnaissance, a vital instrument in gathering information on enemy activity, was at a loss to explain the mysterious craft.

“My B-17 crew and I were kept' company by a 'foo-fighter,' a small amber disc, all the way from Klagenfurt, Austria, to the Adriatic Sea,'' said Maj. William D. Leet. “This occurred on a 'lone wolf' mission at night, as I recall, in December, 1944, in the 15th Air Force, 5th Wing, 2nd Bomb Group. The intelligence officer who debriefed us stated that it was a new German fighter but could not explain why it did not fire at us or, if it was reporting our heading, altitude and airspeed, why we did not receive anti-aircraft fire.” 2

A major Leet recalled that a small disc-like object, yellow in color, followed a B-17 he was piloting as he returned from a mission over Germany. The object stayed with his bomber for 100 miles. When an intelligence officer suggested that the mystery object might have been a German fighter during his debriefing, Major Leet wondered why his bomber experienced no hostile fire.

According to Maj. William D. Leet, “My B-17 crew and I were kept company by a 'foo fighter,' a small amber disc, all the way from Klagenfurt, Austria, to the Adriatic Sea. This occurred on a 'lone wolf' mission at night, as I recall, in December 1944 in the 15th Air Force, 5th Wing, 2nd Bomb Group. The intelligence officer who debriefed us stated that it was a new German fighter but could not explain why it did not fire at us or, if it was reporting our heading, altitude, and airspeed, why we did not receive antiaircraft fire.”

Capt. William D. Leet, left, and his brother Lt. Warren R. Leet, World War II bomber pilots. Bill, now MUFON State Section Director in Arkansas, had three UFO sightings while on active flying duty. His “foo-fighter” report appears on page 3.

THE FLYING FORTRESS AND THE FOO-FIGHTER
By William D. Leet

(Copyright 1979 by William D. Leet)

On that cold, dark night of November 24, 1944, when my B-17 crew and I were briefed to fly a “Lone Wolf bombing mission to Salzburg, no mention was made of “Foo Fighters.” The officer who gave us the intelligence part of the briefing listed the number of heavy and light antiaircraft guns we could expect at the target, and what types and how many German fighters might hit us. We were also given these figures for alternate targets, in case we had to bomb one of them because of inability to reach the primary target: the railroad marshalling yards at Salzburg. We were also briefed on escape routes and procedures to follow if we should be shot down, but parachute safely to the ground and have a chance to make it back to Allied lines.

There was no mention whatsoever in the briefing that there was a chance of our being encountered by a Foo Fighter. Kenneth Arnold's vista of the “Flying Saucers” was yet to occur, and years would pass before Captain Edward Ruppelt's coining of “UFO,” but our Intelligence people knew very well that the Foo Fighters were real. Intelligence officers interrogated pilots and crews after combat missions, and had received numerous accounts of the unearthly craft over Europe and the Pacific. As the UFO cover-up had already commenced, and this vital information was prohibited to flying personnel, my Flying Fortress crew of ten men and I were unprepared for the confrontation we were to meet with on that mission.

We could not have been prepared, of course, for battle with aerial weapons far advanced of ours, and as it turned out that was no problem. But for some way to get out of the dilemma into which my crew and I flew in our B-17, we had no mental and emotional readiness. We accomplished our mission, but it could be that we returned safely to our base more by luck than by our own training and ingenuity.

The 15th Air Force, operating long-range heavy bombers from airfields in southern Italy, flew at high altitudes far into Nazi-held Europe. The B-17s and B-24s destroyed strategic objectives - oil refineries, principally - bombing in great formations by day. Great Britain's big bombers of the Royal Air Force kept it incessant, night bombing the enemy, and he was allowed no respite.

The relentless onslaught was interrupted by the severe weather of late 1944 grounding the massive formations, so the 5th Bomb Wing initiated the Lone Wolf missions to harass the Nazis. B-17s were sent out singly to separate targets, causing minor damage as contrasted to the devastation wreaked by bomber formations, but keeping the German workers under constant air raid warnings and away from the refineries and factories. It was on such a Lone Wolf flight that we made our takeoff that November night.

As the pilot of “Old Crow,” the B-17 I nearly always had on combat missions and called “my airplane,” my intention was to push the big bird up just as high as she would go - 30,000 feet, at least. I had bombed at Salzburg one time and learned first hand that the Krauts there had master sergeants firing their antiaircraft guns. When we returned to our field at Amendola, the crew chief and I counted 240 flak holes in Old Crow. Miraculously, not an engine had been shot out, there had been no fires on board, and not a man on my crew was wounded. We were over Salzburg at 25,000 feet that day. Tonight, with me calling the shots, we would be much higher where the flak was not so ferocious, and we'd have better prospects of a good bomb strike and returning safely to home base.

My plans were changed on takeoff. I eased the four throttles to max power and we raced down the perforated steel runway with no trouble, but we were hardly airborne when one of the superchargers disintegrated. That meant that we could climb no higher than 18,000, much too low for Salzburg. The navigator, bombardier and I selected Klagenfurt for an alternate target. We .would blast the railroad yards at Klagenfurt and the freight cars loaded with war material that were marshalled there, and send the laborers to the air raid shelters for the night.

Old Crow reached 18,000 feet only from my patient coaxing. She was overloaded, carrying thousands of pounds of fuel, ammunition and bombs above the maximum gross weight that Boeing, her designer and manufacturer, had set. It surprised me that the loss of one of four superchargers made such a difference in her ceiling, but once I had nudged her up to 18,000 the stable old warrior mushed right along. The weather had improved considerably - there was a high overcast blackening the sky, but much of the time we were not in clouds and icing conditions. We flew a north-northwesterly course up the Adriatic Sea, and upon making a landfall at Trieste we had only a short distance to Klagenfurt.

The night was so dark that I was piloting Old Crow by instruments, but soon after turning on the bomb run and opening the bomb bay doors, we were in a blinding light. I felt the heat from it, and thought the Krauts had caught us in their searchlights, but it lasted only two or three seconds. We kept flying the bomb run, approaching the instant for bombs away, but I was relieved to see and feel no more of the light. I thought no more about it as this was the crucial moment of our mission, and I concentrated on maintaining a constant airspeed and keeping Old Crow flying straight and level, so the bombardier could put the bombs precisely on target.

(Foo-Fighter, Continued)

Upon bombs away Old Crow leaped upward, freed of her ten 500 pound bombs, and I whipped her off the target, scurrying for safety. It was then I realized that we had gotten no flak on the bomb run; and where were the Messerschmidt night fighters? As much as we had disrupted their oil production, surely they had enough gas to fly fighters up to attack one lone B-17. Well, no need to tempt Fate, I knew. No flak and no fighters was peculiar, nevertheless - unprecedented.

Heading back toward Trieste, all at once there appeared just off our left wing a round amber light. None of us saw it approach or had any sight of it until it was right beside the B-17, flying along in formation with us. The object's outline was a perfect circle - too perfect; its color was a luminous orange-yellow - too luminous. We could only guesstimate its distance and size. To me, it looked to be about 50 yards out from the wingtip, 10 yards to the rear, and 10 feet in diameter. Was it 100 yards distant and 20 feet in diameter? I was aware of a fascination while observing it.

The gunners wanted to shoot whatever-it-was with their fifty calibers but I ordered them not to - if the thing was hostile, we would have been shot down without ever having seen it. As we coursed on through the black night, winging homeward to our, field in the south of Italy, the weird craft kept us company. Its position relative to Old Crow's did not vary, its shape did not change, and its brilliance never wavered. I was unable to ascertain the form of the bogey; it could have been a sphere, or a disk at 90 degrees to the earth's surface, but it definitely was not the exhaust or lights from another aircraft. It positively was neither manmade nor a natural occurrence. After 45 to 50 minutes, our companion from another world simply turned off. Precisely the way that an electric light goes out when turned off by flipping a switch, that is how the Foo Fighter disappeared - it turned off.

The rest of our return to Amendola was uneventful, and after landing and riding the truck from the field to 2nd Bomb Group Operations, an Intelligence officer conducted our debriefing. When we had reported the standard items of weather, the alternate target we hit, bomb, strike accuracy, and the fact that we encountered no enemy resistance, I mentioned the momentary light we flew into on the bomb run, and inquired whether there, were searchlights at Klagenfurt. No, ours was the first such report.

The description I gave of the amber object and its behavior met the quick explanation that it was a “new secret German fighter.” To my answer that it did not shoot at us, the Intelligence officer rebutted that it was radioing our course, altitude and airspeed to the German antiaircraft batteries. When I reminded him that we had not seen one burst of flak the entire night, he said nothing more - he had run out of stock answers. He had told us all that he could tell.

The superior performance of American Intelligence in WWII was essential to our victory, but an unwise policy was the withholding from combat personnel of information about the Foo Fighters. When our confrontation occurred on that Lone Wolf mission, had we been forearmed with the knowledge reported to Intelligence previously, we would have reacted with more certainty and confidence. We, and other crews in similar encounters, could have disproved the false assumption that Foo Fighters were German weapons, and further assisted our war effort.

A more enlighted strategy concerning these early manifestations by the Foo Fighters, would have brought the dawn of our understanding the UFO phenomenon. The flash of light that struck our B-17 on the bomb run; the absence of German fighters and flak; the appearance and actions of the Foo Fighter; our receiving no interference with our bombing or other electronics - our calm discernment and reporting of such data to Intelligence would have been of inestimable value had they prepared us for it, and then listened to our reports. So, the most important products of the Lone Wolf mission to Klagenfurt were lost: improvement of combat effectiveness, and insight into visitations from another world. Multiply this by many, many UFO confrontations in World War II.

Decisions of truth and positive, action involve additional hazards, but danger is inherent in a program of deception. And who knows what perils are imbedded in the cover-up that continues to this day?

[...] my memory leaped back to November 24, 1944, when my B-17 crew and I were accosted by a Foo-Fighter on a Lone Wolf mission over Austria. Our Army Intelligence, notified by flight crews of numerous Foo-Fighter (UFO) encounters, did not see fit to relay the vital knowledge to the rest of us flying men. One result was the awe and confusion experienced by my B-17 crew and me when the Foo-Fighter joined our plane for a 50-minute fly-a-long. If I had permitted the gunners to shoot the Foo Fighter, as they wanted to do, it may well have been impervious to our 50 calibers while quite capable of destroying our Flying Fortress.

Another unfortunate result of Intelligence's taciturnity was the loss of any contribution to the understanding of UFOs we might have made if we had been supplied the information already acquired. Now, 7 years later, although I had learned nothing more about UFOs than a vague impression from reading Air Force Regulation 200-2 which ordered us to report them, [...]

Vexed by the things
out there in the sky

Bill Leet knew the minute he saw the strange luminous disc that his B-17 Flying Fortress would be no match for it.

“Our gunners wanted to shoot it down, but I ordered them not to. I told them if it was hostile, it would have already shot us down,” he said.

“Let's just try to figure out what it is,' I told them.”

Nearly 40 years later as he sits in a bedroom of his Texarkana, Ark, home that he has converted into an office, Leet explains that he is still trying to figure what he saw that night and what other alien craft cross the skies.

“I am vexed, literally vexed, that we do not know more than we do about this.”

Today, we at least have names for them - flying saucers, or more broadly, unidentified flying objects. In 1944, no one had even coined a label.

Leet was a B-17 pilot based in Southern Italy during World War II. His squadron flew daily bombing missions on German oil refineries and railroad yards. It was a cold night In November when Leet and his crew set off alone across the Austrian Alps on a dangerous “lone wolf” raid on Salzburg.

“We were just scared to death. I think we were the only Allied aircraft over enemy territory that night,” he recalled.

It hadn't helped their chances any when they lost a supercharger on takeoff. Without it, they couldn't climb much higher than 18,000 feet, which made them sitting ducks for the big German anti-aircraft guns around Salzburg.

So they diverted to Klagenfurt, some 100 miles closer, and less fortified than Salzburg. They made a surprisingly clean drop there and turned south inward home as soon as the bomb bay was empty.

“We didn't see one flak burst all night. Not one anti-aircraft shot was fired at us.”

The unusually quiet skies gave the entire crew a perfect view of the visitor that suddenly appeared just off the tip of the left wing.

“This thing did not approach us from above or below or either side. It was just there, like a light switch being turned on.”

“It wasn't like anything we had ever seen before. We couldn't see any third dimension to it. It was just a perfect circle. The closest thing I've ever seen to it is the amber light on a traffic signal. But it didn't look like any earthly light.” Whatever it was, it stayed alongside the B-17 for about 45 minutes. Then, “like a light switch being turned off,” it was gone.

Leet reported the Incident to an Air Force Intelligence officer, and was told that what he had seen was a new German secret weapon. Leet wasn't really convinced, but didn't dwell on it. The war would end soon, and as the years went by, he forgot about the strange light.

Until eight years later, when he was co-pilot on a C-47 transport plane carrying troops on leave from the Korean War battlefields to Japan. By that time, “UFO” had become a familiar expression, and when Leet and his co-pilot spotted a dull, metallic sphere flying alongside the C-47, they knew it was no Communist secret weapon.

Leet began to talk to other airmen and learned that quite a few of them had sighted flying objects that they could not explain. After Korea, he had little interest in returning to his law practice in Lexington, Ky., already twice interrupted by war.

He returned anyway, but did more and more research on UFOs. As his interest became known around the community, he was asked to speak to various groups. The news media soon began calling, and then in the late 1950s, he hosted a local television program on which he would interview guests who had had UFO experiences.

The program ran nearly three years, but all the publicity did little for his livelihood. People might be curious about what he had to say, but they had doubts about hiring a lawyer who saw strange things in the sky.

“It just killed my law practice. The last few months I was there, I didn't make one dollar, not one dollar. Back then, I was really standing naked before the multitudes.”

In the early 1960s, he moved on and found work in the aeronautic Industry. His first wife died in 1971, and when he remarried in Fort Worth, his new wife Helen made him promise to bring her back to her hometown Texarkana, Ark.

They moved here three years ago. Today Leet spends much of his time writing. He has one book out - a dramatized history of the exploits of World War II pilots called “To Rule the Sky” - and a 350-page pictorial history of Texarkana that he complied for the Texarkana Historical Museum is at the publishers now.

But UFOs remain his obsession. He believes that the security of the United States rests upon its ability to develop the technology involved in what are commonly called flying saucers.

“I am convinced that UFO activity is the most phenomenal of all phenomena today.”

He said the U.S. government's refusal to acknowledge the existence of UFOs is not any sinister plot to deceive the American people, but more likely an effort to keep military study of UFO technology hidden from the Soviet Union. “Despite the secrecy, I believe 95 percent of all Americans have an open mind on the subject. Polls show that more than half of Americans believe In UFOs.”

Leet is Arkansas director of the Mutual Unidentified Flying Object Network, an International organization that compiles reports of UFO sightings. He is trying to find a publisher for a book he is writing titled “What? You Haven't Seen A Flying Saucer?” and subtitled “How To Sight A UFO and What to Do When You See One.”

He has spoken at two recent meetings of the Texarkana Optimist Club, and enjoys lecturing. He said his comments on UFOs are received less skeptically today than when he first began talking on the subject more than 20 years ago.

He attributes most of that to a more educated populace, and said that movies like “Star War,” “Hangar 18” and “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” have stimulated interest in UFOs. However, he seldom goes to such films and never watches television's “Star Trek” because of Hollywood's tendency to sensationalize such offerings.

“You should never mix fact and fiction concerning UFOs.”

[Photo caption:] Bill Leet is certain we are not alone.

The B-17 and the 'Foo Fighter'

One pilot's story of how UFO tailed WWII planes

By William D. Leet
SPECIAL TO THE NEWS WORLD

[Photo caption:] Author Bill Leet (left) shakes hands with his brother Warren Leet from the cockpit of his plane. Bill Leet is one among many bomber pilots who saw UFOs they called “Foo Fighters” following their planes during World War 11.

On that cold, dark night or November 24, 1944, when my 8-17 crew and I were briefed to fly a “Lone Wolf” bombing mission to Salzburg, no mention was made or “Foo fighters.” The officer who gave us the intelligence part of the briefing listed the number or heavy and light antiaircraft guns we could expect at the target and what types and how many German fighters might hit us. We were also given the figures for alternate targets, in case of inability to reach the primary target which was the railroad marshalling yards at Salzburg. We were also briefed on escape routes and procedures to follow if we should be shot down so we could parachute safely to the ground and have a chance to make it back to Allied lines.

[Insert] I was unable to ascertain the form of the bogey; it could have been a sphere, or a disk at 90 degrees to the earth's surface, but it definitely was not the exhaust or lights from another aircraft. It positively was neither man-made nor a natural occurrence.

There was no mention whatsoever in the briefing that there was a chance or our encountering a Foo fighter. Kenneth Arnold's sighting or the first “flying Saucers” had yet to occur, and years would pass before Captain Edward Ruppelt's coining of the term “UFO,” but our Intelligence people knew very well that the Foo Fighters were real. Intelligence officers interrogated pilots and crews after combat missions, and had received numerous accounts of the unearthly craft over Europe and the Pacific. As the UFO cover-up had already commenced. and this vital information was prohib11ed to flying personnel, my Flying Fortress crew of ten men and I were unprepared for the confrontation we were to experience on that mission. The 15th Air force, operating long range heavy bombers from airfields in southern Italy, flew at high altitudes far into Nazi-held Europe. The B-17s and B-24s destroyed strategic objectives - oil refineries, principally - bombing in great formations by day. Great Britain's big bombers of the Royal Air force kept it incessant, night-bombing the enemy, and he was allowed no respite.

“Lone Wolf bombing missions”

The relentless onslaught was interrupted by the severe weather of late 1944 grounding the massive formations, so the 5th Bomb Wing initiated the Lone Wolf missions to harass the Nazis. B-17s were sent out singly to separate targets, causing minor damage as contrasted to the devastation wrecked by bomber formations, but keeping the German workers under constant air raid warnings and away from the refineries and factories. It was on such a Lone Wolf night that we made our takeoff that November night. As the pilot of “Old Crow,” the B-17 I nearly always had on combat missions and called “my airplane,” my intention was to push the big bird up just as high as she would go - 30,000 feet, at least. I had bombed at Salzburg once and learned first hand that the Krauts there had master sergeants firing their antiaircraft guns. When we returned to our field at Amendola, the crew chief and I counted 240 flak holes in Old Crow. Miraculously, no engine had been shot out, there had been no fires on board, and not a man on my crew was wounded. We were over Salzburg at 25,000 feet that day. Tonight, with me calling the shots, we would be much higher where the flak was not so ferocious, and we had have better prospects of a good bomb strike and returning safely to home base. My plans were cha11t1ed on takeoff. I eased the four throttles to max power and we raced down the perforated steel runway with no trouble, but we were hardly airborne when one or the superchargers disintegrated. That meant that we could climb no higher than 18,000, much too low for Salzburg. The navigator, bombardier and I selected Klagenfurt for an alternate target. We would blast the railroad yards that were marshalled there, and send the laborers to the air raid shelters for the night. Old Crow reached 18,000 feet only from my patient coaxing. She was over-loaded, carrying thousands of pounds or fuel, ammunition and bombs above the maximum gross weight that Boeing, her designer and manufacturer, had set. It surprised me that the loss of one of four superchargers made such a difference in her ceiling, but once I had nudged her up to 18,000 the stable old warrior mushed right along. The weather had improved considerably - there was a high overcast blackening the sky, but much or the time we were not in clouds and icing conditions. We flew a north northwesterly course up the Adriatic Sea, and upon making a landfall at Trieste we had only a short distance to Klagenfurt.

The night was so dark that I was piloting Old Crow by instruments, but soon after turning on the bomb run and opening the bomb bay doors, we were in a blinding light. I felt the heat from it, and thought the Krauts had caught us in their searchlights, but it lasted only two or three seconds. We kept flying the bomb run, approaching the instant for bombs away, but I was relieved to see and feel no more of the light. I thought no more about it as this was the crucial moment of our mission, and I concentrated on maintaining a constant airspeed and keeping Old Crow flying straight and level, so the bombardier could put the bombs precisely on target.

Upon bombs away Old Crow leaped upward, freed or her ten 500-pound bombs, and I whipped her off the target, scurrying for safety. It was then I realized that we had gotten no flak on the bomb run; and where were the Messerschmitt night fighters? As much as we had disrupted their oil production, surely they had enough gas to fly fighters up to attack one lone B-17. Well, no need to tempt Fate, I knew. No flak and no fighters was peculiar, nevertheless - unprecedented.

Weird craft appears off wingtip

Heading back toward Trieste, all at once there appeared just off our left wing a round amber light. None of us saw it approach or had any sight of it until it was right beside the B-17, flying alone in formation with us. The object's outline was a perfect circle - too perfect; its color was a luminous orange-yellow - too luminous. We could only guesstimate its distance and size. To me, it looked to be about 100 yards out from the wingtip, 10 yards to the rear, and 10 feet in diameter. Was it 100 yards distant and 20 feet in diameter? I was aware of a fascination while observing it.

The gunners wanted to shoot whatever-it-was with their 20-calibers but I ordered them not to - if the thing was hostile we would have been shot down without ever having seen it. As we coursed on through the black night, winging homeward to our field in the south of Italy, the weird craft kept us company. Its position relative to Old Crow's did not vary, its shape did not change, and its brilliance never wavered. I was unable to ascertain the form of the bogey; it could have been a sphere, or a disk at 90 degrees to the earth's surface, but it definitely was not the exhaust or lights from another aircraft. It positively was neither man-made nor a natural occurrence. After 45 or 50 minutes, our companion from another world simply turned off - precisely the way an electric light goes out when turned off by flipping a switch. That is how the Foo Fighter disappeared - it turned off.

Stock answers don't wash

The rest of our return to Amendola was uneventful, and after landing and riding the truck from the field to 2nd Bomb Group Operations, an Intelligence officer conducted our debriefing. When we had reported the standard items of weather, the alternate target we hit, bomb strike accuracy, and the fact that we encountered no enemy resistance, I mentioned the momentary light we flew into on the bomb run, and enquired whether there were search lights at Klagenfurt. No, ours was the first such report.

The description I gave of the amber object and its behavior met the quick explanation that it was a “new secret German fighter.” To my answer that it did not shoot at us, the Intelligence officer rebutted that it was radioing our course, altitude and airspeed to the German antiaircraft batteries. When I reminded him that we had not seen one burst of flak the entire night, he said nothing more - he had run out of stock answers. He had told us all that he could tell.

The superior performance of American lntelligence in WWII was essential to our victory, but an unwise policy was the withholding from combat personal information about the Foo Fighters. When our confrontation occurred on that Lone Wolf mission, had we been forarmed with the knowledge reported to Intelligence previously, we would have reacted with more certainty and confidence. We, and other crews in similar encounters, could have disproved the false assumption that Foo Fighters were German weapons, and further assisted our war effort.

A more enlightened strategy concerning these early manifestations by the foo fighters would have brought the dawn of our understanding the UFO phenomenon. The flash of light that struck our B-17 on the bomb run: the absence of German fighters and flak; the appearance and actions of the Foo Fighter; our receiving no interference with our bombing or other electronics - our calm discernment and reporting of such data to Intelligence would have been or inestimable value and they prepared us for it, and then listened to our reports. So, the most important products of the Lone Wolf mission to Klagenfurt were lost: improvement of combat effectiveness, and insight into visitations from another world. Multiply this by many, many UFO confrontations in World War II.

Decisions of truth and positive action involve additional hazards, but danger is inherent in a program of deception. And who knows what perils are imbedded in the cover-up that continues to this day.

WW II 'FOO FIGHTERS'

The following is excerpted from a story by William D. Leet which appeared in the February 17, 1983, edition of the New York News World.

On that cold, dark night of November 24, 1944, when my B-17 crew and I were briefed to fly a “Lone Wolf” bombing mission to Salzburg, no mention was made of “Foo Fighters.” Intelligence officers interrogated pilots and crews after combat missions, and had received numerous accounts of the unearthly craft over Europe and the Pacific. As the UFO cover-up had already commenced, and this vital information was prohibited to flying personnel, my Flying Fortress crew of 10 men and I were unprepared for the confrontation we were to experience on that mission.

As the pilot of “Old Crow”, the B-17 I nearly always had on combat missions, my intention was to push the big bird up as high as she would go - 30,000 feet at least. My plans were changed on takeoff when one of the superchargers disintegrated. This meant that we could climb no higher than 18,000 feet, much too low for Salzburg. The navigator, bombardier and I selected Klagenfurt for an alternate target. The night was so dark that I was piloting Old Crow by instruments, but soon after turning on the bomb run and opening the bomb bay doors, we were in a blinding light. I felt the heat from it, and thought the Krauts had caught us in their searchlights, but it lasted only 2 or 3 seconds. We kept flying the bomb run and I was relieved to see and feel no more of the light.

Heading back toward Trieste, all at once there appeared just off our left wing a round amber light. None of us saw it approach or had any sight of it until it was right beside the B-17, flying along in formation with us. The object's outline was a perfect circle - too perfect; its color was a luminous orange-yellow - too luminous. It looked to be about 1 00 yards out from the wingtip, 10 yards to the rear and 10 feet in diameter.

As we coursed on through the black night, winging homeward to our field in the south of Italy, the weird craft kept us company. It's position relative to Old Crow's did not vary, its shape did not change and its brilliance never wavered.

I was unable to ascertain the form of the bogey; it could have been a sphere, or a disk at 90 ° to the earth's surface, but it definitely was not the exhaust or lights from other aircraft. It positively was neither man-made nor a natural occurrence. After 45 or 50 minutes, our companion from another world simply turned off - precisely the way an electric light goes out when turned off by flipping a switch. That is how the Foo Fighter disappeared - it turned off.

During debriefing, the Intelligence officer explained that the amber object was a “new secret German fighter.” To my answer that it did not shoot at us, the Intelligence officer rebutted that it was radioing our course, altitude and airspeed to the German antiaircraft batteries. When I reminded him that we had not seen one burst of flak the entire night, he said nothing more - he had run out of stock answers.

The superior performance of American Intelligence in WW II was essential to our victory, but an unwise policy was the withholding from combat personnel information about the Foo Fighters. We, and other crews in similar encounters, could have disproved the false assumption that Foo Fighters were German weapons, and further assisted our war effort. Decisions of truth and positive action involve additional hazards, but danger is inherent in a program of deception. And who knows what perils are imbedded in the cover-up that continues to this day?

1944 Nov 24/Germany/MUJ ( n. 133), Lore-Deneault

A blinding red amber light was seen for a few sec. and its heat could be felt inside the airplane. Then a 10 ft. diam. disc appeared 50 yd. off a wing moving to a position 10 yd. to the rear. The object paced the airplane for 45-50 min. and suddenly went out.

Every major war in modern times has included UFO sightings at the scene of combat. The “foo-fighters” of World War II were the first widely reported UFOs of the 20th Century.

William D. Leet, late Arkansas State Director for the Mutual UFO Network, was a bomber pilot during World War II. On a “lone wolf” bombing mission over Klagenfurt, Austria, November 24, 1944, he and his B-17 crew were on their bomb run when the plane suddenly was caught in a blinding light for 2-3 seconds, and Leet felt a sensation of heat. If it had been searchlights, the Germans would not have broken off contact. They completed the bomb run safely, en-countering no flak, and turned to scurry back to their home airfield in Amendola, Italy.

All at once a round, amber light appeared off the left wing of the B-17, showing a perfectly circular outline, and paced alongside the plane for about 45 minutes before abruptly vanishing. During debriefing, Leet was informed that no searchlights were known to be at Klagenfurt. The intelligence officer suggested that the amber disc was a new German fighter or remote control device radioing position information to anti-aircraft guns, but Leet replied that the object did not fire at them, nor had they encountered any flak.

Just what proportion of UFO observations we should take under the [“Ball Of Light”, alleged flying plasma balls, includin the very real “ball lightning”] umbrella is a wide and complicated question. Here and now, let us confine ourselves to one specific manifestation, which has the especial merit that it occurred before the 'age of the flying saucer' (generally taken to have been ushered in by the Kenneth Arnold sighting in July 1947). The so-called Foo Fighters of World War Two were paradoxical both in their behavior and in the circumstances of their manifestation; for example:

[... other case...]

Winter, 1944: During a mission over Austria and Yugoslavia, USAF bomber pilot William Leet reported a BOL which suddenly appeared alongside his plane 'like a light switch being turned on'. Estimated distance from the wing-tip, 75 to 100m laterally and about 5m to the rear of it. It seemed two- rather than threedimensional, like the amber light of a traffic signal, but not like any earthly light: estimated diameter 3m. It stayed with the plane for about 45-50 minutes, then suddenly was gone. It was seen by all the crew: 'Our gunners wanted to shoot it down, but I ordered them not to. I told them if it was hostile, it would already have shot us down. Let's try to figure out what it is, I told them.' (8b)

A duration of 45+ minutes far exceeds the life-span of any scientifically accepted BOL phenomenon. Leet himself, in his 1979 book (8a), is sufficiently influenced by current UFO thinking to ask 'Could it possibly have been a space craft piloted by advanced beings from another world?' and speculates that the BOL could have somehow protected his plane from enemy attack. However, he does not propose this suggestion with any conviction, and really it does no more than express his bafflement at the experience.

The explanation which comes immediately to our minds will no doubt be a plasma created by the aircraft's progress through the atmosphere: but if so, it is curious that only one wing-tip created such a plasma, and it is hard to account both for its extended duration and for its intense luminosity in the night sky (there was nothing for it to reflect from) - it was bright enough for Leet and his crew to suppose their plane had been picked up by German searchlights. But they saw no beams coming from the ground [1], one crew member reported 'a blinding glare that seemed to come from above' and more than one spoke of intense heat which may or may not have been associated with the BOL.

This is just one instance of several such reports, mainly from the European theatre of war but also from the Japanese. But the most puzzling feature of the Foo-fighter phenomenon is that it was for the most part limited to a very brief historical period - two or three years of WW2 - and even then occurred only occasionally, in the course of operations in the German and Pacific airspaces. Because the historical context is so clearly a determining parameter, we are constrained to look to the historical circumstances for an explanation. I think it is legitimate to speculate that some kind of artifact, generated by military activities or the associated hardware, was interacting with natural phenomena to produce the phenomenon.

Michel Bougard, a chemist and historian of UFO events, relates how in December 1944 a Major Leet od the United States Air Force observed an amber disc wich tracked his B-17 bomber as he flew over Klagenfurt in Austria.

1944, December

AUSTRIA, Klagenfurt

Major Leet aboard a B-17 bomber also observed an amber disk which seemed to follow the maneuvers of the plane, flying above Klagenfurt. (Michel BOUGARD: “La chronique des OVNIS” - Delarge 1977- p. 271)

519: 1944/11/24 22:00 8 14:18:00 E 46:38:00 N 3332 WEU AUS STY 8:9
B17/KLAGENFURT,AUSTRIA:LITE+HEAT:ORG.SCR PACES >>SW:NO FLAK:/r46p193+/r25p197
Ref#210 The APRO BULLETIN. (J & C Lorenzen) Volume 31 Issue 7: IN-FLIGHT

Seemingly, the spooks couldn't provide any plausible explanation for what they were either, as the following account, by Major William Leet, a B-17 pilot attached to the U.S. 15th Air Force, indicated after a nighttime encounter with a foo-fighter - “a small amber disc” - that followed his bomber all the way from Klagenfurt, Austria, to the Adriatic Sea in December 1944. “The intelligence officer that debriefed us stated it was a new German fighter but could not explain why it did not fire at us or, if it was reporting our heading, altitude and airspeed, why we did not receive antiaircraft fire,” he reported.

Operation “Lone Wolf”

“It was a dark, cold night in November 1944,” says B-17 bomber pilot Bill Leet. The 24th, precisely. “As part of the “Lone Wolf” program, our nighttime mission was not, like so many others, to drown German strategic objectives - mainly refineries - under an avalanche of bombs, but rather to harass the Nazis by destroying, that day, with a more “surgical” strike, the railway tracks at the Salzburg marshalling yard. A companion to “Old Raven”.

“Various technical problems led us to postpone our objective on Klagenfurt: one of the engines of our bomber had literally disintegrated. We therefore released our 500 pounds of bombs without experiencing the slightest A.A. fire, nor glimpsed the nose of a Messerschmitt.

“That alone made the mission memorable. But it became even more so shortly after.

“Relieved, I headed towards Trieste, our base, when suddenly a globular amber light appeared just at the end of the left wing of “Old Crow”, our plane.

Anguishing presence.

“No one among the ten crew members had seen it approach. Its shape was perfectly spherical and its color bright yellow-orange. In my opinion, it was located at most 10 meters from the end of the wing and its diameter must have been around 3 meters. A real fascination filled me, seeing it there so close and potentially dangerous to the point of annihilating us at any moment.

“The gunners of the team, always eager to make a hit, showed the intention of shooting it with their 50 caliber, but I ordered them not to do so. If the thing had been hostile towards us, it would have killed us long before we noticed its presence.

Escort and extinction.

“So we continued our way, towards the south of Italy accompanied by this strange luminous ball which did not change its shape at all, nor its coloring, nor its position relative to us. I am positive, there was nothing natural about it and it was not a man-made device.

“After 40 to 50 minutes, our companion from another world (sic) went out like an electric light bulb whose power is cut off.

“The return to Amendola continued without incident and, after landing normally, an officer from the 2nd Bombing Operation Group came with us to carry out the debriefing. I mentioned the unusual encounter and the superior's immediate explanation was that we had been dealing with “a new German secret weapon.”

Objection, lieutenant.

“But he hasn't done us any harm,” I shouted! The officer then replied that the thing must have transmitted by radio our altitude, our speed, data that the German anti-aircraft defense officials would use to better adjust us next time.

“For us, this explanation did not fit. We maintained the feeling, shared by many of our colleagues confronted with the “passive” presence of the “foo-fighters”, that they were not an opposing weapon but rather that they were assisting us in our war effort. Thus ends the story of American pilot Bill Leet on a note of ambiguity mixed with skepticism as to the real intentions of the “foo-fighters”.

Case 60

November 24, 1944

Above Klagenfurt, Austria

William D. Leet (pilot) and the crew of a USAAF B-17 (15th Air Force, 5th Wing, 2nd Bomb group) flying for a “lone wolf” bombing mission when their aircraft was suddenly caught in a blinding light for 2 to 3 seconds and Leet felt a sensation of heat. They completed the bomb run safely, encountering no flak, and turned to scurry back to their home airfield at Amendola in Italy. All at once a round, amber light off the left wing of the B-17, showing a perfectly circular outline, and paced alongside the plane for about 45 minutes before abruptly vanishing. During his debriefing, the pilot as informed that no German searchlights were known to be at Klagenfurt. The intelligence officer suggested that the amber disc was a new German fighter or a remote control device radioing position information to anti aircraft guns, but the pilot replied that the object did not fire on them, nor had they encountered any flack.

Sources: To rule the sky, Lou Jagues & William D. Leet, 1979 / The Flying fortress and the Foo-fighter, William D. Leet, MU FON UFO Journal, 1979: Strange companies, Keith Chester, 2007

Twenty-two years later, in his 1979 book To Rule the Sky, pilot William Leet would describe his November, 1944 experience flying his plane, the “Old Crow”, on a “lone wolf” mission from his base in Italy to bomb the railway yards at Klangenfurt [sic]. That same year he would also pen the article The Flying Fortress and the Foo Fighter for the MUFON UFO Journal...

The night was so dark that I was piloting Old Crow by instruments, but soon after turning on the bomb run and opening the bomb bay doors, we were in a blinding light. I felt the heat from it, and thought the Krauts had caught us in their searchlights, but it lasted only two or three seconds. We kept flying the bomb run, approaching the instant for bombs away, but I was relieved to see and feel no more of the light. I thought no more about it as this was the crucial moment of our mission, and I concentrated on maintaining a constant airspeed and keeping Old Crow flying straight and level, so the bombardier could put the bombs precisely on target.

Upon bombs away Old Crow leaped upward, freed of her ten 500 pound bombs, and I whipped her off the target, scurrying for safety. It was then I realized that we had gotten no flak on the bomb run; and where were the Messerschmitt night fighters? As much as we had disrupted their oil production, surely they had enough gas to fly fighters up to attack one lone B-17. Well, no need to tempt Fate, I knew. No flak and no fighters was peculiar, nevertheless -- unprecedented.

Heading back toward Trieste, all at once there appeared just off our left wing a round amber light. None of us saw it approach or had any sight of it until it was right beside the B-17, flying along in formation with us. The object's outline was a perfect circle -- too perfect; its color was a luminous orange-yellow -- too luminous. We could only guestimate its distance and size. To me, it looked to be about 50 yards out from the wingtip, 10 yards to the rear and 10 feet in diameter. Was it 100 yards distant and 20 feet in diameter? I was aware of a fascination while observing it.

The gunners wanted to shoot whatever-it-was with their fifty calibers but I ordered them not to -- if the thing was hostile we would have been shot down without ever having seen it. As we coursed on through the black night, winging homeward to our field in the south of Italy, the weird craft kept us company. Its position relative to Old Crow's did not vary, its shape did not change, and its brilliance never wavered. I was unable to ascertain the form of the bogey; it could have been a sphere, or a disk at 90 degrees to the earth's surface, but it definitely was not the exhaust of lights from another aircraft. It positively was neither manmade nor a natural occurrence. After 45 to 50 minutes, our companion from another world simply turned off. Precisely the way that an electric light goes out when turned off by flipping a switch, that is how the Foo Fighter disappeared -- it turned off.

(1944) Nov. 24, 1944; Northern Italy

Round amber light, luminous orange-yellow, blinding light; felt unbearable heat. (Page 89-93 Ref.1)

(1944) Dec. 1944; Austria

B-17 pilot (William D. Leet) and crew, on a lone wolf mission, were followed by an amber-colored disc. (NICAP UFO Evidence, 1964, Hall, III)

Date: 1944

Location: Austria, Klagenfurt

Time:

Summary: Major Leet, a bomber pilot, saw a luminous disc follow his plane anf his maneuvers.

Source:

Date: Nov. 24, 1944

Location: Northern Italy

Time:

Summary: Round amber light, luminous orange-yellow, blinding light; felt unbearable heat.

Source:

Date: Dec. 1944

Location: Austria

Time:

Summary: B-17 pilot (William D. Leet) and crew, on a lone wolf mission, were followed by an amber-colored disc.

NICAP UFO Evidence, 1964, Hall, III

1944

[... other cases...]

November 24

Capt. William D. Leet's B-17 crew (part of the 2nd Bombardment Group, 5th Wing of the Fifteenth Air Force) is returning from bombing a target at Klagenfurt, Austria. While flying over northeastern Italy near Trieste, Leet notices a blinding light and feels an intense heat. It goes away quickly, but seconds later he sees a “round amber light” sitting off the left wingtip of the B-17. It is bright and perfectly circular. Leet orders the gunners not to shoot at it. Sgt. Harris, the upper gunner, thinks it is 10 feet in diameter and 150 300 feet away. The object stays with them over the Adriatic Sea for 50 minutes, until it “just turned off” like a light bulb. (Strange Company 90 - 93)

[... other cases...]

1944

Austria, Klagenfurt: Major Leet, a bomber pilot, saw a luminous disc follow his plane and its maneuvers.

Chronology of sightings drawn up by Dr. Domenico Pasquariello of CEIFAN (Centre for Investigation of Anomalous Phenomena).

[... other cases...]

- In December 1944 the crew of a B-17 spotted a mysterious disk-shaped flying body in the Austrian skies of a color similar to that of amber.

[... other cases...]