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Unknown location, in 1945:

Case number:

ACUFO-1945-00-00-UNKNOWNPLACE-1

Summary:

In his 1954 book “Les Soucoupes Volantes Viennent d'un Autre Monde” (Flying Saucers Come From Another World), French ufology pioneer Jimmy Guieu write that at the end of World War II, an Air Force bomber encountered a Foo-Fighters [sic]: a mysterious “ball of light” passed silently through the cabin, floated slowly into the cockpit in front of the astonished pilots, and slowly left again, and visited the entire interior of the bomber and “disappeared towards the tail!”

Guieu suggested that the astronomers would claim it was “Ball Lightning”, but he rejected this because, he told, we “would then have to admit that ball lightning is particularly fond of combat zones!”

Guieu gave no source, no precise date, no location, and so far I failed to find where he picked up this report.

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Sources:

[Ref. jgu1:] JIMMY GUIEU:

[Ref. ara1:] ANTONIO RIBERA:

This Spanish ufologist reported in 1976 that according to the book Flying Saucers Come From Another World by Jimmy Guieu...

Aircraft information:

Nothing is said of the involved aircraft except that it was a U.S. bomber plane.

Discussion:

“Ball Lightning”:

“Ball Lightning” refers to the phenomenon of a small luminous ball of light floating in the air. It lasts seconds or about a minute, and vanishes with burn traces or without burn traces, with a “pop” sound or not. Because, like UFOs, it does not conveniently appear at will in scientific laboratories but in nature, it resulted in over 150 years of scientific controversy. Scientists now generally admit the phenomenon is real, but disagreement exist on the explanation, except for to say that it is a natural phenomenon.

One of the specific characteristics found in “Ball Lightning” reports is that it sometimes seems to go through obstacles such as walls. This sometimes occurred without any damage, while sometimes the “Ball” would punch a hole of leave a burn mark in the wall.

Some skeptical ufologists claimed that “Ball Lightning” explaines UFO sighting reports. The foremost “skeptic” ufologist Philip J. Klass wrote a whole book in which he - falsely - claimed that all UFO sightings by pilots are “Ball Lightning”, that this phenomenon follows planes because of opposite electric charges that attract Ball Lighting to the planes - this is nonsense, as in this case the UFO would his the planes. He even claimed that flying saucers seen by pedestrian are Ball Lightning attracted to the pedestrians for the same reason.

In 2004 I compiled a catalogue of “Ball Lightning” sighting reports; among other things, it shows that “Ball Lightning” is a phenomenon clearly distinct from “UFOs” in almost all cases; that it occurs in thunderstorm conditions only, and that “Ball Lightning” witnesses almost never interpret it as UFO or alien spaceship.

Of course, it is the one of the duties of any serious ufologist studying, or writing about, a UFO sighting report to assess whether it may or may not be explained by “Ball Lightning” - among any other explanation. But I find “Ball Lightning” explains only a tiny fraction of UFO sighting reports.

“Foo-Fighters” and “Ball Lightning”:

Because many reports made by pilots during World War II roughly suggested the observed phenomena were “balls of light”, “balls of fire” or “luminous balls”, the Press of the time sometimes claimed that “scientists” have explained it as “St. Elmo's Fire”. “St. Elmo's Fire” is not “Ball Lightning”; it relates to the apparition at the tips of ship masts or planes wing tips of a luminous halo caused by static electricity. In the case of WWII planes, it sometimes happened on the propellers or the pilot's blister. Despite this difference, some ufologists later considered that “Ball Lightning” explains “Foo-Fighters” and “Balls of Fire” reports or WWII.

Neither “St. Elmo's Fire” nor “Ball Lightning” is able to perform maneuvers around a plane; or approach a plane. Any natural static electricity phenomenon appears on of in the plane. It is true that a fraction of the reports mention a luminous ball near the wing of a plane, but generall off the wingtip, or below, or above, and not appearing then disappearing there, but closing in from a distance to take this position. Almost none of the “Foo-Fighters” or “Balls of Fire” reports of WWII can be explained by “St. Elmo's Fire” nor “Ball Lightning”.

I think it explains this one.

Jimmy Guieu:

Henri-René Guieu, aka “Jimmy Guieu” (1926-2000) was a French writer who mainly published science-fiction novels, but also detective novels and erotic novels. In the early 1950's, he was interested in Alchemy and esoterica; but when the U.S. Press started to publish about “flying discs”, he became one of the first French ufologists, publishing two books “Les Soucoupes Volantes Viennent d'un Autre Monde” in 1954 and “Black-Out sur les Soucoupes Volantes” in 1956. He was a proponent of the extraterrestrial theory on UFOS, and reported on many foreign cases and many French cases that would have otherwise been lost in oblivion.

Unfortunately, Guieu almost never accepted any prosaic explanation to any flying saucer or UFO sighting report. He interpreted many obvious balloons, meteors or outright hoaxes as evidence of extraterrestrial visitors. As decades passed, he promoted more and more outrageaous claims. For examples, in the 1990's he appeared on an entertainment show on French TV, showing a sketch of a creature with a rat-like face, explaning that it show an alien race that assaults women, and that he is launching a combat group to fight these malevolent aliens. He also joined the conspiracy theorists crackpots claims of the “New World Order” and “Illuminatis” kinds.

The case:

Guieu did not indicate a source for his report, and though there are of course at least several dozens reports of “Ball Lightning” inside plane cabins, I was unable to find another source for this particular case so far. The closest was a story - also without source reference - where a DC-3 pilot reported about a ball of light passing down the central aisle of the aircraft, while an air hostess standing in the aisle reported no sensation, no heat, even as the ball passed around her legs and continued along the central aisle.

(http://crd.yerphi.am/files/Ball_lightning2.pdf)

But as it was a DC-3, with an air hostess, it was not a bomber. And the report is not dated.

Guieu wrote “Ball lightning! the astronomers would exclaim”. Of course, astronomers are usually not competent about “Ball Lightning” at all. Guieu was just too much impressed by French “rationalists” astronomers who almost unanimously “condemned” the “flying saucers” at the time.

But Guieu did think of it as the explanation. He discarded it without valid reason just because he wanted to promote that this was a case of a “tele-projection” of something by aliens. His reasoning then is totally absurd: in the WWII “Foo-fighter” reports other than this one, no “Foo-fighter” entered the cabin of a plane, whereas this did happen in peace time. This is just one of the cases where Guieu show he was not ready to admit any prosaic explanation to any UFO sighting reports.

We can note that in Ribera's version, crediting Guieu as the source, the very mention of “Ball Lightning” has disappeared.

Evaluation:

Ball Lightning.

Sources references:

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

• [jgu1] * "Les Soucoupes Volantes Viennent d'un Autre Monde", book by Jimmy Guieu, Fleuve Noir publishers, France, page 221, 1954.
• [ara1] * "Ces Mystérieux OVNI", book by Antonio Ribera, De Vecchi publisher, France, page 52, 1976.

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This page was last updated on June 27, 2024.