The post-war UFO: aircraft-ghosts and rockets-ghosts

Ufologists find many references of sightings of mysterious objects until 1947, when believed to be originated itself UFOlogy. In the article about the UFO phenomenon is an indication of the types of objects most frequently encountered in such early evidence:

• Ghost ships and Ghost towns. The most famous example – the famous "flying Dutchman", which was first mentioned in the literature appeared in 1795 in the book "a Trip to Botanical Bay" (eng. "A Voyage to Botany Bay"). However, stories about encounters with the likes of "ghosts" appearing in the sky, went among the people and informed.
• Mysterious airships ("mystery airships"). References to them began to appear in the American press in the late 19th century.
• Aircraft-ghosts (foo fighters). Witness their observation began appearing in the 1940-ies.
• The rockets-ghosts ("ghost rockets"). In 1946 more than 2,000 rockets Ghost was seen over Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden. Then, such objects have been observed in other countries, mainly in Europe.

If you do not take into account "Ghost ships" that are likely to explain the usual mirages, it becomes apparent that the other types mentioned UFOs represent technical devices.

Among the post-war UFO sightings there are two categories of objects, different from the rest: aircraft-ghosts and rockets-ghosts. In this article we will discuss about these objects, give them distinctive traits and possible explanations.

Let's start with the aircraft ghosts.

The term "Foo fighters" or in Russian variant "unidentified fighters" (or "Foo-fighter") was used during the Second world war, the pilots of the allies to refer to unidentified flying objects or unusual atmospheric phenomena observed in the European and Pacific theaters of war.

The term "foo" was borrowed from cartoonist bill Holman (his character was fond of saying "where there's fire") is the operator of the radar in 415 minutes a night fighter squadron, Donald J. Myers. Its value is uncertain. Bill Holman said that he saw him at the bottom of a jade Chinese figurine in Chinatown, San Francisco (in Chinese, fu ("福", sometimes transliterated as "foo") means "happiness" or "blessing"). Now this term is often used as placeholder names in computer programming, where it denotes a variable, function, or team, whose exact identity is unimportant and serves only to demonstrate the concept. But how it came to mean an unusual phenomenon (the term UFO did not exist then)?

During the briefing on 27 November 1944 Fritz Ringwald, intelligence officer of the unit S-2, stated that Donald Meyers and ed Sleuther saw a red fireball that seemed to pursue them, while making multiple high-speed maneuvers. With the filing of the Donald Myers fighters of the 415-th night fighter squadron began to call them "fuckin' foo fighters" in the official documents caught the censorship part of the name.

The first official report on the observation of such objects appeared in November 1944, when, in fact, was the name of this feature class. Pilots making night flights over the territory of Germany began to report on the observations of fast-moving glowing objects following their aircraft. Later it turned out that similar objects the pilots observed previously. For example, in September 1941 there were a few reports of observation of such objects in the Indian ocean, and in mid-1942, the Australian air force plane patrolling the Tasman Peninsula, close to the "single unit shiny bronze color", about 45 meters long and 15 meters in diameter with something like a dome on top, which abruptly went under water. In December 1942, flying over France, the RAF pilot saw two lights flying to him from the ground (it was at an altitude of 7000 feet or 2133 m). In August of the same year, Marines in the Solomon Islands was amazed to see education of the 150 "roaring" silver items.

These objects were occasionally observed on radar. For example, December 22, pilot 415 squadron fighters reported two "large orange glows" which quickly rose to his plane when he flew over Haguenau, Germany. On the ground the radar operator also received testimony about the presence of foreign objects.

The objects described in different ways: usually as balls of red, orange or white, who were doing complex maneuvers and then suddenly disappeared. According to the pilots, the object chased the aircraft, and generally behave as if someone controlled, but showed no hostility; to outrun them or to shoot them down failed. Reports on them appeared so often that such objects received its own name – "foo fighters", or sometimes "kraut fireballs". The military took seriously the observations of these objects, as suspected, that those are the secret weapon of the Germans. But it was later revealed that German and Japanese pilots observed the same objects and also was in disbelief.

Photographs of these objects is very small. Find at least one significantly associated with the phenomenon have not yet succeeded, however, in articles about "foo fighters" usually there are several similar photos of aircraft in flight, near which there are white dots (one or several).

The group that conducted the investigations of these incidents, offered several possible explanations for the sightings of "foo fighters": an electrostatic phenomenon similar to St. Elmo's fire, electromagnetic phenomena, reflection from ice crystals. However, many still adhere to the alien theory of the origin of these objects.

Other UFOs seen in the period after world war II is the Ghost rockets, or "Spökraketer", also called "Scandinavian launch ghosts".

This type of objects was observed after the Second world war, first in the Nordic countries (of Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden), and then in other places, mainly in Europe. Its name they received because of the bright light coming from the back of the object, or a fire trail that ran behind him like the exhaust from the nozzles of the rocket engines.

The first message on launch ghosts can be considered came from Sweden in may 1946. One spring day the newspaper Dagens Nyheter reported that two night watchmen noticed the "wingless, cigar-shaped body the size of a small airplane, which at regular intervals of time spanked bunches of sparks from the tail." Next Newspapers and the city flooded with messages about the wingless bright objects, spread throughout the world.

One of the most famous cases occurred in the night from 23 to 24 July 1948, when Clarence Chiles (Chiles) and John Whitted (Whitted) conducted a passenger plane from Houston (TX) Boston (mA). On July 24 at 2:45 a.m., flying over the city of Montgomery, K. Lee noticed the approaching front to the aircraft torpedo-like object with a length of about 100 feet(30 m). According to the pilot the object is moving at a speed of 500-700 mph. Along object Whitted distinguished two series of glowing rectangles-"Windows". One of the passengers named Clarence McKelvey was awake, and later provided a description of the object, also noting the presence of "Windows". The object flew up, and left behind a column of orange fire.

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Description and sketches, data K. Chiles

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Description and sketches, the data D. Wittenoom

I wonder what these missiles are-ghosts often suffered the accident. They mostly fell to the bottom of the lakes, but a search of the wreckage did not bring results. The most famous of these accidents occurred on 19 July 1946, when racecourses gray object without wings fell in the lake Kolmjarv (Sweden). A three-week search of the wreckage did not succeed.

With regard to hypotheses about the origin of these objects, most scientists were inclined to believe that this is evidence of the testing of the prototypes of cruise missiles (based on V-1, V-2, or other).

The Greek government in 1947, has conducted its own investigation, in which participated leading scientist, physicist Dr. Paul Santorini (Παύλος Σαντορίνης). The Commission came to the conclusion that the rockets-ghosts are not normal missiles. After this report, the society began to develop the idea about the alien ships.

Thus, for this type of objects do not have such a large selection hypotheses, as for fighters-Ghost: it's either earthly weapons, or the alien ships from space.

Both UFOs were mentioned by the writers of ufologists of the time, such as Donald Kaho (Flying Saucers Are Real and Flying Saucers from Outer Space) and Frank Scully (Behind the Flying Saucers).

Based on the description, these objects have a similar nature. Can we assume that it really was some military aircraft (or weapon)? To answer this question, it is necessary to remember the history of aviation and Aeronautics.

The concept of missiles, which could become the objects of observations (both in appearance and speed, and altitude), was developed already in the twenties of the twentieth century. For example, German scientist Hermann Oberth in the 1920s, the years conducted bench tests of rocket engines.

American scientist Robert Goddard in 1923, began to develop liquid rocket engine and a working prototype was created by the end of 1925. March 16, 1926 he launched the first liquid rocket, the fuel for which used gasoline and liquid oxygen.

In a Jet, Union Institute (RNII) in 1933 and was completed in 1929, the creation of rockets to launch, which later received the nickname "Katyusha". August 17, 1933, was launched rocket "gird 9", which can be considered the first Soviet antiaircraft missile. It reached a height of 1.5 km and the next missile, "gird 10", launched November 25, 1933, has reached the height of 5 km.

In Germany, similar work led the German Society for interplanetary communications ("VfR"). March 14, 1931 a member of the VfR Johannes Winkler has carried out Europe's first successful liquid rocket launch. Ballistic missile A-4 with a range of 320 km was successfully launched during the Second world war, October 3, 1942, and in 1944 he began combat use of its counterpart, called "V-2" (V-2), which is also the first in the history of the subject, made a suborbital space flight, reached the vertical launch height of 188 km In this period also began to appear actively guided missiles and bombs.

Thus, the rockets-ghosts and the mysterious aircraft could have a rational explanation – it could be evidence of the experimental military missiles.

Translated by «Yandex.Translator»