![]() ![]() For one thing, the sightings took place over Nazi-occupied Europe, at a time when Germany’s Luftwaffe was making tremendous strides. Holding Nazi Germany responsible for the flying glowing orbs isn’t too far-fetched. German-born rocket scientist Wernher von Braun, who was brought to the United States to work for the U.S. Fighter Pilot Got into a Dogfight with a UFO Was it the work of Nazi astrophysicists? He did express the view that there were a lot of things during the war that were kept quiet.” But although he never seemed prone to conspiracy theories, Krasney says his father was open to one: “He entertained the idea that it could be late-breaking German technology. “He was very level-headed, very analytical,” says Krasney of his father, adding that he kept a notebook where he wrote about (and drew) his foo-fighter sighting. In fact, he never even suggested that the glowing wingless cigar-like object that flew next to his plane was extraterrestrial in origin. Krasney’s son, Keith Krasney, says his late father didn’t fit the stereotypical profile of a UFO theorizer. But there was scant evidence to suggest collective psychosis: The 415th had an otherwise excellent record, and when a reporter for American Legion Magazine went to report on the squadron he described them as “very normal airmen, whose primary interest was combat, and after that came pin-up girls, poker, doughnuts and the derivatives of the grape.” Then there were those who claimed that the airmen were suffering from “combat fatigue,” a polite way of saying that war stress was driving them insane. Elmo’s fire and could distinguish the two. Flares and weather balloons can’t track planes like these objects could, and they’d seen St. But the members of the 415th rejected all those theories. Elmo’s Fire-a phenomenon where a light appears on the tips of objects in stormy weather. ![]() READ MORE: When Dozens of Korean War GIs Claimed a UFO Made Them Sick The ‘combat fatigue’ explanationĪn illustration depicting the Decemencounter with 'foo fighters' during a daylight bombing raid on Germany during World War II.Īn Associated Press reporter broke news of the foo-fighter sightings on January 1st, 1945, and theories about their origins quickly abounded: The sightings were flares, or weather balloons or St. Krasney, justifiably spooked, instructed the pilot to attempt evasive maneuvers, but the glowing object stayed right next to the jet for several minutes before it “flew off and disappeared.”Įventually, the airmen named the lights: foo fighters, inspired by the comic strip “Smokey Stover,” in which Smokey (a firefighter) would often declare, “Where there’s foo, there’s fire.” Krasney’s experience: a wingless cigar-shape object, glowing red, just a few yards off the plane’s wingtip. They appear to be under perfect control at all times,” according to Keith Chester’s Strange Company: Military Encounters with UFOs in World War II.Īnd then there was Lt. One crew, near Hagenau, reported two lights in a large orange glow, seeming to rise from the earth to 10,000 feet, tailing the fighter “for approximately two minutes.” After that, the lights, “peel off and turn away, fly along level for a few minutes and then go out. Then on December 22nd, two more flight crews sighted lights. On December 17, 1944, near Breisach, Germany, a pilot was flying at approximately 800 feet when he saw “5 or 6 flashing red and green lights in ’T’ shape.” The lights seemed to follow him, closing in “to about 8 o’clock and 1,000 ft.” before disappearing as inexplicably as they came. READ MORE: Interactive Map: UFO Sightings Taken Seriously by the U.S. But then the sightings spread through the unit. Thinking that the lights might be some kind of German air weapon, Schlueter turn the plane to fight…only to have the lights vanish.Īt first the men said nothing, fearing they’d be ostracized. They checked with Allied ground radar, but they registered nothing. Then Schlueter saw them off his right wing. There were eight to 10 of them in a row, glowing fiery orange. They were roaming the Rhine Valley just north of Strasbourg on the French-German border when Ringwald said, “I wonder what those lights are, over there in the hills,” according to an American Legion Magazine story on the sightings from 1945. It was a late November evening in 1944, partly cloudy with a quarter moon. He was riding as observer in a night fighter piloted by Lt. But for the airmen of the 415th Night Fighter Squadron, it felt more like the beginning of War of the Worlds. ![]()
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