The subject of Foo-Fighters, the
mysterious aerial phenomenon seen by aircrew during W.W.II, is
probably the most neglected area of study in the field of
ufology. Once ufologists realised that their world did not in
fact begin on June 24th 1947 with Arnold's infamous sighting, it
has become fashionable to conduct research into "historical"
UFO's which has led to some useful insights into the nature of
the UFO phenomenon as a whole.
IGNORED
The pre-Great War Airship and
between the wars Mystery Flier Waves plus the post-war Mystery
Rocket waves have all been admirably covered by researchers in
the UK, USA and Sweden, but foo-fighters have been virtually
ignored. With this in mind I began in 1987 to seek out all
material extant relating to foo- fighters to try and put the
subject into much-needed perspective and with the hopeful
intention of publishing the end results in book form as a
reference tool for other ufologists. This is some way off yet
and so I think it may be worthwhile detailing the progress made
and the problems encountered so far.
Neglected as an area of study
they may be but every ufologist has at least heard of
foo-fighters and almost every writer on the subject has mentioned
them. Therefore you would think a mass of information would
exist on the subject. Unfortunately this is just not the case.
Look in any UFO book and you will find that foo-fighters are just
given a few lines, at most in some rare cases a few pages and in
only one or two instances a whole chapter.
This is pathetic really for an
area of UFO activity which immediately preceeded the modern era
and one which, if we are to believe the more "enthusiastic"
ufologists, was the start of the so-called "Government Cover-Up".
The history of foo-fighters as represented within the subject of
ufology is riddled with problems which have put foo fighters in
the historical niche they occupy today. These problems need
stating and dealing with before the foo-fighter phenomenon can be
seen in anything approaching a clear perspective.
For a start even the name
`foo-fighter' is problematic; did it come from the old Smokey
Stover cartoon character saying "Where there's foo there's fire";
or was it from the French word feu, meaning fire, or was it,
according to one ex-B17 waist gunner I spoke to, from "phooey".
Needless to say, he didn't believe they existed! Also, what
exactly is the definition of a "foo-fighter"? It usually depends
on what obscure theory a particular writer is trying to prove.
For the purposes of my study I have used the criteria of any
unexplained light source seen in conjunction with an aircraft
either from the air or from the ground. This is deliberately
descriptive as to include all war-time UFO's, which are as
diverse as the ones we report nowadays, would need many years
research itself.
RE-ARRANGED
Firstly, when considering the
written sources in the literature, it should be made known that
almost every author who has mentioned the subject, in a book or a
magazine article, has literally stolen his or her material from
someone else and invariably left it unreferenced to create, no
doubt, the illusion that the author in question discovered the
facts themselves. Furthermore even the copied facts are often
misquoted or conveniently "rearranged" to suit the author's
particular argument and all obviously done without checking the
salient facts at source.
For instance, if we
constructed a "family tram" of foo-fighter material we would
find, almost without exception, that the "grandpappy of them all"
is the 1945 American Legion Magazine article,
written by Jo Chamberlin. This article forms the substance of
almost every piece written on the subject of foo-fighters.
Fortunately this article is based on accounts which can be (has
been) checked with squadron records and appears largely correct
but its incessant copying has precluded any original work being
done on the subject and has subsequently led to many writers
extrapolating generalisations about the foo subject as a whole,
most of which are demonstrably untrue. Examples of this armchair
theorising are legion but for instance; many items dealing with
foo-fighters state almost as an article of faith that
foo-fighters only appeared in the later stages of the war,
specifically around the winter of `44/'45.
SECRET WEAPON
This is a direct result of
Chamberlin's article and has led to further speculation that
perhaps they were Nazi secret weapons pulled out of the hat at
the last minute, or even perhaps that the foo were
extraterrestrials keeping an eye on us before we used the atomic
bomb. This time scaling is false and the first record I have of
a foo-fighter being seen comes from 1940 and they were seen often
throughout all the war years.
Another false fact of the
foo-fanciers faith is that the phenomena was mainly seen over the
European theatre of war and just occasionally over the Pacific.
This is again false and the product of sloppy research. So far I
have accounts of foo- fighters being seen over Norway, Germany,
France, Italy, Sicily, The Pacific, Burma, Tunisia, and all the
sea areas adjoining these countries. It was clearly an
international phenomenon.
Still another mistake is the
statement made by many authors that the axis pilots also were
seeing the phenomena and that they thought, just as our pilots
did, that it was an allied secret weapon. This may yet be proved
true but I have so far to find an original reference made by an
axis pilot, or authority, that this was the case. The statement
seems to be ufological canard employed on the basis of `well if
our boys saw them they must have too', and again has been used to
support the ETH argument. The facts behind the rumour must await
further verification. Axis aircrew were in fact seeing
unexplained aerial phenomena but as yet most of their accounts
await translation.
HOAX
We have at least one outright
hoax too in foo-fighter lore. For years rumours had been flying
round that the Germans had been fully aware of the foo-fighter
phenomenon (perhaps that's where the above canard originated) and
that they had a special study group formed to look into the
problem under the name of "Project Uranus," backed by a shadowy
group by the name of Sonderburo 13 (reminds you of Majestic 12
doesn't it?). This was first detailed in La Livres Noir De
Soucupes Volantes (The Black Book of Flying Saucers- 1970)
by French ufologist Henry Durrant. The rumour spread in Europe
and eventually took physical form in the English language in Tim
Good's acclaimed book `Above Top Secret' where it is used to help
substantiate further vague rumours of an Anglo/American
foo-fighter study. Good had not checked his facts and had in
fact just copied the information direct from Durrant's book.
When I checked this out with
Durrant he informed me that the whole "Project Uranus" affair was
a hoax which he had inserted in his book precisely to see who
would copy it without checking. The hoax apparently had been
revealed in France some years before but hadn't percolated its
way through to English speaking ufologists. Perhaps other foo
hoaxes await discovery.
I could go on listing mistake
after mistake and misquote after misquote from which we have
drawn the current idea of foo-fighters. The quality of research
and writing on the subject of foo-fighters has been truly
appalling. Once these primary problems were realised I found
trying to research the subject from within the UFO literature was
pointless and incestuous and so attempted to get back to the
source material -- the pilots and crew themselves and the
official records.
FRESH REPORTS
With this in mind I wrote to
every air-related magazine in the UK with a request for
information from ex-aircrew. To date I have had some thirty
replies from pilots and crew detailing their experiences with
strange balls of light (incidentally not one of them knew them by
the name "foo-fighters," or any other name for that matter). I
will be repeating the procedure this year both in the UK and the
US to draw in more fresh reports. None of these respondents
connected their sighting in any way with the modern idea of UFO's
and their information is so much the better and clearer for that.
In many cases I have copies of entries made in log-books
immediately after the flight which details what took place.
BALLS OF LIGHT
In the main, the descriptions
are similar to the many already portrayed in the literature.
Balls of light of varying colour (mainly orange) and number would
appear from nowhere and play tag with aircraft for up to forty
minutes. They were not hallucinations, being in some cases seen
by the entire crew of a Lancaster bomber, and were not
reflections as they were seen from many different angles or from
two `planes at once.
Evasive action to shake them
off was of no use. In one case a Lancaster almost burnt its
engine out, going "through the gate," a slang term used by pilots
to denote pushing the engine to its limits, in an effort to lose
its incandescent follower, but to no avail.
None of my respondents had
fired on the phenomena, in some cases fearing it to be a secret
weapon which would explode when fired upon and in others just
attempting to evade it on the basis that as long as it wasn't
firing at them they weren't going to antagonise it. Having said
this I have heard an unsubstantiated tape of an interview with an
American gunner which cites a case in which a foo was fired on
... and the shells went straight through it! Interesting and
supportive of the unexplained atmospheric phenomenon theory.
Although some books note the (unreferenced!) fact that some foo's
appeared inside the planes or affected the electrics etc. I have
found no record of that taking place. Nor is there any verified
account of foo-fighters showing up on ground radar. The
phenomena whatever it was, clearly distinguished by the aircrew
from common natural phenomena such as St. Elmo's Fire, and was a
separate entity from the 'plane they were in. It appears to have
been totally independent and able to change shape, speed and
position at will.
LACK OF INTEREST
Clearly something was being
seen. A few pilots and crew chose not to report their experience
at the time for fear of ridicule or for fear of being grounded
for having hallucinations. Many though did record and report
what they saw however and the response of the intelligence
de-briefing staff varied considerably from total disinterest or
hilarity to, in one case only, great interest and a further
interview by intelligence officers. This apparent lack of
interest on the part of the intelligence services begs the
question of whether any official RAF or US 8th AF study was ever
actually undertaken. It vas certainly claimed to have,
instigated by the untraceable Massey in the UK and Eisenhower in
the US. Although my sample of respondents is small is seems odd
that only one crew out of thirty or more were actually de-briefed
at length specifically on the subject.
This was more than likely to
be concerned with the possibility that the crew had seen one of
the new German jets than anything else. In view of the amount of
time, effort and expertise needed it seems unlikely that any
nation during the hard pressed times of W.W.II took the time out
to study what was essentially an ephemeral, elusive and
ultimately harmless phenomenon. This will not please cover-up
aficionado's but it seems to be the case on current evidence.
My research so far with the
RAF/MOD/PRO in the UK has drawn a total blank regarding official
documentation and investigation of the subject, as have
preliminary investigations in the USA. UFO skeptics will of
course say that this is because it doesn't exist, proponents,
especially cover-up buffs, will say it is because it is being
kept secret.
The simple facts are that if
documentation does exist in the UK I am unlikely to be able to
get at it easily because of our archaic proceedures for obtaining
any government documents. We are not blessed by a FOI Act as is
the USA, and obtaining any document depends on whether a
department can be bothered to answer your letters or if so, can
be bothered to undertake a meaningful search of their records.
The situation is further complicated by the fact that many
records in our Public Records Office are hard to locate due to
how it is organised and furthermore are subject to "rules" such
as the 30 year rule whereby information is not available for 30
years from date of classification. Worse still many W.W.II
records are languishing under a 75 year rule for reasons I have
not yet fathomed! In addition to this fact I have spoken to some
ex-wartime RAF intelligence people in the UK and they claim no
knowledge of the phenomena.
This area is clearly a matter
for further study but, as with contemporary UFO research it
should be borne in mind that whilst there any many rumours of
government interest and intervention regarding foo-fighters the
actual hard evidence cannot be found. I do not think this points
to a `cover-up' in any way. The situation in the US may yet turn
out to be different as regards obtaining official documentation
and I would welcome help from any US readers who have an interest
in the foo-phenomenon.
NOT VALID
The German secret weapon
hypothesis (GSWH) promoted by such writers as Renato Vesco is
unlikely to be valid. The reports are too widely spaced
throughout the war and come from too many differing theatres for
them to be a secret weapon of any kind. Certainly the Germans
were experimenting with saucer-shaped craft, flying wings, etc.,
but they had not got very far beyond the drawing board and model
stage. In addition, if foo-fighters were a weapon they were
clearly ineffective as one. The GSWH can be seen in the same
light vis a vis Foo-fighters as the way many people relate modern
UFO sightings to alien craft. It is a cultural or, in the case
of foo-fighters, an occupational artefact which when seen in
retrospect (as will the ETH no doubt) can be identified and
discounted.
CONCLUSION
Out of all this some clear facts
are apparent. Hundreds of aircrew saw and recorded what we now
call foo-fighters during W.W.II. There must be many thousands of
ex-aircrew who have stories to tell. The problem is finding them
and the odd ad. or article is only going to draw a few out and I
have yet to attempt to get to American information from squadron
survivors units etc. The situation regarding German information
is further complicated by a language barrier but it is only a
matter of time.
I firmly believe that
foo-fighters were a real, although non- solid phenomena and I
reject the hallucination/misperception hypothesis almost
entirely. These people's lives depended on being able to see and
identify aerial objects very quickly. One mistake and it was
their last. Some crew have admitted misperceiving Venus etc.,
but realising it in seconds, and certainly not a whole crew being
fooled for any length of time.
Foo-fighter reports give us a
"genuine" UFO report, uncluttered by contemporary ideas about
aliens, saucers and the like and which, as appear to be many
`genuine' UFO reports when they are stripped of cultural bias,
consists basically of rudimentary light sources performing odd
manoevres in the sky. My research has a long way to go yet but I
would offer the suggestion that foo-fighters and their pre and
antecedents which are still being seen today by people both
pilots and ground observers are a type of natural phenomena,
possibly related to ball or bead lightning, but equally possibly
not. They may be something as yet totally undiscovered. They
are also the stimulus for many of today's UFO reports which are
subsequently overlaid by the prevailing cultural perceptions,
i.e. alien craft. Mystery Airships, Ghost Fliers, Foo-Fighters,
Flying Saucers - they may well all turn out to be different
facets of the same phenomena.
Information about foo-fighters is, as can be seen, in short supply and at best fragmentary and I appeal to any readers with information on any aspect of the subject,
however trivial or bizzarre, to contact me, Andy Roberts, at:
AndyRoberts@ancientassociates.fsnet.co.uk
