PROJECT 1947


FOO FIGHTERS: THE STORY SO FAR
by
Andy Roberts

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



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