The fact that the patrol plane had vanished was a huge mystery for everyone involved. Its crew was well trained and experienced. When flying over large areas of water, long-range pilots relied on their direction finder to be in working condition. But even if the lost plane’s gear had malfunctioned, the pilots would have known which direction they were heading simply by noting the position of the setting sun.
As for the sphere, the navy officer told the XO that no U.S. planes had been up the night before and there wasn’t a Japanese plane within 1,000 miles of the island. So whatever the XO saw, it didn’t belong to either side.
As recounted later by UFO writers Jerome Clark and Lucius Farish, the XO admitted he believed the two incidents — the lost plane and the unearthly sphere — were related. The navy lieutenant had seconded that theory.
The missing plane was never found.
On August 10, 1944, a B-29 bomber based at Kharagpur, India, was on a mission over Palembang, Sumatra, bombing Japanese gas facilities in that part of enemy-occupied Indonesia.
The bomber was one of fifty flying the mission. This particular plane had dropped its bombs, and then, by releasing photo flash bombs, its crew began filming the destruction they’d wrought on the Japanese below.
Once their mission was complete, they turned back for their home base, flying at 14,000 feet. About a half hour into this return trip, though, two of the B-29’s crewmembers spotted an oval-shaped object 1,500 feet off their right wing.
About six feet in diameter, the object’s surface was very bright and pulsating vigorously. Its color was changing from intense red to orange, and it was spewing a blue green exhaust plume.
Thinking this was some kind of enemy device, the B-29 pilot put his plane through a series of extreme evasive maneuvers, all while flying at more than 200 miles per hour. Climbing, diving, turning, banking, the object stayed with the big plane through all of it, keeping pace and never missing a beat.
At the end of ten minutes of wild flying, the object finally broke off contact. Climbing straight up, it accelerated to tremendous speed and disappeared overhead.
7
Back to Europe
Of all the American air units that served in the European theater of World War II, one in particular will be forever linked to the foo fighters phenomenon.
And while there is no way to tell for sure, quite possibly this unit ran into more foo fighters on a regular basis than any other during the war — which is very strange because the men of this unit were also the ones who gave the foo fighters their name.
The unit was the 415th Night Fighter Squadron. One of America’s first ever night-fighting units, the 415th had been trained in Orlando, Florida, before being deployed overseas in 1943. They first went to North Africa, then to Italy, and finally, in 1944, they were stationed in France.
The squadron flew the Bristol Beaufighter, a British-built, two-engine, multiseat heavy fighter whose top speed was more than 300 miles per hour. And, because the plane was large enough to put a sizable radar set in its nose, as well as carry respectable loads of ammunition and fuel, the Beaufighter was a formidable night warrior.
The pilots who flew these night fighters were all above average in skill, daring… and eyesight. Theirs was a dangerous and almost foolish mission: prowling the night skies over Germany, like birds of prey looking for anything moving on the ground or in the air, at the same time they offered themselves up as tempting targets for German antiaircraft fire or their night-fighting counterparts in the Luftwaffe.
It took a very special pilot to fly for the 415th.
The strangeness started for the squadron on the night of November 26, 1944.
A lone 415th Beaufighter took off from the unit’s home field near Dijon, France, and headed into Germany, hunting for enemy locomotives. After destroying a number of targets, the plane’s pilot spotted a strange red light flying nearby. It came within a half mile of his aircraft before disappearing. As this didn’t seem all that unusual at the time, the pilot reported the light during his debriefing and thought that was the end of it.
Until a few days later. The same pilot was airborne again, along with his radar operator and, this time, as an extra passenger, the 415th’s intelligence officer, Captain Fred Ringwald. Because other pilots in the unit had reported seeing odd lights, too, Ringwald thought that if he was able to get a look at one, he might be able to tell if it was a new German weapon or not.
At some point during the patrol, the three men onboard the Beaufighter spotted a line of lights a distance away. Ringwald thought they were lights on a hill, but they soon realized there were no hills in the area. Plus, the unit’s ground radar people were telling them there were no other aircraft — friendly or not — in the area, either.
The three airmen counted eight lights, all in a line, burning bright orange. They could also tell that the lights were moving extremely fast.
The pilot steered toward them, but the lights abruptly blinked out. But then, just as suddenly, they reappeared, this time even farther off in the distance. The lights remained blazing for a few more minutes before diving very steeply and disappearing for good.
The Beaufighter eventually returned to base, but the pilot and radar man chose not to say anything about spotting the mysterious illuminations, fearing they’d be grounded with battle fatigue.
As for Captain Ringwald, who’d gone along on the ride specifically looking for mysterious objects, he didn’t mention the lights to anyone, either. As Keith Chester says in his book Strange Company, the incident was just “too weird” for the intelligence officer to report.
But the real weirdness was yet to come.
A few weeks after this encounter, on December 16, more than a half million German soldiers smashed through the Ardennes Forest in Belgium, starting the largest engagement of the war. It would become known as the Battle of the Bulge.
Soon after the battle commenced, the 415th was back in the night skies over Germany, this time looking for truck convoys and forward enemy airfields — targets that, if destroyed, would slow down the Nazi onslaught.
One of the squadron’s Beaufighters found itself over Bre-isach, Germany. Flying very low, its pilot spotted a half dozen red and green blinking lights aligned in the shape of a T. The pilot assumed they were enemy flak and kept on going. But ten minutes later, he saw the odd alignment again. This time it was closer to him and toward his rear.
The pilot turned left — the lights followed. He turned right, and the lights stayed with him again. No matter what he did, the mysterious lights followed him perfectly.
This went on for almost five minutes — until the lights suddenly blinked out.
A few days later: another mission, another sighting. One of the 415th planes was flying in the vicinity of Strasbourg, France, when its crew was suddenly aware of two large orange lights approaching them. They came right up to the Beaufighter, leveled off and then took up position on the night fighter’s tail. They remained for about two minutes before suddenly turning away and then blinking out.
The next night: two more sightings. One 415th pilot on patrol reported seeing reddish flames in the air, at 10,000 feet; another saw a glowing red object shoot up toward his aircraft, turn over, then go into a dive before disappearing.
Two nights later: four more sightings. One Beaufighter crew saw two yellow streaks of flame flying even with them at about 3,000 feet. The same crew also saw several red balls of fire that flew level with them for at least ten seconds before disappearing. A second crew reported seeing four bright white lights, in vertical formation and staggered evenly, hovering motionless two miles above the ground. A third crew had a bright white light follow them for more than five minutes, despite taking evasive action.