Rudolf Lusar and the Nazi disc claims
From the UAP Encyclopedia, the open encyclopedia of UFO and UAP history · 🗓️ Event
Contents 8
| Date | 1958 |
|---|---|
| People | Rudolf Lusar, Bernard Schriever, Stefan Possony, Horten brothers, Nick Cook |
| Testimony | Shellenberger testimony, p. 60 |
| Year | 1958 in UFO history |
| Timeline | 1958 on the UAP Timeline |
| Sources | 6 |
Rudolf Lusar was a German engineer whose 1957 book Die deutschen Waffen und Geheimwaffen des 2. Weltkrieges, published in English in 1959 as German Secret Weapons of the Second World War, included a short section claiming that German engineers had designed and built flying discs during the war. The claims became a foundation of the "Nazi UFO" legend.[1][2]
Lusar's claims
Lusar named Rudolf Schriever, Klaus Habermohl, Richard Miethe and the Italian Giuseppe Belluzzo as designers of discs, some said to reach very high speeds.[1][2]
The sources
Lusar drew on stories that had circulated since 1950. In early 1950 Belluzzo, a former minister under Mussolini, wrote in Il Giornale d'Italia that disc designs had been studied in Germany and Italy as early as 1942. In March 1950 Schriever told Der Spiegel that he had designed a craft with a ring of rotating blades about 15 metres across at BMW's Prague works until April 1945, and that his plans had been stolen in 1948; in a 1952 interview he said instead that they were stolen near Regen in May 1945. In 1953, when Avro Canada announced its disc-shaped Avrocar, Georg Klein claimed that a Schriever–Habermohl craft had made a crewed flight on 14 February 1945, and that Miethe had built a disc at Breslau. None of these claims has been corroborated, and there is no evidence Habermohl existed.[2]
Air Force analysis
![Group of 104 German rocket scientists in 1946 , including Wernher von Braun , [ 1 ] Ludwig Roth and Arthur Rudolph , at Fort Bliss, Texas . The group…](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Project_Paperclip_Team_at_Fort_Bliss.jpg)
According to the testimony, an Air Force intelligence group analysed the claims in 1958; an Air Technical Intelligence Center memo citing analyst Stefan Possony reported no evidence in its files that Germany or the Soviet Union had developed such discs. This fits the 1947 Pretty memo, in which German aviation experts said no flying saucer design had existed.[3]
Historians' view
Historians regard the "Nazi UFO" stories as post-war legends built from wartime rumours, a few real experimental aircraft such as the Horten flying wings, and later embellishment. Writer Nick Cook, in The Hunt for Zero Point (2001), found that some of the engineers Lusar named were real but could not confirm that any working discs were built. From the 1970s the legend was spread by neo-Nazi publisher Ernst Zündel, who claimed saucers were Nazi weapons launched from an Antarctic base, and it remains popular in conspiracy literature.[2][4]
People and topics
- U.S. Air Force — The U.S. military service that ran the official UFO projects from 1947 to 1969.
- Unidentified flying object — An object in the sky that can't be identified; the older term for UAP.
- Rudolf Lusar — German author of a 1957 book on secret weapons that popularized the Nazi flying disc story.
- Bernard Schriever — Air Force general who led the ballistic missile program and Air Force Systems Command.
- Air Technical Intelligence Center — The Air Force intelligence center at Wright-Patterson that housed Project Blue Book.
- Stefan Possony — Air Force intelligence analyst cited on German and Soviet disc claims.
- Horten brothers — German aircraft designers of the Ho 229 jet flying wing, investigated in 1947 as a possible source of the discs.
- Nick Cook — Jane's Defence Weekly aviation editor and author of The Hunt for Zero Point.
- The Hunt for Zero Point — Nick Cook's 2001 book on secret anti-gravity research.
On the Timeline
- NATO science grants and anti-gravity claim (1958) — NATO begins supporting anti-gravity research through its science grants.
- John Lilly and the alleged hypnosis project (1958) — An alleged Air Force project used drugs and hypnosis; one participant believed he contacted aliens.
See every 1958 event on the UAP Timeline →
References
- "German Secret Weapons of the Second World War", Open Library · openlibrary.org · archived copy
- Nazi UFOs — Wikipedia · en.wikipedia.org · archived copy
- "Nazi flying saucers: the legend", Anomaly Archives · anomalyarchives.org · archived copy
- Nick Cook, The Hunt for Zero Point (2001), Internet Archive · archive.org · archived copy
- abebooks.com · abebooks.com · archived copy
- archive.org · archive.org · archived copy
Further reading
- Operation Paperclip — Wikipedia · en.wikipedia.org · archived copy
This page was last edited on 29 October 2026. Articles are written in our own words from the sources listed under References; disputed claims are attributed to the people who made them.
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