Foo fighters: the WWII balls of light

About Foo fighters

The full story, section by section

The story of Foo fighters in 4 parts. Tap any part to read it in full.

1. The name"Foo" was a nonsense word made popular in the early 1930s by cartoonist Bill Holman, whose Smokey Stover comic strip about a firefighter was full of "foo" signs and puns.Read this part → Foo fighter WWII 1944 · Photo: US Air Force, Public domain, Wikimedia Commons
2. ReportsRAF crews reported lights following their aircraft from March 1942, and bomber crews over the Balkans from April 1944.Read this part → 64th Fighter Wing's 415th Night Fighter squadron spot Foo Fighter. · Photo: US Air Force, Public domain, Wikimedia Commons
3. Press coverageOn 13 December 1944 Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF) in Paris issued a press release, printed in The New York Times the next day, describing the phenomenon as a "new German weapon." Follow-up stories using the name "…Read this part → Illustration drawn for this site — not a photograph.
4. Investigations and explanationsRingwald sent a report of fourteen incidents in December 1944 and early January 1945 up the chain.Read this part → St. Elmo's fire on a KC-10 flying into a thundercloud, one of the suggested explanations · Photo: Senior Airman Brian Kelly VIRIN: 170322-F-ZZ999-002E.JPG, Public domain, Wikimedia Commons

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Key people

The people at the centre of the story — witnesses, investigators, officials and sceptics:

• Harry ReidHarry Reid was an American lawyer and politician who served as a U.S. senator from Nevada and Senate majority leader.

Related cases & events

Events and sightings linked to Foo fighters:

🗓️ Event · 27 min readRobertson PanelThe Robertson Panel was a group of scientists assembled by the Central Intelligence Agency in Washington in January 1953 to review the U.S. Air Force's evidence on unidentified flying objects.🛸 Case · 11 min readGhost rocketsGhost rockets were rocket- or missile-shaped unidentified flying objects reported mainly over Sweden, Finland, and other parts of Scandinavia. The sightings occurred primarily between February and December 1946, with a revival from January to March 1948. Inve…🛸 Case · 11 min readGreen fireballsGreen fireballs were unidentified bright green balls of light that streaked silently across the night sky, mainly in northern New Mexico starting in late November 1948. Because they appeared near sensitive atomic weapons laboratories, their presence alarmed m…🛸 Case · 6 min readHessdalen lightsThe Hessdalen lights are unidentified, recurring light phenomena that have been seen periodically since at least the 1930s over the Hessdalen valley in Norway. They became world-famous during a surge of sightings in the early 1980s, leading to decades of scie…🗓️ Event · 11 min readRudolf Lusar and the Nazi disc claimsThe article is about a book published in West Germany in the mid-1950s by Rudolf Lusar, which claimed that German and Italian engineers built and flew flying saucers during the Second World War. The claims sparked press coverage in 1957 and led the U.S.🗓️ Event · 7 min readProject Windfall claimThe article is about the "Project Windfall claim," an unverified assertion made by American writer and ufologist John Keel that the CIA operated a covert investigation into UFO contactees during the late 1950s. Keel mentioned the project in passing within a m…

Programs, organizations & documents

The official programs, groups and papers involved:

🏢 Organization · 13 min readU.S. Air ForceThe United States Air Force is the air service branch of the U.S. armed forces that became an independent service in September 1947.🏢 Organization · 13 min readU.S. NavyThe United States Navy is the maritime branch of the US armed forces and has played a significant role in the history of unidentified aerial phenomena. Over the decades, its pilots and ships have reported encounters with unknown objects, produced notable sigh…

Books, films & documentaries

Where to read and watch more:

🎬 Book or film · 5 min readThe New York TimesThe New York Times is a major American daily newspaper best known in UFO history for its December 2017 article revealing the Pentagon's secret Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program and publishing Navy videos of unidentified objects. This coverage a…🎬 Book or film · 4 min readProject Blue Book (TV series)Project Blue Book is an American historical drama television series broadcast on History from January 2019 to March 2020. Created by David O'Leary, the show is loosely based on the U.S.

Related topics & places

Ideas, terms and places that come up in the story:

📖 Term · 4 min readNazi UFOsNazi UFOs are claims from ufology, conspiracy theories, and science fiction that Nazi Germany developed working flying saucers or spacecraft before and during the Second World War. These stories grew from real wartime suspicions and aviation research, later e…📖 Term · 17 min readUnidentified flying objectAn unidentified flying object, or UFO, is an unexplained phenomenon or object seen in the sky, with the modern craze originating in the United States in June 1947. While popular culture often equates UFOs with alien spacecraft, most investigations reveal them…🧭 Topic overview · 12 min readMilitary encounters (topic)This overview covers 72 military encounters with unidentified objects reported by pilots, radar operators, and service members between 1947 and 2022. Key incidents include World War II "foo fighters," the 2004 USS Nimitz "Tic Tac" encounter off southern Calif…📖 Term · 5 min readPsychosocial hypothesisThe psychosocial hypothesis is a skeptical approach that explains UFO reports through psychological and social factors rather than alien craft. The term gained prominence in English in 1984, drawing on earlier French debates and research from the 1970s. Suppo…

🛸 UFO sightings about Foo fighters

Sightings that mention Foo fighters

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More in the encyclopedia

Other articles that link to or mention Foo fighters:

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• Demonic UFO hypothesisThe demonic UFO hypothesis is the belief that UFO sightings and alien encounters are actually the work of demons. Promoted mainly by Christian writers and preachers since the 1950s, the concept gaine…
• Ultraterrestrial hypothesisThe ultraterrestrial hypothesis is the idea that UFOs and their occupants originate from other dimensions or realities coexisting with Earth rather than from other planets. Writer John Keel coined th…
• Ancient astronautsAncient astronauts is a set of pseudoscientific beliefs holding that intelligent extraterrestrials visited Earth in prehistoric or ancient times to shape human cultures, technologies, and religions. …
• Roswell Army Air FieldRoswell Army Air Field was a U.S. military air base located in New Mexico that opened in 1941 to train pilots and bombardiers during World War II.
• Luis AlvarezLuis Walter Alvarez was an American experimental physicist and inventor who contributed to radar development and the Manhattan Project during the Second World War. He won the 1968 Nobel Prize in Phys…
• Nick CookNick Cook is a British aviation journalist, defence consultant, and author best known for his 2001 book The Hunt for Zero Point, which investigates secret anti-gravity research and claims the United …
• Timothy GoodTimothy Good is a British author and violinist who writes books arguing that alien spacecraft have visited Earth and that governments hide this information. His widely read and cited works, such as 1…
• National Bureau of Standards 1943 UFO claimThis article is about a claim recorded in 1969 by researcher Jacques Vallée that the National Bureau of Standards investigated UFOs in 1943 under Professor Hugh L. Dryden. According to an unnamed for…
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Questions & answers