Foo fighters
From the UAP Encyclopedia, the open encyclopedia of UFO and UAP history · 📖 Term
Contents 6
| Type | Term |
|---|---|
| Also known as | foo fighter |
Foo fighters was the nickname Allied aircrews gave to glowing balls of light that appeared to follow their aircraft during World War II, especially over Germany and France in late 1944 and early 1945. Widely reported at the time and never fully explained, they are often seen as forerunners of the post-war UFO phenomenon.[1][2]
The name
"Foo" was a nonsense word popularised in the 1930s by cartoonist Bill Holman in his comic strip Smokey Stover, about a firefighter whose catchphrase was "where there's foo, there's fire". Radar operator Donald Meiers of the U.S. 415th Night Fighter Squadron is said to have applied it to the lights.[1]
The 415th Night Fighter Squadron
On 27 November 1944, Meiers and his pilot, Lt. Ed Schlueter, reported a red ball of fire that pursued their aircraft through high-speed manoeuvres. The squadron's intelligence officer, Frederic "Fritz" Ringwald, compiled a report of fourteen such incidents in December 1944 and early January 1945. Higher headquarters could not explain them and referred the question to Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF). An Associated Press correspondent visited the squadron's base near Dijon in December 1944.[1][3]
Other reports
Royal Air Force crews had reported strange lights as early as March 1942, and the U.S. 422nd Night Fighter Squadron recorded sightings in Belgium in October 1944. In the Pacific, crews described burning spheres that followed aircraft, sometimes linked to Japan's fire-balloon campaign. After the war it emerged that German and Japanese pilots had reported similar lights and suspected Allied weapons.[1]
Press coverage
On 13 December 1944 SHAEF released a statement describing the phenomenon as a possible new German weapon, which The New York Times reported the next day under the headline "Floating Mystery Ball Is New Nazi Air Weapon". The Times ran another story on 2 January 1945, and Time magazine published "Foo-Fighter" on 15 January 1945.[1][3][4]
Investigations and explanations
In March 1945 the British Air Ministry suggested some objects were German Me 262 jets and others flak rockets. In late 1945 U.S. intelligence interviewed German scientists, engineers and former Luftwaffe officers, none of whom knew of a secret weapon that could explain the sightings. A U.S. Navy study of visual illusions in night flying produced a 1946 report on aviators' vertigo.[1]
In 1953 the CIA's Robertson Panel discussed foo fighters, noted they had not been threatening, and suggested electrostatic phenomena similar to St. Elmo's fire, electromagnetic effects or reflections from ice crystals. Ball lightning has also been proposed.[1][5]
References
- Foo fighter — Wikipedia · en.wikipedia.org · archived copy
- "Foo-Fighter", Time (15 Jan 1945) · web.archive.org · archived copy
- "Balls of Fire Stalk U.S. Fighters in Night Assaults Over Germany", The New York Times (2 Jan 1945) · nytimes.com · archived copy
- "Floating Mystery Ball Is New Nazi Air Weapon", The New York Times (14 Dec 1944) · nytimes.com · archived copy
- Robertson Panel report — UFO Evidence · ufoevidence.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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