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Monastir, Tunisia, in March or April 1943:

Case number:

ACUFO-1943-03-00-TUNISIA-1

Summary:

In September 2010, New Zealand declassified their UFO archive and published it as PDF files on the Web. In a file covering the years 1952 - 1953, one can find a letter written in 1955 by a New Zealand citizen whose name is blanked out, sent to the Air Minister (this handwritten letter is shown further on in this file).

The gentleman, a school teacher residing in Rotorua, New Zealand, explained that he had read in the newspapers about the reports of the flying object seen by Captain W. A. Rainbow while flying a D.C.3 at night over Waikato recently, and hat since an official investigation in this sighting had been opened, he would like to pass on, for what value it may be, an experience he had during World War II which may or may not bear some resemblance with the recent pilot sighting.

He gave his name, his service number when he was in the Royal New Zealand Air Forces in World War II, and explained he was discharged from the RNZAF holding the rank of Flight Lieutenant at that time. He indicated the name and home ton of another New Zealand citizen who had been in the same unit at the time of the sighting and could corroborate his own report.

He explained that during the war he flew single engine fighters on day and night operations in the Middle East and Europe. When his experience took place, in March or April 1943 during the advance of the British 8th Army, he was flying with 73 RAF Squadron in Hurricane night fighters, and he thinks the incident took place over the Monastir area.

Before his own experience, several pilots of his squadron had reported being followed by “lights.”

As he remembered it, he had taken off from his base for enemy territory. He crossed the battle line, and observed well ahead of him and to his left a faint light similar to that given off by planes for which at first he mistook it.

The course he was flying should have taken him very much to the right of the light, but contrary to his expectations the distance between the light and himself was rapidly decreasing and the intensity of the light was increasing. The light came along the side of his left wing, and at a distance of about 50 to 100 meters, it took up a course and speed identical to his own.

He then changed course and speed, and the light did the same maneuver. His changes were sudden, the light maneuvered with a short time lag before caching up.

By turning suddenly and steeply, he was able to chase the light around in a circle, so that he was able to aim at it with the four 20 mm cannons of his Hurricane. He did this several times, and fired until his ammunition was exhausted. But each time he observed, he saw no apparent change in the behavior of the light.

He then set course for his base without completing his original mission, and the light continued to move with him. When he neared the battle front again, he noticed that the light began to lag behind and become dimmer.

He crossed the battle front, but then decided to return into enemy territory. He noted that the light was in the position and condition that he originally observed.

During this second flight into enemy territory, the light repeated the same pattern as in the first flight.

Also, it turned to a strong steady orange red glow and when alongside the Hurricane, it illuminated the whole plane quite brightly. He could observe nothing to which the light would have been attached, and could not determine what created it.

During the time the light was with him, the German anti-aircraft guns had not open fire.

He explained that as several 73 Squadron pilots at this period experienced this, and as all had handed their reports to Intelligence, there may have been an official explanation, that perhaps the RAF may have information that might be relevant in aiding the recent investigation, the result of which may solve his own experience.

He obviously never received any response, his suggestion was obviously not followed up.

Data:

Temporal data:

Geographical data:

Witnesses data:

Ufology data:

Classifications:

Sources:

[Ref. let1:] WITNESS LETTER:

Note: the scanned archive where this letter appears continued with other reports, but showed no answer to the above letter. This archive, in may places where more recent report letters appeared, does shows answers.

[Ref. prt4:] JAN ALDRICH - "PROJECT 1947":

[Ref. gvo1:] GODELIEVE VAN OVERMEIRE:

[Ref. dwn1:] DOMINIQUE WEINSTEIN:

French ufologist Dominique Weinstein compiled a catalog of the cases of UFOs observed from aircraft. The first case in February 2001 (6th edition) catalog appears as:

The sources “03” and “37” are referenced at the end of the catalog as:

[Ref. dwn2:] DOMINIQUE WEINSTEIN:

Aircraft information:

British Hawker Hurricanes were indeed used as day and night fighters on the North African front line in 1943.

As can be seen on the photo above, they were armed with four 20 mm guns.

Discussion:

In 1943, No 73 Squadron took part in the series of campaigns in the Northern-African desert, Libya, and Tunisia, helping cover the supply routes and operating ground-attack. In June 1943, the squadron converted to the Spitfire and it went to Italy in October 1943.

The sighting date range in March or April 1943 given by the witness in his letter is historically valid.

At a certain time, and still sometimes now, it was fashionable among certain scientists or non-scientists who a priori ruled out the possibility that there could be visits from extraterrestrial craft, thinking that any other explanation can only be better, to assert that such reports were caused by “ball lightning.”

For example, the “ultra-sceptic” Philip Klass, in his 1968 book “UFOs: Identified”, thought he had demonstrated that all UFOs that were neither inventions nor meteors nor astronomical misinterpretations were now explained by him as being caused by ball lightning.

Ball lightning exists, of course, but there was no valid argument to demonstrate that it could closely follow the escape maneuvers of an airplane, as is the case in this report. Philip Klass had therefore found in his imagination the idea that, since electrically opposites attract each other, it is normal for ball lightning to follow planes, and even pedestrians.

He had initially forgotten that there is no reason why airplanes should carry electrical charges opposite to that of ball lightning. He then made calculation errors on the real range of such an attraction, actually unable to bring together ball lightning and planes which would not have been close from the start. And finally, the worst, he had forgotten that whereas bodies with opposite electric charges attract each other, they would end up colliding, they would do not stay at a careful distance...

I detailed elsewhere and further, years ago, this dispute over ball lightning, including with a catalog of ball lightning cases allowing comparison with UFO sighting reports.

In this case, we can clearly see that the light is initially distant, that it gets closer, mimics the maneuvers of the plane - with some lag - but never hits it, and this several times. There is clearly intelligent behavior there, intentionality. It cannot be argued that the light was an enemy aircraft, the witness having indicated that when at 50 or 100 meters from his aircraft, the light did not show any supporting structure. We cannot argue that the night would have hidden a supporting structure, since the witness clearly states that at one time the light completely illuminated his own plane. It is difficult to argue that it was a hallucination, the present catalog shows that such phenomena were not rare, it should also be noted that the witness himself reports that other pilots of his unit had reported having had the same experience.

Note that once again in this case, the “thing” did not fire any shots at the plane. This fact was noticed by intelligence officers at the time, leading to comments like “if this is a new German weapon, it is not very efficient.”

I am not going to list all the potential prosaic explanations that should be ruled out; this would result in a long litany of the obvious such as “it was not Venus because..., it was not a meteor because..., it was not a mirage because..., it wasn't a balloon because...”, and so on.

Evaluation:

Possible extraterrestrial craft.

Sources references:

* = Source is available to me.
? = Source I am told about but could not get so far. Help needed.

• [let1] * Letter the the Civilian Air Minister, in "Unidentified Flying Objects (UFO) Files - Copies for release to the public", New Zealand Defence Force, file timespan 1952-1955, file number "AIR 39/3/3 Volume 1 - Parts 1 and 2", declassified September 2010.
• [prt4] * "ACUFOE in World War II", catalogue by Jan Aldrich, Project 1947, USA, October 9, 1999, at http://www.project1947.com/47cats/acupdt.htm
• [gvo1] * "Chronologie OVNI", electronic catalogue compiled by Godelieve Van Overmeire, Belgium, circa 1999.
• [dwn1] * "Unidentified Aerial Phenomena - Eighty years of pilot sightings - Catalog of Military, Airliner, Private Pilots' Sightings from 1916 to 2000", catalog compiled by Dominique F. Weinstein, NARCAP International Technical Advisor, France, 6th edition, February 2001.
• [dwn2] * "The Foofighters Files (1) Catalogue of Unconventional Aerial Phenomena Reported by Allied pilots during WW II (1943-1945)", catalogue by Dominique Weinstein, France, October 2009.

File history:

Authoring:

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This page was last updated on November 14, 2023.