ACUFO:

ACUFO is my comprehensive catalog of cases of encounters between aircraft and UFOs, whether they are “explained” or “unexplained”.

The ACUFO catalog is made of case files with a case number, summary, quantitative information (date, location, number of witnesses...), classifications, all sources mentioning the case with their references, a discussion of the case in order to evaluate its causes, and a history of the changes made to the file.

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Ploesti, Romania, in 1944:

Case number:

ACUFO-1944-00-00-PLOESTI-1

Summary:

This case is rather “meager”: a letter was received by Richard Hall, ufologist then deputy director of NICAP. The letter was dated March 31, 1983; it was not anonymous but the signature is illegible to me.

The author of this letter informed Richard Hall that a friend of his, who was a pilot during World War II, told him about a UFO sighting that he himself had heard about, in connection with the bombing of the Ploesti oil fields in Romania.

The bombing of Ploesti began on April 5, 1944 and continued until August.

The UFO sighting, the letter writer says, took place while the bombers were returning to England, and somehow the UFO had helped a plane in distress, “but details are lacking - at least for the moment.”

The author of the letter considered it unlikely that this report was false.

Data:

Temporal data:

Date:	1944
Time:	?
Duration:	?
First known report date:	March 31, 1983
Reporting delay:	4 decades.

Geographical data:

Country:	Romania
State/Department:	Prahova
City or place:	Ploesti

Witnesses data:

Number of alleged witnesses:	?
Number of known witnesses:	?
Number of named witnesses:	?

Ufology data:

Reporting channel:	Hearsay letter to ufologist.
Visibility conditions:	?
UFO observed:	Yes.
UFO arrival observed:	?
UFO departure observed:	?
UFO action:	Helped aircraft in trouble.
Witnesses action:
Photographs:	No.
Sketch(s) by witness(es):	No.
Sketch(es) approved by witness(es):	No.
Witness(es) feelings:	?
Witnesses interpretation:	?

Classifications:

Sensors:	[X] Visual: ? [ ] Airborne radar: [ ] Directional ground radar: [ ] Height finder ground radar: [ ] Photo: [ ] Film/video: [ ] EM Effects: [ ] Failures: [ ] Damages:
Hynek:	?
Armed / unarmed:	Armed.
Reliability 1-3:	1
Strangeness 1-3:	3
ACUFO:	Insufficient information, unknown credibility.

Sources:

[Ref. nip1:] NICAP:

March 31, 1983

Dick [=ufologist Richard H. Hall, NICAP]

A friend who was a flier in WWII told me of a UFO sighting he heard about in connection with the bombing of the Ploesti (*) oil fields (that action began in April 5, 1944 and continued until a ragged remnant was taken over by the Russians in August. These attacks decided the outcome of the war, according to Albert Speer who was the Reichminister of Industrial production.) The UFO sighting occurred while bombers were returning to England. In some manner, the UFO assisted a crippled airplane but details are missing - at least for now. This report is not likely to be spurious.

Regards

[?]

(*) 45° 00' N 26° 00 E

Aircraft information:

No information is available; cindering history, Allied planes over Ploesti could have been British long range night bombers, U.S. bombers, U.S. P-51 Mustang fighter planes.

Discussion:

Bombing of Ploesti had been carried out from Benghazi in Libya by the USAAF with B-24s as early as August 1, 1943.

Bombarding of Ploesti resumed in April 1944, from airfields taken by the Allies in Italy; with the distance cut in half, the 15th Air Force bombers were now accompanied by P-51 Mustang fighter planes to Ploesti. High altitude strikes by the Royal Air Force were also taking place. The Germans responded with nearly 200 fighter planes and deception fires. The Soviet army took Ploesti in early September. The elements in the letter are therefore not in contradiction with History, except on one point: the bombers would not have returned to England, too far away, but to Italy. But the mistake could have been made by the author of the letter.

Nothing else seems to have surfaced about this letter and the meager report therein.

Of course, “skeptics” would scoff at this report by a friend of a friend who heard from his friends...

This is understandable; thus I label the case: “insufficient information, unknown credibility.”

Evaluation:

Insufficient information, unknown credibility.

Sources references:

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

[nip1] * Letter to Richard Hall, in the National Ibvestigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena (NICAP) archive, March 31, 1983.

File history:

Authoring:

Main author:	Patrick Gross
Contributors:	None
Reviewers:	None
Editor:	Patrick Gross

Changes history:

Version:	Create/changed by:	Date:	Description:
0.1	Patrick Gross	October 12, 2023	Creation, [nip1].
1.0	Patrick Gross	October 12, 2023	First published.

This page was last updated on October 12, 2023.