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Germany, on April 11, 1944:

Case number:

ACUFO-1944-04-11-GERMANY-1

Summary:

Ufology sources indicate that in his 2007 book “Strange Company - Military Encounters with UFOs in World War II”, Keith Chester indicated that on April 11-12, 1944, over Germany, an alleged air-fired projectile was seen to follow for about one minute, gaining on the observing plane.

The plane made corkscrew maneuvres, the object pursued the plane at first, then lost altitude and curved away to the ground.

On the same time, a similar sighting took place in the same area, both reports were believed to be the same phenomenon. The second observer, in a different aircraft, saw one object approaching from a distance of six miles to starboard and 2-3 miles in front; a large orange glow was emitted, leaving a smoke trail. The projectile was then observed to make a turn of approximately 120° towards the aircraft, lose height and disappeared into a cloud.

The source is said to be a summary report of flak operation “M115” for May 4, 1944.

It was said that the object described in these two reports "may have been glider bombs", but it is not clear whether this assessment came from the military summary report or was made later.

Data:

Temporal data:

Geographical data:

Witnesses data:

Ufology data:

Classifications:

Sources:

[Ref. dwn2:] DOMINIQUE WEINSTEIN:

[Ref. nip1:] "THE NICAP WEBSITE":

The reference 1 is described at the end of the document as “Strange Company (2007), Keith Chester”.

[Ref. tai1:] "THINK ABOUT IT" WEBSITE:

Aircraft information:

Nothing is said about the two planes where the observers were; we can only consider it almost certain that they were night bombers.

Discussion:

The report could suggest that the phenomenon was some kind of rocket weapon. It was reasonable to make this suggestion at the time.

However, History shows that the German had never succeeded in producing any kind of rocket, gliding bomb, or missile that could follow a plane. No solution to do that, either by automated guidance or ground base or plane based radio guidance, was obtained by the Germans in WWII.

Germany did try to develop a number of surface-to-air missile systems: Enzian, Rheintochter, Henschel Hs-117 Schmetterling, Wasserfall, and Feuerlilie; but none of them were used operationally, and none had the ability to follow a plane.

The Ruhrstahl X-4 was an actively wire-guided missile. Two 5.5 km cables would be used from a joystick the cockpit of the launching plane to control pitch and yaw of the missile. The missile head would contain a 20 kg fragmentation bomb. The first flight test took place on August 11, 1944, using a Focke-Wulf Fw-190 for the launch platform. This is sufficient to eliminate that the phenomenon in this report could have been the Ruhrstahl X-4. Let's add that production began in early 1945, but it was hampered by Allied bombing of the BMW rocket engine factory at Stargard. it is estimated that the Germans nevertheless produced about 1,000 X-4, but the missile was never delivered to the Luftwaffe, and there is no record of any use of it during WWII.

Another possibility was that the phenomenon was a Messerschmitt Me-163 “Komet” rocket-propelled plane. However, we are told in the report that it followed a plane, a perception that would mean that its speed was, at some point at least, lower than the speed of the plane. But the “Komet” indeed had the operational issue of being too fast relative to the enemy planes, which made it almost impossible to aim and fire at enemy planes.

Now, advanced weapons put aside, there is another possible explanation, much simpler: the phenomenon might have been a German fighter plane on flame. We know it was first seen in the air, and seemed to go down in the end. We know a “large orange glow was emitted, leaving a smoke trail.”

Because no word is said in the report of the interpretation possibly made by the two or more witnesses, because the report is only a summary, because the original reports by the witnesses is not available, this is certainly not a bulletproof explanation, but a possible explanation that I cannot rule out.

Evaluation:

Possible plane on flames, insufficient information.

Sources references:

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

• [usa1] ? Consolidated Flak Liaison Officer report M115, U.S. Army Air Forces, May 4, 1944.
• [kcr1] ? "Strange Company - Military Encounters with UFOs in World War II", book by Keith Chester, Anomalist Book publishers, USA, page 66, 2007.
• [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.
• [nip1] * "UFO Sighting Chronology - 1939-1945; The WWII Years & 'Foo-Fighters'", on the ufology Website The NICAP Website, USA, created December 18, 2006, updated December 5, 2017, at http://www.nicap.org/chronos/1939-1945.htm
• [tai1] * "1944: UFO & Alien Sightings", web page of the Think About It Website, USA, January 1, 2016, at https://www.thinkaboutitdocs.com/1944-ufo-alien-sightings

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This page was last updated on October 19, 2023.