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Mantova, Italy, on February 18, 1945:

Case number:

ACUFO-1945-02-18-MANTOVA-1

Summary:

In 2011, in an article about the Foo-Fighters of WWII, the excellent website Saturday Night Uforia published about a case to be found in the February 18, 1945, Daily Mission Report of the 414th Night Fighter Squadron of the U.S. Army Air Forces. It said:

“Lt. Gravel and F/O Moore reported another interesting observation: Four very bright lights appeared from Mantova area at 8,000 ft. and seemed to remain stationary in air until they burned out. Smoke could not be seen coming from them.”

Data:

Temporal data:

Geographical data:

Witnesses data:

Ufology data:

Classifications:

Sources:

[Ref. sua1:] WEBSITE "SATURDAY NIGHT UFORIA":

Aircraft information:

The aircraft is not specified, and this unit was using British Bristol Beaufighters and newer American Northrop P-61 “Black Windows” at that time.

But since we are told of a crew of 2 people while the P-61 had a crew of 3 people, it is very likely that the plane during this mission was a Beaufighter.

The Northrop P-61 “Black Widow” was a high performance American night fighter plane used in WWII.

It was twin-engined, with a maximum speed of 589 km/h, 3,060 km range. The crew was of three men.

It was equipped with an onboard radar set and armed with 4 Hispano 20 mm cannons in the fuselage and 4 Browning M2 12.7 mm machine guns in the remotely controlled upper turret.

The Bristol Type 156 “Beaufighter”, nicknamed “Beau”, was a British multi-role aircraft developed during World War II. It was originally designed as a heavy fighter variant of the Bristol Beaufort torpedo bomber; it proved to be an effective night fighter, which entered service with the Royal Air Force (RAF) during the Battle of Britain.

Originally the armament consisted of four 20 mm cannons and six 0.303 inch machine guns, but many variants were built; for example, versions had the capacity to additionally carry eight rocket projectiles, some had a Vickers 'K' cannon, the Beaufighter TF.Mk X was used for anti-shipping operations.

Like the P-61, the Beaufighters in night fighter versions were equipped with on-board radar.

Discussion:

The 414th Night Fighter Squadron of the U.S. Army Air Forces deployed in England in late March 1943, using British-built Bristol Beaufighters. They moved to North Africa for combat in July 1943. In 1945, they operated in the Mediterranean theater, Italy, and then south of France. The 414th got P-61s in late 1944 but kept on using Beaufighters at the same time.

I found no information about Lt. Gravel. I found a Master Sergeant Eugene O. Moore (6932760) in the Air Force in 1943, but in the 417th Night Fighter Squadron, not the 414th. Also in the 417th, I found “Moore, Alvin G.”, and “Cpl. Moore, William R.”

The same crew made another report on March 23, 1945, in the Bergamo area.

In this case, there is almost no strangeness, the crew does not report the sighting as strange, and the description is reminiscent of flares.

The only “downside” is that they noted “Smoke could not be seen coming from them”; which suggests that they had initially thought of flares but changed their minds.

Evaluation:

Possible flares.

Sources references:

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

• [aaf1] ? Mission Report, 414th Night Fighter Squadron, U.S. Army Air Forces, February 18, 1945.
• [sua1] * "the foo fighters of world war II - Part Three of Three Parts", web page on the Saturday Night Uforia website, 2011, at https://saturdaynightuforia.com/html/articles/articlehtml/foofightersofworldwariipartthree.html

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This page was last updated on December 26, 2023.