The article below was published in the daily newspaper The Sidney Sun, Australia, page 2, January 3, 1945.
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“Sun” Special Representative
WASHINGTON, Tuesday.— Pilots flying over Germany at night report that “strange balls of fire are following them around” on their missions and they have christened these strange phenomena “Foo Fighters.”
One pilot reported: “A Foo fighter picked me up recently at 700 feet and chased me down the Rhine Valley.
“I turned to starboard and two red balls of fire turned with me.
“I turned to port and they turned too.
“I was doing 260 miles an hour, but they kept up with me.
“I had a horrible thought that the Germans on the ground would press a button and explode them but they don't explode or attack us—they merely follow us like will-o-the-wisps.”
Physicists suggest that what was seen was St. Elmo's fire which, in stormy weather some times appears at the masthead of ships and, on land, at the tops of trees or steeples.
It is a sort of electrical discharge, red when positive and blue when negative.
Another suggestion is that they might be gaseous balls of fire controlled by radio from the ground and designed to interfere with radar signals.
