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Aachen, Germany, Verviers, Belgium, from August 11 to 12, 1942:

Case number:

ACUFO-1942-08-11-AACHEN-1

Summary:

In a synthetic report by the Royal Air Force Operational Research Section for December 26, 1942, about the operations of the German anti-aircraft defenses, we read about a “phenomenon” reported by a number of aircraft in the approximate area Aachen (Germany) - Verviers (Belgium), “12 miles South-West of Spa-Aachen”, on the night of August, 11-12, 1942.

The report said that “although it has only once been reported since and should therefore strictly be classified as an isolated “freak”, the interest it aroused warrants the inclusion of a description of its behavior”.

The phenomenon was described as such:

“A bright white light rose from the ground to 8,000 feet, where it flew approximately level for about two minutes; a few crews reported that it appeared to zig-zag along the ground before taking off in a climbing turn. Brilliant white periodic bursts occurred which may have caused a change of course; some crews thought that it subdivided when the bursts took place. Other crews thought that it flew on a circular course, the radius of which was about one mile. Burning pieces were shed from it like a meteor. The color eventually faded to orange and the object was last seen heading toward the ground where some crews thought that it burnt on impact. The display lasted about five minutes.”

The report commented that the scarcity of information about this phenomenon, which “may well have been in the nature of an experiment”, it is difficult to submit an explanation. The report considers it was possibly “a miniature aircraft structure carrying a number of rockets and an explosive charge”, with its change of course were “probably predetermined, radio control being thought improbable owing to the cost of production, the small chance of directing such a projectile on to a bomber, and the fact that it would be virtually impossible to bring it to land intact by night.”

Data:

Temporal data:

Geographical data:

Witnesses data:

Ufology data:

Classifications:

Sources:

[Ref. raf1:] ROYAL AIR FORCE:

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

[Ref. dwn2:] DOMINIQUE WEINSTEIN:

[Ref. pmy1:] PAT MALONEY:

Aircraft information:

No detail on the involved planes is available. However, they had “crews”, it was at night, the report speculates about the Germans targeting their bombers; so, obviously, the planes were night bombers, maybe Wellingtons, as those were the most used by the Bomber Command then.

British night bombers at that time were not equipped with airborne radar.

Discussion:

The location is not very precise. “12 miles southwest of Spa - Aachen” is a somewhat weird indication since Spa is 35 kilometers southwest of Aachen.

There is also a mention of Verviers, which, like Spa, is in Belgium. It therefore seems likely that the phenomenon did not take place over Germany, but over Belgium, and that the municipality should be given as Verviers.

I have retained Aachen to designate this file so that the reader can see that this is the case so designated by the other sources.

The report has me dumbfounded. Of course if I were the author of the report at that time, I would have written a quite similar comment, speculating on some German Anti-aircraft new device being experimented - without much success.

It came from the ground, went up to the bombers, apparently had some problems (“Burning pieces were shed from it like a meteor...”) and crashed on the ground.

All this does not suggest to me that it was an extraterrestrial craft. It suggests to me that it was not.

So, I revised what is known on German devices to check what it could have been.

All German jet aircraft must be excluded:

• The Heinkel He-162 “Volksjäger” or “Salamander” had its first flight on December 6, 1944.
• The Messerschmitt Me-262 “Schwalbe” operations started in July 1944.
• The Arado Ar-234 “Blitz” received its engines only in February 1943.
• The Messerschmitt P.1101 variable wing geometry jet plane, with a single prototype built, has never flown.
• Focke-Wulf Ta 183 “Huckebein” and Ta-283 fighter jets have never flown, they have only been the inspiration for post-war fighter jets, Russians and Argentines.
• The Heinkel He-280 jet was abandoned for the Messerschmitt Me-262. The four-jet-engined Heinkel He-280 never flew.
• The Henschel Hs-132 jet fighter has never flown.
• The Horten flying wings, such as the Horten Ho-229, have never been operational.
• Junkers jet projects, Ef-128, Ju-287, did not result in anything operational.
• Engineer Lippisch's stato-reactors planes projects like the P31a and the P31b never came into being.

Then we have some other types of aircraft:

• The Messerschmitt Me-163 “Komet”, the only operational rocket fighter plane during the Second World War, entered service in April 1944. Tests began in May 1941, but at Peenemünde. It was not tested towards Verviers - Aachen.
• The Bachem Ba-349 “Natter”, a tiny rocket plane made of wood: but its first flight is in February 1945.
• The DFS 228 rocket aircraft were only two built prototypes, never operational.
• The DFS 346 rocket aircraft only existed as a single unfinished prototype seized by the Russians.
• Focke-Wulf Triebflügel with rotor-mounted ramjets and rockets were never built.
• Fieseler Fi-103 “Reichenberg” was simply a piloted version of the V1 pulse jet flying bomb. It was supposed to serve as a “Kamikaze” plane, but the Germans gave it up.
• Heinkel He-176 was the first German rocket aircraft, but was never operational.

Germany tried to develop a number of surface-to-air missile systems: Enzian (radio-controlled, 1943), Rheintochter (solid-fuel rocket, first tests August 1943), Henschel Hs-117 “Schmetterling” (radio-controlled, first tests May 1944), “Wasserfall” (somehow similar to the V2, first tests March 1943, failed) Feuerlilie F25 and F55 (first flights mid 1944). None of them has been used operationally, not even at the end of the WWII.

There is no lack of more or less successful projects of German odd flying craft which by their reactor or rocket could be suspected to be seen as a “light”, but almost none was in operation in 1942.

So, in my opinion, this “phenomenon” had nothing extraterrestrial, but no German device explanation seems to fit.

I see one escape, however.

I think it is possible that the synthesis report by the RAF Operational Research Section is flawed by mixing different incidents into one “phenomenon”. A clue to this is the weird location indication I mentioned. Another clue is that “some crews thought that it subdivided when the bursts took place. Other crews thought that it flew on a circular course.” This is not compatible. So, if the RAF report is a mix-up of different sightings, it makes it hard to explain. It could even be a meteor incident mixed with something else.

So I would rest the case, as long as more information does not surface, as “unidentified” due to probably unreliable data.

Evaluation:

Unidentified, possible mix of different events.

Sources references:

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

• [raf1] * "Flak Phenomenon Volume 1 Number 6", report by the Royal Air Force Operational Research Section, December 26, 1942.
• [kcr1] ? "Strange Company - Military Encounters with UFOs in World War II", book by Keith Chester, Anomalist Book publishers, USA, pp 29-30, 2007.
• [nip1] * "UFO Sighting Chronology - 1939-1945; The WWII Years & "Foo-Fighters"", chronology on the ufology website The NICAP Website, USA, created December 18, 2006, updated December 5 2017, at https://www.nicap.org/chronos/1939-1945.htm.
• [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.
• [pmy1] * "UFOs in Wartime - What They Didn't Want You To Know", book by Mack Maloney, Penguin Publishing Group publishers, U-K., 2011.

File history:

Authoring:

Changes history:

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This page was last updated on September 27, 2023.