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Essen, Germany, on April 26, 1944:

Case number:

ACUFO-1944-04-26-ESSEN-1

Summary:

In their excellent 2002 book "Out of the Shadows", mostly dealing with British UFO reports resting in the British National Archive records, Dr. David Clarke and Andy Roberts indicated that on the evening of April 26, 1944, Flight Lieutenant Arthur Horton of 622 Squadron took off from RAF Mildenhall, Suffolk, for a raid on Essen, deep in the steel-making German valley of the Ruhr.

The raid went as planned despite German flak and night-fighters. After dropping its bombs, Horton turned the Lancaster back for home, and shortly after leaving the target, he received a warning on the intercom from the rear gunner who informed he was seeing odd lights following the plane.

Horton asked about it and the gunner confirmed he was seeing four orange balls of lights tailing the plane, two on each side, accelerating in short powerful spurts. The gunner said they were about the size of large footballs and had a fiery glow to them. Another crew member said he thought he could see small stubby wings and possibly an exhaust glow from the rear of the objects.

Horton told 43 years later what he did next:

"... I immediately dropped the aircraft out of the sky. My gunners didn't know what they were. Should they fire? By this time i was standing the aircraft on its tail and began a series of corkscrews and turns with the things following everything I did - but making no move to attack us. By this time we had the throttles "though the gates", the gunners still asking what they should do. apart from fyling the thing I had to try and answer them. But were they some form of contraption that would explode at some specific distance from us, or on contact? Did they want us to fire at them to cause an explosion? Out of the kaleidoscope of thought the only answer was "if they are leaving us alone, leavem them alone."

The authors explains that the term "through the gate" refered to a technique by Lancater pilots consisiting in moving the throttle sidewards and forwards which broke a wire called the gate in the process, much increasing engine power though straining the engines.

The authors indicates that Horton continued evasive action for 10 minutes, with the entire crew except him and the bomb aimer seeing the pursuing balls of light tailing with the Lancaster and replicating its every moves.

When the lancaster reached the Dutch coast, one of the gunners said that the balls "seemed to burn themselves out."

After landing, the baffled crew thought they had been chased by a new German weapon, perhaps a radio-controlled anti-aircraft rocket. They were ridiculed at debriefing, but Horton stuck to his report and refused to accept that his crew had imagined the experience.

Horton later said that at the time he had not heard of similar experiences by other crews.

The authors explaine that they did not find a reference of this sightng in the Government archive, but they found evidence that it happened in Horton's log book for the flight, in which the latter recorded that they had been "chased by rockets".

Bernard Dye, the mid-upper gunner, also noted the incident in his log book as "rockets attacks lasting ten minutes."

Reference to Horton's log book is noted as "Arthur Horton, personal commncation, May 19, 1987" and Dye's log book information is noted as "Bernard Dye, personal communication, May 26, 1987.

Data:

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Ufology data:

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Sources:

[Ref. dcr1:] DR. DAVID CLARKE AND ANDY ROBERTS:

The author indicates that on the evening of April 26, 1944, Flight Lieutenant Arthur Horton of 622 Squadron took off from RAF Mildenhall, Suffolk, for a raid on Essen, deep in the steel-making German valley of the Ruhr.

The raid went as planned despite German flak and night-fighters. After dropping its bombs, Horton turned the Lancaster back for home, and shortly after leaving the target, he received a warning on the intercom from the rear gunner, who informed he was seeing odd lights following the plane.

Horton asked the gunner if he was certain, the gunner confirmed and said four orange balls of lights were tailing them, two on each side of the Lancaster, accelerating in short powerful spurts. The worried gunner said they were about the size of large footballs and had a fiery glow to them. Another crew member said he thought he could see small stubby wings and possibly an exhaust glow from the rear of the objects.

Horton clearly remembers some 43 years after this event what he did next:

"... I immediately dropped the aircraft out of the sky. My gunners didn't know what they were. Should they fire? By this time i was standing the aircraft on its tail and began a series of corkscrews and turns with the things following everything I did - but making no move to attack us. By this time we had the throttles "though the gates", the gunners still asking what they should do. apart from fyling the thing I had to try and answer them. But were they some form of contraption that would explode at some specific distance from us, or on contact? Did they want us to fire at them to cause an explosion? Out of the kaleidoscope of thought the only answer was "if they are leaving us alone, leavem them alone."

The authors explain that the term "through the gate" refers to a technique by Lancater pilots consisting in moving the throttle sidewards and forwards which broke a wire called the gate in the process. This much increased engine power, though straining the engines.

The authors indicate that Horton continued evasive action for 10 minutes, with the entire crew except him and the bomb aimer seeing the pursuing balls of light tailing with the Lancaster and replicating its every moves.

When the lancaster reached the Dutch coast, one of the gunners said, the balls "seemed to burn themselves out."

Relieved, Horton landed safely in England, but on a different airfield because the evasive action had caused a mechanical fault.

The baffled crew thought they had been chased by a new German weapon, perhaps a radio-controlled anti-aircraft rocket. At debriefing they were ridiculed, but Horton stuck to his report and refused to accept that his crew had imagined the experience.

Horton later said that at the time he had not heard of similar experiences by other crews.

The authors explaine that they did not find a reference of this sightng in the Government archive, but they found evidence that it happened in Horton's log book for the flight, in which the latter recorded that they had been "chased by rockets".

Bernard Dye, the mid-upper gunner, also noted the incident in his log book as "rockets attacks lasting ten minutes."

[Ref. jck1:] JEROME CLARK:

The author indicates that on the evening of April 26, 1944, on the way back from a raid on Essen, Germany, Flight Lt. Arthur Horton, pilot of an RAF Lancaster bomber, took a radio message from his tail gunner, who worriedly reported that they were being followed by four lights, in two pairs on each side of the plane, which had suddenly appeared. They looked like large, glowing soccer balls. Other crewmembers also watched them.

Horton began a series of radical evasive maneuvers, which lasted for a good 10 minutes, well beyond anything the aircraft could safely sustain, while the objects kept their position. The gunners could not decide whether to fire or not. They feared that if they hit the objects, they might explode. Finally, Horton and they agreed that if the objects did nothing, they would do nothing.

Eventually, as they reached the Dutch coast, the objects, a crewmember reported, "seemed to burn themselves out."

Jerome Clarke indicates that Horton recalled this incident in a 1987 interview with a British UFO researcher. In later years, examining the declassified Ministry of Defense records, Clarke and Roberts found references to the incident in the logbooks Horton and Bernard Dye, one of the gunners, had kept of the flight.

[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. dce1:] DR. DAVID CLARKE:

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

[Ref. get1:] GEORGE M. EBERHART:

[Ref. twf1:] "THE WHY FILES" WEBSITE:

Aircraft information:

The Avro 683 Lancaster was a four-engine night bomber built in more than 7,000 units and it became, with the Handley Page Halifax, the main bomber of the Royal Air Force from 1942 on.

Its defense against German fighter planes was 8 7.62 mm machine guns.

Discussion:

It makes perfect sense that the crew thought they were encountering some new German weapon. One expected such weapons. But we also see that in this case as in other similar cases from the same period in the same areas, these supposed "weapons"... do nothing other than follow the "enemy" plane, without ever causing it the slightest damage.

Historical hindsight shows that these balls of light were not German weapons. The Germans had never had any rocket, missile or gliding bomb capable of following the evasive maneuvers of an airplane. And in this case, it is even more obvious since the observation lasted 10 minutes, and perhaps more if we consider that it began just after the plane left Essen and ended when the plane reached the Dutch coast, a journey of approximately 200 kilometers. The Lancaster having a maximum speed of 450 km/h, the observation may have lasted a good half an hour.

It has sometimes been argued that the lights were those of the flames of German fighter jet engines exhausts. But these flames, actually not very luminous, were obviously at the rear of the German jets, not visible when following planes, unless we wanted to make them fly with the rear at the front.

And there again, if there had been two or four German planes, why would they have accompanied the British bomber in its evasive maneuvers, for so long, without ever opening fire?

In any case, the Messerschmitt Me-262, the only German jet aircraft then capable of flying at night, did not do so until December 1944, and the few Me-262 of the night fighter versions had been confined to the defense of Berlin. The Messerschmitt Me-163 "Komet" never flew at night, and its rocket engine was limited to 7 minutes operations, including the climb.

Evaluation:

Possible extraterrestrial craft.

Sources references:

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

• [dcr1] * "Out of the Shadows", book by Dr. David Clarke and Andy Roberts, Piatkus publishers, U-K., pp 14-15, 2002.
• [kcr1] ? "Strange Company - Military Encounters with UFOs in World War II", book by Keith Chester, Anomalist Book publishers, USA, pp 64-65, 2007.
• [jck1] * "Strange Skies - Pilot Encounters with UFOs", book by Jerome Clark, Citadel Press publishers, USA, pp 9-10, 2003.
• [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
• [dce1] * "The UFO Files - The Inside Story of Real-life Sightings", book by Dr. David Clarke, Bloomsbury Publishing, U-K., pp 16-17, 2013.
• [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
• [twf1] * "And other Strange Objects in Wartime Skies!", Web page on the The Why Files Website, not dated, as of 2023, at https://thewhyfiles.net/foo_fighters.html
• [get1] * "UFOs and Intelligence: A Timeline", electronic document compiled by George M. Eberhart, 2022.

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This page was last updated on October 24, 2023.