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Lunéville, France, on December 27, 1944:

Case number:

ACUFO-1944-12-27-LUNEVILLE-1

Summary:

In the fall and winter 1945, Intelligence Officer Fred B. Ringwald was attached to the 415th Night Fighter Squadron, stationed in the Dijon region in France; which carried out night intrusion missions into enemy territory on the Rhine valley. Having himself seen with others unexplained luminous phenomena during a mission, he had collected a series of other testimonies to send a summary about it for the Tactical Air Command of the U.S. Army on January 23, 1945.

Among the cases he listed, he indicated that on the night of December 27 to 28, 1944, 8 miles northeast of Lunéville, France, three series of three lights had been seen at 7:10 p.m. They were of red and white colors, one series was to the right of the aircraft and the other series to its left, at 1,000 feet to 2,000 feet, towards the rear of the aircraft and approaching the altitude of 10,000 feet. The plane had descended to 8,000 feet, and the lights had gone out. The plane's radio operator had called "Churchman" - code name for the ground radar station - to see whether there was anything in the area, but he had received a negative response.

The sighting was previously noted in the 415th Night Fighter Squadron's December 27-28, 1944 operations log, where it was noted that on December 28, 1944, "the first patrol saw 2 sets of 3 red and white lights. One appeared on the port side, the other on the starboard side 1,000 to 2,000 feet astern and they were getting closer. The Beau [their plane, a Bristol Beaufighter] sped away and the lights went out. Nothing on the GCI [ground radar station] screen at that time."

Data:

Temporal data:

Geographical data:

Witnesses data:

Ufology data:

Classifications:

Sources:

[Ref. rwd1:] FRED B. RINGWALD, INTELLIGENCE, US ARMY AIR FORCE:

Note: the document that follows was retrieved by Jan Aldrich's historical ufology effort Project 1947, at www.project1947.com/fig/1945a.htm
Only the header, the footer and the part related to the case documented in this file are shown.
Only other cases are removed, as they are shown in their own case file in this catalog.

[Ref. kap1:] KENNETH ARNOLD AND RAY PALMER:

[Ref. jce1:] UFOLOGY BULLETIN "JUST CAUSE":

The bulletin of "Citizens Against UFO Secrecy" (CAUS) published that they managed to get the first Foo Fighters official reports in the War diaries of the 415th Night Fighter Squadron. Extracts were cited, such as:

[Ref. bgd1:] BARRY GREENWOOD:

[Ref. gvo1:] GODELIEVE VAN OVERMEIRE:

[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:

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

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

The Beaufighter Mk VIF was fitted with the Mark VIII radar.

Below: Beaufighter Mk VIF of the 415th Night Fighter Squadron.

The Beaufighters served with the US Army Air Force until the end of the war, but most were replaced by the P-61 "Black Widow" beginning on March 20, 1945.

Discussion:

Lunéville was liberated on September 18, 1944. The incident took place during the Battle of the Bulge. The Germans were then attacking to the north of Luxembourg and were to the north of Saarbrücken in Germany, the front line being there more than 60 kilometers from the place of observation.

The strangeness of this case is numerous.

The lights could hardly be German planes or other German devices because they erre coming from below, and this, in the region of Lunéville in France, territory then totally under American air force control.

The lights couldn't have been enemy flak fire at all, because there were no more enemies on the ground in that area at that time.

The lights were seen but not detected by the ground radar station, which is abnormal if they were German planes. This characteristic is common in sightings of "Foo Fighters" from the fall - winter of 1944 - 1945 in this sector.

The lights could not be "St. Elmo's fires", as some had suggested to explain such sightings, because they were approaching the plane. St. Elmo lights would have remained fixed on the ends of the plane from end to end.

If one intends to plead that these were "German weapons" whatever they were, the objection is, as in all other cases of "Foo Fighters", that these "weapons" had absolutely no effect.

All sorts of other explanations can be ruled out. For example, if we want to think that these were German Messerschmitt "Komet" rocket planes, it must be ruled out because these planes could not operate at night, because their range, with their flight capacity of only 7 minutes, ruled out their operation in liberated territory, because their "light" was not a light but a white streak, never red.

If it is argued that these were flames from the jet engines of German planes, it is necessary to explain how they could be visible with planes approaching from the rear. They should have flown "in reverse"... moreover, the exhausts of the only German jet night fighter which could have operated there at that time, the Messerschmitt Me-262, were very discreet, and bluish - white in color, never red.

Evaluation:

Possible extraterrestrial craft.

Sources references:

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

• [rwd1] * Report by Intelligence Officer Fred B. Ringwald, 415th Night Fighter Squadron, to A-2, XII Tactical Air Command, US Army, January 23, 1945.
• [kap1] * "The Coming of the Saucers", book by Kenneth Arnold and Ray Palmer, Amherst publishers, USA, page 123, 1952.
• [jce1] * "First official Foo-Fighters records discovered", article in the ufology bulletin Just Cause, of the Citizens Against UFO Secrecy (CAUS), Lawrence Fawcett, publisher; Barry Greenwood, editor, USA, No 32, page 4, June 1992.
• [jce1] * "First official Foo-Fighters records discovered", article by the CAUS reprinted in the Australian UFO Bulletin, Australia, page 2, December 1992.
• [bgd1] * "Foo-fighters: premières divulgations officielles", article by Barry Greenwood, in the ufology magazine Phenomena, of the ufology group SOS OVNI, France, No 12, page 18, November - December 1992.
• [gvo1] * "Chronologie OVNI", electronic catalogue compiled by Godelieve Van Overmeire, Belgium, circa 1999.
• [kcr1] ? "Strange Company - Military Encounters with UFOs in World War II", book by Keith Chester, Anomalist Book publishers, USA, 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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