'U.S. Pilots … Gave Chase to the Foo Fighters'

Tweet

Foo Fighters, revisit your namesake

By Billy Cox De Void 2-3-16

     Psst Dave Grohl –

Since you’re a “UFO fanatic” – obviously nobody in the biz knew what foo fighters were until you came along – just wanted to tip you off to some new cool stuff online about your band’s namesake. OK, check that, it’s not new, right, we’re talking Second World War. But it’s the latest accessible material from Keith Chester, posted in December at "U.F.O Historical Revue."

You did read Chester’s book, right? Back in ’07? Strange Company: Military Encounters with UFOs in World War II?Um, maybe not, you’re pretty busy. Anyway, this guy, Keith Chester, he pays about a hundred visits to the National Archives and Records Administration over the years. He collects, like, two shelf-feet of pertinent military records and comes back with a gold mine, man: official memos, debriefing accounts, after-action reports, you name it. I mean, who does this stuff anymore?

Now, dude, I know you know how foo-fighter encounters first broke in the U.S. press big-time in late 1944-early 1945, and how the guys on the front lines thought official attempts to blow it off as ball lightning and/or St. Elmo’s fire was a big joke. (Hell, a 415th Night Fighter Squadron veteran right here in Sarasota chuckled in contempt a few years back when he recounted the contortions ...) But were you aware that what the Allies began referring to as “phenomena” started turning heads from the very beginning of the war? And that before they were dubbed foo fighters late in the game, there were reports of “stove pipes,” “cylinders,” “orange crates,” “pie-plate discs,” “flying doughnuts,” “fire extinguishers,” “ball and chains,” “egg shapes,” “soap bubbles,” “resembling Zeppelins” and “balloons,” even when they moved against the wind? Thank god foo fighters was the name that stuck, ay? I'm guessing you wouldn't have gone from Nirvana to The Flying Doughnuts.

Anyhow, the documents Chester recovered are loaded with so many incidents of bombers and fighters trying unsuccessfully to shake their spooky and infuriating maneuverability, you start losing track after awhile. If I were going to Hollywood this thing, I’d cast Richard Pryor – yeah, I know it’s not accurate or feasible – as an excitable ball turret gunner finding the range – “Whoa mother*#!%errrrr! My turn now, MY turn!” – and raking the sky with twin .50s. Then I’d zoom in on the bug-eyed disbelief. Because shooting these things was useless.

While crossing Holland on 6/25/42, RAF bomber pilot Lt. Roman Sabinski tells his tail-gunner to “Give it a blast” when a full moon-sized copper-colored object jumps from just off the left wing to the right at instantaneous speed; tracer rounds indicate direct hits, to no effect. Shortly after D-Day, British Lancaster bomber pilot George Barton reports being followed home following a raid over Germany by a cluster of “spheres”; neither evasive tactics nor gunfire deter the ultimately harmless pursuers (if that’s indeed what they were).

In August 1944, after striking oil refineries in Sumatra, numerous crews with the 468th Bombardment Group are rattled by what they regard as “a bizarre and confusing type of new weapon.” One bomber reports being “under continuous attack for 1 hour and 10 minutes” by a swarm of baseball-sized reddish-orange spheres that tend explode into four to five smaller balls without inflicting any damage. No ground or ocean flashes are detected, and “on one occasion,” states a report, “the course was altered sufficiently to allow tail guns to bear in the direction of the bursts, but 20-mm and 50-cal. fire from the B-29 had no visible effect.”

Anyway, man, I’m guessing if any foo fighters had killed any our guys, you might’ve chosen a different name for your band. But De Void likes the title of this report: “Additional Information On The Observation Of Silvery Colored Discs On Mission to Stuttgart, 6 Sept. 1943,” prepared by the 384th Bombardment Group for the 1st Bombardment Wing. During an air battle with German planes, two B-17 crews watched as a third was descended upon by a “cluster” of silver colored objects that may have been as long as 75 feet, and 20 feet wide. Nobody saw attack planes dropping ordnance. They noted only that some of it collided with a B-17 and “the wing immediately started to burn,” which resulted in the loss of the bomber.”

Nazi tech or something else, this stuff couldn’t be ignored, and by January ’45, a secret report, subject matter “Night Phenomenon,” reached XII Tactical Air Command from one of the Air Force intelligence officers: “We have encountered a phenomenon which we cannot explain; crews have been followed by lights that blink on and off changing colors etc. The lights come very close and fly in formation with our planes. They are agitating and keep the crews on edge when they encounter them, mainly because they cannot explain them.”

On and on it goes. Bottom line, the latest installment of the history nobody knows is available online now at http://greenwoodufoarchive.com/uhr/uhr17.pdf It describes another couple of futile shooting incidents, but De Void likes the part where U.S. pilots tried to turn the tables and gave chase to the Foo Fighters, which then tried to lure the warplanes into “a concentrated flak area.” Those who suggested the airmen were being duped by St. Elmo’s fire invited this pilot response: “Well, let the sons of bitches come over and fly a mission with us.”

Want more links?

http://www.project1947.com/fig/1943a.htm

http://www.project1947.com/fig/1944a.htm

http://www.project1947.com/fig/1945a.htm

http://www.project1947.com/47cats/usnavydraft1.htm#1850

Getting a little long-winded here, Dave. Sorry. Only reason I bring it up is that with Hillary Clinton and campaign manager John Podesta stating they want to “get to the bottom” of this UFO thing, the Foo Fighters should consider contributing an anthem to nudge it along. It doesn’t really matter who you’re voting for. It’s about reminding them to keep their eyes on the ball. 'Til then, see you at the Devil's Tower.

Continue Reading ►

See Also:

The Foo Fighter Mystery

Foo Fighter 'Most Puzzling Secret Weapon' | UFO CHRONICLE – 1945

Allies Say 'Foo Fighters' Were Secret Nazi Weapon

Foo Fighters: New Nazi Weapon is Noticed at Front
12-13-1944

Veteran Talks of The 'Foo Fighters'

Believe Clue Found To New Nazi Fireballs
1-7-1945

REPORT YOUR UFO EXPERIENCE

Strange Company Military Encounters with UFOs in WWII

Bel Air man writes of UFOs in wartime

By By Cassandra A. Fortin
baltimoresun.com
12-9-07

     The peculiar red orb hung motionless in the summer sky near Frederick.

A boy at the time, Keith Chester vividly recalls that day in 1966. It was about 6:30 p.m. and Chester was on his way to a friend's house. As he walked, he noticed a shiny red ball in the sky near the Catoctin Mountains.

"The hair on the back of my neck stood straight up," Chester said. "I was so scared that I ran into my neighbor's house. I still think it was a UFO." To this day, the 50-year-old Bel Air resident has not been able find an explanation for the object, but incident sparked an interest in unidentified flying objects.

In recent years, Chester's interest has grown into a passion that led him to write Strange Company: Military Encounters with UFOs in WWII. The 320-page book contains descriptions of UFO sightings by American and British service members culled from research that included documents at the National Archives.

The road to writing the book began with that boyhood sighting of the red object. Chester devoured books about UFOs and became interested in space. He wanted to be an astronaut until he realized he didn't have the necessary aptitude for math, so his interest shifted to World War II history. From 1978 to 1998, Chester portrayed an infantry soldier as a member of the Military Historical Reenactment Society, taking part in events around the region.

Over time, Chester's interest in UFOs waned. But it was reignited in 1989 when he met Leonard Stringfield, who was director of Civilian Research, Interplanetary Flying Objects, a research group during the 1950s, that produced books about UFOs.

Stringfield was a sergeant in the 5th Air Force during World War II and said he had his own UFO sighting.

Chester said Stringfield told him about how he was among the first people to fly into mainland Japan after the bombing of Nagasaki. Stringfield said that he was on a plane flying between Ie Shima and Iwo Jima, when he looked out the window and saw three luminous, disk-shaped objects flying in formation.

"He told me that the objects had no outline, no exhaust, and no wings," Chester said, who works as a freelance artist.

Stringfield heard a commotion in the cockpit - the engine was malfunctioning. But when the objects disappeared, the plane was able to land safely, Chester recalls Stringfield saying.

"To hear his story was mesmerizing," he said.

Chester wanted to learn more about UFO sightings during WWII. In 1999, he began visiting the National Archives once a week to study military records for information about UFO sightings during the war.

Throughout almost four years of research, Chester found documents detailing sightings described as objects, lights, flares, strange lights or rockets.

"The sightings that were documented were considered phenomena," he said. "The military thought that they knew what they were observing, but the objects didn't match anything that was known by military intelligence."

The sightings he found include a silver, cigar-shaped object that looked like an airship. He also found a preponderance of information about unexplained objects reported by members of the 415th Night Fighter Squadron, a former Army Air Forces fighter squadron that fought during World War II.

"Some of the soldiers thought the objects they saw were beyond the realm of conventional technology," Chester said. "But there is something extraordinary happening out there ... and there is a phenomenon that exists, and I believe that it's extraterrestrial."

At a reunion of the night fighters, Chester met Harold Augspurger, a commander of the squadron, who recounted a sighting that Chester details in his book. While flying near the border of France and Germany, Augspurger said he saw a light in the sky that he could not pick up on the radar.

"I believe that what I saw was something from some other space," Augspurger, 88, said in a telephone interview from his home in Dayton, Ohio. "I think it's real important to document it because it's a piece of history."

By 2002, Chester concluded he had enough information to write a book. He was struck by how much documentation existed and figured most people weren't aware of it. He said he has come across so much material that he has begun work on a second book.

"The phenomenon was far larger than ever expected," he said. "I found that the military applied known terminology and didn't come up with answers. They would call something a flare, but it didn't act like a flare."

Along the way, Chester has encountered plenty of skepticism, even from friends. But he said his goal is not to persuade people one way or the other.

"It's up to the people who read my book to decide what the objects truly were," he said.

More . . .

See Also:

The Foo Fighter Mystery

Flying Saucers, Foo Fighters and Green Fireballs

SHARE YOUR UFO EXPERIENCE