Hitler's Terror Weapons by Brooks, Geoffrey (the best books of all time TXT) 📕

Vesco did not seem very clear on what was the difference between the Flying Turtle and the Feuerkugel “ball of fire”, and from his attempt to describe how the former worked it is evident that one became the other in flight. Clearly he must have suspected that something extraordinary happened once the Flying Turtle was in the air and ascending, but, being a scientist whose book set out to prove that there is a terrestrial explanation for all UFOs, couldn’t quite go so far as to say so. By some mechanism which nobody appears able to explain, the unmanned, remote-controlled Kugelblitz changed its shape from turtle to sphere, developed a “bright halo” supposedly by ionization of the atmosphere, became invulnerable and acquired the unusual ability to hover motionless. The Flying Turtle was alleged to have within its protective shell a number of Klystron tubes, the purpose of which must have been for them to home in on enemy aircraft radar. Klystron is nowadays also used in microwave ovens to generate an intense and concentrated local microwave field for cooking purposes and, applied to a suitable surface at a particular frequency, it could excite the surrounding air sufficiently to generate the ‘halo’-like plasma, so at least the effect is possible.

A classified enquiry was set up by Lt-General Massey in 1943 in Britain to investigate reports by Allied pilots of harassment from ‘balls of fire’ during operations over Europe. It is believed that the objects were filmed for British Intelligence in high definition on several occasions, although no photos have ever been released. In 1946 a team of British investigators, assisted by Dr Ernst Westermann, a director of Speyer at Saarbrücken, was appointed to report on the German ‘Foo-fighters’, as they were nicknamed, but nothing was ever published. A typical report was submitted by B. C. Lumsden, the pilot of a Hurricane interceptor, who had left England early one evening in December 1942:

“At about 2000 hrs over the mouth of the Somme I saw two steadily climbing orange lights, moving less slowly than tracer flak. I did a full turn and saw the lights astern and to port, but they now appeared larger and brighter. At 7000 feet they stopped climbing and stayed level. I did some more full turns but the objects hung behind me. I nose-dived to 4000 feet and the lights kept the same relative position in pursuit. Finally they descended about 1000 feet below me until I levelled out, at which point they climbed again and resumed pursuit. The two lights seemed to maintain an even distance from each other and varied only slightly in relative height from time to time. One always remained a bit lower than the other. Once my speed reached 260 mph I was gradually able to outdistance them.”

It seemed to be the purpose of these mysterious objects to fly in parallel formation with the reporting aircraft and hover at wingtips. USAF pilot Wendell C. Stevens remembers:

“They were a greyish-green or red-orange colour. They would approach to within about five metres from the aircraft and stay there. They could not be shaken off nor shot down.”

Initially pilots were reluctant to submit reports for fear of ridicule or grounding for psychiatric reasons, but eventually there were hundreds of sightings, and it would seem that between November 1944 and January 1945 every pilot in the American 415th Night Fighter Squadron had seen the phenomenon at least once.

Lts David McFalls and Edward Baker, veterans of the squadron, stated that at 1800 hrs on 22 December 1944 at an altitude of 10,000 feet over Hagenau in the Lorraine area they observed two large orange glows ascending towards them:

“Upon reaching our altitude the objects levelled off and stayed on our tail. I went into a steep dive and the glows followed in sharp precision. I banked as sharply as I dared and the objects followed. For two minutes the lights stalked me through several intricate maneouvres, peeled off under perfect control, then blinked out.”

In a heavily censored Associated Press release of 13 December 1944, which was nine days before the Hagenau sighting, Allied pilots reported seeing over the Reich “mysterious silvery balls” which just “floated in the air” singly and in clusters. B-17 pilot Charles Ogden, who had seen them over Germany, described them as “crystal balls, about the size of a basketball” which would approach to within 300 feet of the bomber formation and then “seem to become magnetized and fly alongside”. After a while they would “peel off like a plane and leave”. Although seen mostly at night, some airmen reported them during daylight hours. Another 415th Squadron pilot said,

“… the lights would tail the aircraft for a few moments before streaking away. They never showed up on radar but experienced crews discounted explanations such as reflections, St Elmo’s fire and flares, all of which were easily recognizable.”

The most striking effect of closeness to these objects was electro-magnetic and they do not seem to have been detectable on radar. One gained the impression that they might be being handled remotely, as was reported over the Rhine Valley one evening in December 1944 when Lt Henry Gibbin and his radar observer Lt Walter Cleary sighted:

“… a huge red light 1000 feet above us (we were at 1000 feet ourselves). The object was moving at about 200 mph. At the same time other crews reported a glowing red object which shot up vertically, turned over and plunged into a steep dive. It seemed under intelligent control.”

It was suspected that the aerobatic fireballs were a German anti-aircraft weapon to foul ignitions and interfere with radar, but if so they appeared ineffective and in any case captured German pilots also reported being harassed by them. As the fireballs did not seem to do anything very hostile except manouevre close to an aircraft, it was assumed that they represented the experimental stage of a new weapon.

After they peeled away and plunged into a steep dive, what did they