The National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena (Nicap)

# Approved For Release 2001/04/02 : CIA-RDP81R00560R000100010001-0

New Yorker magazine, in a "Letter From Paris" column, October 23, 1954 recounts many UFO sightings during the summer and fall of that year. Witnesses included the Mayor of Briancon, gendarmes, sailors, taxi-drivers and other citizens. The European "flap" of fall 1954 is one of the most intense concentrations of UFO activity on record. [See Aime Michel's books, cited above, for details]

At Orly Field, Paris, February 17, 1956, a UFO was tracked on radar and seen by an Air France pilot. "They [radarmen at Orly] said the object showed up on radar screens at an estimated speed of about 1700 mph., then hovered at various points over the capital." [46]

Also in Paris, September 26, 1957, an American Embassy officer and his wife watched a reddish-orange elliptical UFO for twenty minutes around 7:00 p.m. The sighting was later reported to NICAP in confidence. [47]

Germany: In 1963, Major Artur W. Heyer, air attache at the German Embassy, answered a NICAP member's query: "I have been informed that no information with regard to your questions is available and that there is no official West German Government policy or agency concerning unidentified flying objects (UFOs)." "However," he concluded: "I am sorry to give you this reply and I think your request deals with a matter which has not yet been exploited sufficiently." [48]

Over Fursten-Feldbruck November 23, 1948, a bright red UFO was seen by a USAF pilot and tracked by ground and air radar. The UFO was clocked at 900 mph., and climbed 23,000 feet in a matter of minutes, far exceeding the performance of any known aircraft. [See Section VIII; Radar]

London Daily Mail, July 5, 1954: "Berlin is seeing saucers regularly. Allied officials there are investigating the appearance of mysterious objects over the city. German eyewitnesses claim that a formation of three fast-moving objects can regularly be seen whenever the sky over Berlin is clear. The objects, described as "small and disclike," are said to appear between 10 and 11 p.m., at extremely high altitudes."

In recent years, German NICAP members have contributed UFO information to NICAP regularly. Martin Bruckmann, engineering student, at about midnight November 19, 1956 observed seven bright, blue-white elliptical objects in V-formation moving rapidly east to west over Frankfurt. [49]

In Kirchberg, Hunsruck, at 3:30 p.m., May 25, 1958, Gunter Henn (Master of Business Administration) with another person watched a glistening silver object, circular with spoke-like markings. The UFO descended on a slant, them moved horizontally into clouds. [50]

The NICAP Adviser for West Germany, at Wolfsburg, is Dr. Helmut H. Damm, a German-born American citizen currently employed in Germany as a management consultant in engineering. He holds the degree of Doctor of Mechanical Engineering. During World War II he served as a systems and field instructor, and design engineer, in the Rocket Division of the German Army.

Dr. Damm took a survey of UFO interest in West Germany during 1962. Results:

* Air Force headquarters at Bonn stated they had no personnel or funds to devote to UFO investigation.

* The German Research Institute for Aeronautics also stated they were doing no work on UFOs, but appeared interested and openminded in discussing the subject.

* The daily newspaper "Bild" stated it was greatly interested in obtaining more facts and new evidential reports for publication.

* On the whole, Dr. Damm found individuals and agencies poorly informed on the subject.

At least two eminent German scientists who have been employed in the U.S. since World War II are outspoken believers that UFOs are space ships from another planet. Prof. Hermann Oberth in 1954 began an American Weekly article (October 24) in these words: "It is my thesis that flying saucers are real and that they are space ships from another planet." Upon his return to Germany in November 1958, after being employed by the U.S. at Huntsville, Alabama, Prof. Oberth repeated his belief that "very intelligent beings" have been observing the earth for a long time. [51]

Dr. Walther Riedel, former chief designer and research

director of Peenemunde rocket center in Germany, directed the Civilian Saucer Investigation of Los Angeles. CSI was the first prominent UFO investigation group in the U.S., publicized by Life and Time early in 1952. Dr. Riedel stated: "I'm convinced saucers have an out-of-world basis." (Another prominent member of CSI was philosopher Gerald Heard, author of Is Another World Watching? Harpers, 1950).

Reports in southern Europe and over the Mediterranean Sea have been as frequent as in any other area of the world. (For example, see New York Times; March 30, 1950, "More Flying Saucers in Mediterranean, Orient.") The sightings which received the most attention in the press and were best documented, however, were those during the fall 1954 European "flap".

Around 7:00 p.m., September 17, 1954, a large circular object, (shaped like a truncated cone) trailing smoke and making a series of explosive sounds, was observed along a 15-mile stretch above the Mediterranean coast west of Rome. International News Service (INS) reported that an Italian Air Force radar station at Practica Dimare, 40 miles southwest of Rome, tracked the UFO for 39 minutes at an altitude of 3600 feet. The UFO flew slowly at first, then accelerated rapidly and disappeared straight up at great speed.

Mrs. Clare Booth Luce, then U.S. Ambassador to Italy, was among dozens of witnesses to a UFO phenomenon over Rome, October 28, 1954. A luminous round object sped across the sky, followed by a fall of fine cotton-like particles from the sky. Mrs. Luce said: "I saw something, but I don't know what it was." An Associated Press reporter, Maurizio Andreolo, described the UFO as being "like a moon dashing across the sky at fantastic speed...silently." [52]

Several UFOs, some described as spear-shaped and some egg-shaped, sped over Belgrade, Yugoslavia shortly after 6:15 a.m., October 25, 1954. (The same or similar objects were also seen in Austria and Italy that day.) Witnesses included Vladimir Ajvas, aeronautical engineer; Stjepan Djitkol, Air Force Captain; and members of the staff at Zemun Airport.

United Press reported from Belgrade, October 27: "Authorities announced today they were making a 'serious investigation' of the flight over Yugoslavia Monday of objects which looked and acted like nothing described in the standard aviation reference books. . . . The reports under investigation were that shiny 'ellipsoidal' objects zipped through the Yugoslav skies trailing bluish tails for about an hour after sunrise Monday. Scientists in astronomical observatories who witnessed the flights concluded that the objects could not have been meteors, and probably were not any form of 'heavenly body' . . ."

Barcelona, Spain, November 12, 1958 (AP): "A group of scientists here has founded the interplanetary studies center to investigate 'unexplained phenomena in space and unidentified objects in the skies' . . ." The President of the "Centro do Estudios Interplanetarios," Mr. Eduardo Buelta, established contact with NICAP late in 1958 offering collaboration and setting up an exchange of information.

Palma Observatory on the Spanish Island of Majorca (or Mallorca), in the Balearic Islands (off the east coast of Spain in the Mediterranean Sea) sighted a UFO at 9:33 a.m., May 22, 1960. The report, cabled to NASA in Washington, described a white triangular object about 1/4 the size of the moon spinning on its own axis as it flew on a steady course. NICAP efforts to obtain more information from the Observatory went unanswered.

## Africa

The vast African continent has been visited repeatedly by unidentified flying objects showing characteristics similar to those seen all over the world. One of the earliest and most spectacular reports on record concerns the sighting of a huge cigar-shaped UFO which hovered over famous Mt. Kilimanjaro February 19,1951. The UFO was photographed from an East African Airways plane flying in the vicinity. After remaining motionless for a considerable period of time, the object suddenly climbed steeply and disappeared. The movie film was developed and reportedly showed a clear and sizeable image of the object, according to the Natal Mercury.