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This is a SECRET War Department Intelligence Division publication dated January 1947 with a feature article titled "Ghost Rockets" over Scandinavia. The article covers missile reports over Sweden, Finland, Denmark and Norway from May 1946, a Swedish Air Force pilot's sighting, press censorship and the Swedish Defense Staff's contradictory communiques. It concludes there were perhaps only 2 to 10 real incidents of low-flying V-1 type missiles. It judges that the high-altitude reports were meteors or fireworks.
“Terry”1 page
8ElCRET GHOST ROCKETS end of July almost 1,000 such reports had been received. The investigation has been carried out by the Swedish Defense Staff in a very peculiar manner. In the beginning, many of the key personnel were on summer leave, and they were not recalled to deal with the problem. Spokesmen for the Defense Staff repeatedly have told the United States Military Attache that they definitely believed there were rockets over Sweden, and that they were launched by the Soviets from Peenemtinde on the German Baltic coast. However, they have not been able to produce any evidence to support these statements. To date, no United States military or naval personnel in Sweden have seen any frag ments, points of impact, or other direct evidence to prove that guided missiles have appeared over Sweden. The official communiques issued to the press by the Defense Staff have not reflected the same tone as the state ments made by individual officers in conversations. In fact, the communiques themselves have varied. The last one, issued on 10 October, very strongly indicated that the great majority of the reported incidents were of celestial origin, which is a complete change from the one of 6 August when it was reported that, except in a few cases, they could not be meteorites.* Attitude of Swedish Officials To arrive at any definite conclusion from the conflicting evidence available on these reported missiles is impossible. The contradictory attitude of Swedish officialdom would tend to indicate that it was doing very little to arrive at a definite conclusion, perhaps for political purposes. The com plete change in attitude between the communiques issued on * In September and October, flying objects were reported over widely separate points in Europe and Africa, including Belgium, Greece, Italy, Morocco, and Austria. In the main, these reports have not been confirmed and appear to be due to explainable ca.uses, such as meteors or Very flares, fireworks, etc. BEGRJBT 19
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